Journey to honor Long Island nun who went missing

It was summer of 2017 when Ray Mascolo and his wife, Evelyn, booked a Danube River cruise for this past October, taking them from Budapest, Hungary, to Passau, Germany.

Taking in the scenery and culture of central Europe was a byproduct of their main mission: The East Northport couple was intent on honoring Sister Eileen Christie of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Brentwood, who went missing in July 2016 in the Austrian village of Hallstatt. 

The couple chose that particular cruise because one of its stops put them within an hour and a half drive of the village where Sister Eileen, 72, had sent her final email in July 2016. The subsequent numerous searches there were to no avail. 

It bothered Ray Mascolo that the villagers knew nothing about Sister Eileen, so he hung a weatherproof plaque, at his expense, telling a bit about “who she was, what she did and that she touched a lot of people’s lives.”

At a ceremony Oct. 15, coordinated with Austrian officials, Mascolo, a dentist, was given the honor of fixing in place the final screw of the commemorative panel, hung on a park shed located near Lake Hallstatt.

The sister, an avid hiker and swimmer, is believed to have perished in that lake. 

The veteran solo traveler went missing while on a summer excursion first to Croatia, then Austria — making her fourth visit to Hallstatt, with plans to move on to Italy, said her nephew Bill Freda of Valley Stream.

Indeed, the death certificate issued this summer from the U.S. State Department gave the place of her "presumptive death" as the “Lake Hallstatt area,” with no remains found as of yet, Freda said.

The certificate “is as close to closure as we have,” Freda said, and, unlike Hollywood scenarios, in the real world, “sometimes you’re left hanging.”

Freda said he still sees this in terms of probability, with a lake accident most likely, followed by a hiking mishap, and then, least likely, foul play.

Sister Eileen had retired a year earlier after 25 years teaching theology at St. Anthony’s High School in South Huntington, and before that teaching at what’s now Trinity Regional School, East Northport, with the Mascolos’ two children among her students.

One of her former colleagues, Brother Vincent Adams, director of ministry at St. Anthony's, said he first heard of the Hallstatt trip at an October fundraiser dinner honoring the Mascolo family.

“Everybody felt so good,” he said. It was “such a gift” for them to go and place the plaque in her memory.

“It let people have a little bit of comfort knowing there was a way Sister was honored” in the place she was last known to visit. There’s a connection now, Adams said, between “people there and people here.”

Freda, too, said Mascolo’s effort was “very nice, very cool, very respectful.”

With the cruise ship’s 14-hour layover in Linz, Austria, Mascolo said the idea had been to make the three-hour round trip by car to and from Hallstatt, with 15 minutes or so in between for a brief plaque hanging.

In reality, that’s not how things turned out, said Mascolo, 63, who also serves as a consulting Suffolk County police surgeon, specializing in dentistry.

About 10 officials came out for the installation, including the mayor and the chief of Austria’s federal police force, who gave the couple a lift to and from the cruise ship.

Mascolo’s Suffolk law enforcement connections helped open doors that ultimately led to his getting permission from Austrian authorities to place the plaque on village property, he said.

Following the ceremony, the Mascolos were taken for a tour of the village, including a trip up the funicular to visit its ancient salt mine.

The village is beautiful, he said — the kind of place where people don’t lock their doors. And, while the couple’s aim was to do something nice for Sister Eileen, they also ended up having “a great time — the best day of the vacation,” he said.

The couple made it back to the ship with two hours to spare, Mascolo said, already planning their next visit in two years to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary — and to gift the village with a park bench in Sister Eileen’s memory.

He said he also left with the satisfaction of hearing of the effort Austrian law enforcement put into the many searches — hundreds of people scouring the woods, continuing lake dives as more advanced equipment came along, cadaver dogs that traced the sister’s path into the lake.  

And, as they were leaving the village, something remarkable occurred, he said.

The area had been in a drought, with no precipitation so far on their trip. But, a bit of drizzle developed, and when it cleared — there it was — a rainbow that reached right across the lake.

To Mascolo, it was Sister Eileen saying “thank you” for the “recognition for what she had done in her life.”