Tresa Klein was born to Jacob B. and Cecilia Goebel Klein in Granville, Iowa, on February 28, 1922.  Tresa was baptized Helen, but went by the name of Tresa, and had three brothers and five sisters.  Tresa attended 1st and 2nd grade in a country school in Floyd Township in Sioux City, Iowa, and from 3rd grade through 8th grade she attended St. Joseph’s School in Granville.   After 8th grade Tresa stayed at home to help with the work on the farm.  Sister’s artistic bent began during the long winters on the family farm in western Iowa when she and her siblings were snowbound.

On August 25, 1944, Tresa entered Mount St. Francis in Dubuque as many of her relatives did, and joined her very own sister, Sister Mary Oda.  The following year on August 12, 1945, she was received into the community and given the name Sister Mary Tresain.  Sister was a homemaker at St. Mary’s, Dubuque; St Mary, Pomeroy, Iowa; St. Joseph, Crescent City, California; St. Michael, Sioux City; St. Mary, New Hampton, Iowa; St. Mary, Remsen, Iowa; and St. Francis Home, Dubuque.  From 1971 to 1974, Sister Tresa received her art training at Briar Cliff College.  In 1974 Sister moved to Mount St. Francis as the artist in residence, and in 2007 moved to Holy Family Hall.

For 24 years Sister captured and recorded the beauty of wildflowers, Victorian homes, fences, roadsides, and children picking daisies.  Nature themes became her passion. It was said of her that Sister Tresa’s heart was in the woodland.  “It’s the simple things that I love to paint,” she said.  During the month of April when nature-lovers celebrate Earth Day, Tresa expressed her conservationist concerns: “I earnestly hope that as we look to America’s future, we can preserve our unspoiled forests, fields, and wetlands.  The flowered countryside and bowers are a priceless legacy.  We must find ways of conserving them for the benefit of coming generations.”

Sister is survived by her sister-in-law Evelyn and brothers-in-law Edward Penning and Julius Penning; nieces, nephews, and her Franciscan sisters with whom she shared over 71 years of her life.

Sister was preceded in death by her parents; sisters Agnes Klein, Ann Penning, Mary Ann Penning, and Sister Oda Klein, OSF; brothers Nick Klein, Henry Klein, Lawrence (Luella) Klein and Leo Klein.