U r s u l i n e s
A L I V E
Maple Mount is a second home for Maple Mount
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Five eighth grade graduates of St. Michael School in Fairfield in 1957 gather with (from left), Father Robert Burkle, assistant pastor; Father Charles Foltz, pastor; Sister Dolorita Robinson and Sister Mary Edgar Warren. Sister George Mary Hagan and Father Paul Russell with the St. Catherine Elementary first Communion class in the 1970s
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herever Ursuline Sisters taught, their lives were a witness to religious life. It was common for young women taught by the Sisters to consider becoming Ursulines as well. The most common birthplaces for today’s Ursuline Sisters are Daviess County – which includes Maple Mount – and Jefferson County, the most populous county in Kentucky. But as a testament to the strong influence of the Sisters, the county that has provided the third most Sisters is Nelson County, Ky., population 46,000. Nine current Sisters are from the Nelson County towns of New Haven, Howardstown, Fairfield or New Hope. It’s an area of Kentucky south of Louisville that is known for both bourbon and Catholicism. “Actions speak louder than words, and we saw that in the Ursulines and their way of life,” said Sister George Mary Hagan, a proud New Haven native. “They ran a good school and they encouraged us in our studies.” Nelson County was the landing spot for many displaced Catholics who moved from Baltimore at the turn of the 19th century. The heart of the “Kentucky Holy Land,” its county seat is Bardstown, where in 1808 it became the first diocese west of the Alleghenies,
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and only the fifth diocese in America. (The diocese was moved to Louisville in 1841.) The first Nelson County mission for the Ursuline Sisters was in 1913 at St. Michael School in Fairfield. The parish dates to 1792, the same year Kentucky became a state. Sister Grace Simpson and Sister Mimi Ballard both come from Fairfield. “We are standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before us,” Sister Grace said. Many men and women religious came from St. Michael, the most famous being Catherine Spalding, founder of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. But the Ursulines who taught Sister Grace made the greatest impression. “I remember in the fourth grade thinking that I wanted to be like my Ursuline teacher,” she said. “The teachers who influenced me the most were Sister Mary Denis (Bumpus) and Sister Theresa Marie (Wilkerson).” In 1919, the Ursulines began teaching at St. Catherine School in New Haven and St. Ann School in Howardstown. The high school at St. Catherine began in 1923. New Haven is just a short distance from the Abbey of Gethsemani, which opened in 1848 as the home of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, better known as the Trappists. Despite being a small town, 39 women from New Haven joined the Ursuline Sisters, and while some later left, In the mid-1930s, 30 committed their life to students of St. God as Ursulines. Ann School in “Mother and Daddy Howardstown gather with (from got married in 1920. left) Ursuline The Ursuline Sisters had Sisters Charles Ann a great influence on us,” DiNardi, Angela Marie Krampe and Sister George Mary said. Johanna Lechner. “All of us had 10-12
