Thank You Sisters!

A Year of Gratitude For Consecrated Women

A statue of Mother Catherine Spalding collecting orphans from the Ohio River boat warf. 

This is an old photo from Historical Sketches of Old St. Theresa's in Meade County by Father John A. Lyons. The group is planning the building of a new four classroom St. Theresa School to replace the old St. Theresa Academy behind them.  
I was taught by Sister Mary Ancilla (top row, second) in the old academy and Sister James Anthony (top row fourth) in the new St. Theresa School.  

Sister Mary Ancilla Meyer, SCN, my first and second grade teacher, is pictured in the old photo above at the Old Academy (top row, second) and here toward the end of her life at Nazareth Home on her birthday. I brought her a dozen red roses.   

Sister David Clare Riesbach, SCN, was a dynamo of energy and principle at Cross Roads Public School in Rhodelia that had taken over St. Theresa School. She taught several of my younger siblings. Still a friend, she lives in the Nazareth Apartments and ministers at Nazareth Home on Newburg Road.  

A community gathering of Sisters of Charity at the old St. Joseph Infirmary on Eastern Parkway.

I was hospitalized there in the third grade and worked there one summer as a seminarian. 

A procession of Ursuline Sisters at the Motherhouse on Lexington Road in Louisville. 

This group of Sisters of Mercy staffed Sacred Heart Home for retired ladies in Louisville. in 1906.  

Ursuline Sisters and Students of St. Joseph Orphanage on Frankfort Avenue in 1925.

Sisters of Mercy taught at the Cathedral School on Fifth Street for many years. Notice how the children embrace, touch and lean toward the Sisters

The Sisters of Loretto taught at the old school for African Americans  in Lebanon, Kentucky, in this 1884 photo. 

Sisters of all major religious communities came forward as volunteer nurses during an influenza seige in 1918. Several Sisters themselves died. 

A gathering of major representatives  of several communities of women at the 1912 Nazareth Centennial. 

Pharmacy work at Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Hospital on Twelfth Street, January, 1902.

Mother M. Aloysius Willett (1862-1920) was the first superior of the Mount Saint Joseph Ursuline Sisters after they became an autonomous motherhouse in Daviess County in 1912. 
They taught extensively in Louisville area schools. 

In this famous Courier-Journal photo called "Nuns," these particular nuns look to me like the backs of some wonderful Little Sisters of the Poor out collecting for their old folks home.



THANK YOU FOR YOUR TRULY UNSELFISH, OFTEN INVISIBLE AND SOMETIMES TAKEN FOR GRANTED SERVICE TO OUR LOCAL CHURCH. 
THE GOOD YOU HAVE DONE LIVES ON AND MANY OF YOU CONTINUE IT EVEN  TODAY AROUND THE WORLD.  

You have formed, influenced for good and saved so many lives. 
WE LOVE YOU! WE THANK YOU! WE HONOR YOU!