Mother Aloysius

in the fall of 1877, a student from Union County, Ky., arrived at Maple Mount – a young woman who would change the fortunes of the Ursuline Sisters forever. Her name was Leona Willett.

Leona was the star student in the second graduating class of Mount Saint Joseph Academy. She later joined the Ursulines as Sister Aloysius and became a driving force as both an educator and leader of the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph through their infancy as an independent community.

Oct. 1 this year marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Mother Aloysius Willett. Along with her mentor Mother Augustine Bloemer and her protégé Mother Agnes O’Flynn, Mother Aloysius set the foundation stones for the Ursuline community that are still in place today.

She did all this after suffering through a difficult childhood. “Born to Lead,” the book written by Ursuline Sister Eugenia Scherm, detailed Mother Aloysius’ early life. Her mother died of tuberculosis not long after giving birth to Leona’s brother, Thomas. The two children were raised by Leona’s grandmother for a few years. Her father remarried two years later, and the new couple had nine children. After the first child was born, her stepmother called for Leona and Thomas to be returned, but her stepmother treated her cruelly compared to her own children. By the time Leona was 10, members of the family petitioned the court to give Leona’s grandmother custody of the children.

Leona prospered in her time at Mount Saint Joseph Academy,

and upon her graduation in 1880, became a public-school teacher in her native Waverly. Her love for the Ursuline Sisters and her desire to serve God drew her too strongly, and she returned to Maple Mount on July 16, 1882, to join the Ursuline Sisters pose with the 1918 graduates of the Mount Saint Joseph Academy, Maple Mount, Ky. Front: Ursuline community. Angela Payne, Mother Aloysius Willett, Celestine By that fall she was Buren. Back: Isabel Sheeran, Mother Agnes O’Flynn, teaching at the Academy Gladys Aubrey, unknown Sister, Bernadette Cotter. and named Director of tipping point for the Sisters at Studies. the Mount, provided the impetus

In those days, all novices received for Mother Aloysius to pursue their training in Louisville, where independence for the community. It the Ursuline Sisters – the first of was the beginning of more than two whom arrived from Bavaria in years of difficult feelings between 1858 – spoke mostly German. By the Motherhouse in Louisville and 1892, the Academy was attracting the community at the Mount. many American-born girls from the In the fall of 1912, the surrounding rural area who wanted apostolic delegate to the United to join the Ursuline Sisters, but who States declared that the Ursuline did not want to move to Louisville. Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph Together with Mother Augustine could become an independent and Father Paul Volk, the priest who community. As a symbol of the new brought the Ursulines to Maple growth expected for the fledgling Mount, Mother Aloysius worked community, Mother Aloysius toward having a novitiate at Maple ordered the planting of 100 maple Mount. Louisville Bishop George trees extending from the Guest McCloskey approved the novitiate House to the cemetery, thus creating in 1895, with Mother Augustine All Saints Avenue. It was part as the local superior and Mother of a beautification program that Aloysius as the novice mistress. included adding terraces, concrete

In 1905, with Mother walkways and the planting of other Augustine’s health deteriorating, trees and shrubs. She also oversaw Mother Aloysius replaced her as the building of St. Angela Hall. local superior. She would lead her On July 16, 1913 – the feast Sisters at Maple Mount for the next of Our Lady of Mount Carmel – 15 years, through the birth of a new with Bishop Denis community. O’Donaghue present,

Following the death of Bishop Mother Aloysius McCloskey in 1909, the superior Willett was elected of the Ursulines in Louisville superior by her attempted to close the novitiate Sisters. at Maple Mount and to bring all Bishop Denis Prohibited from novices to Louisville. This, the O’Donaghue taking on more

schools in Louisville for 20 years, the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph expanded their reputation as excellent teachers by ministering in small schools in central Kentucky and in the areas around Owensboro. During the summers, Mother Aloysius arranged classes for her Sisters to further their education.

In 1916, Mother Aloysius was elected to a second term as superior and sent the first Sisters to minister outside Kentucky as teachers at St. Anthony School in Jeffersonville, Ind. Two years later she sent Sisters to staff schools in Nebraska, and in 1919, in New Mexico.

That year, the community received special dispensation from the rules of the order to allow Mother Aloysius and her Council to be elected to a third term. Later that year she would help her Sisters through the loss of the beloved Father Volk, her dear friend, who died in November.

As the 1920s began, the Ursuline Sisters took charge of their 38th school. That spring, Mother Aloysius was struggling to fight off the flu. She planned a trip to California both to recuperate and to find a suitable home for her Sisters who were ill. She planned to stay with her cousin Frank Wathen and his wife Mary as she met with the bishop of Los Angeles.

She left at the end of August and planned to stop in Nebraska City along the way to visit her Sisters serving in Nebraska. There were 14 postulants at Maple Mount, with four more young women expected to join in September, when Mother Aloysius left these departing words.

“My dear Postulants, I have come to say goodbye before leaving my dear Maple Mount. You are fourteen Holy Helpers, and I want you to be children of the love of God, children worthy of your Holy Mother, Saint Angela. Yes, my dear children, the love of God is all-important. I had rather see you love God than to be learned in all the sciences, or other branches of knowledge.

“… I am leaving Saint Joseph’s through obedience, but I can never forget it. Soon I will come back full of health, ready to start life over again, for I will then be a new Religious. I will soon be well when I get out in sunny California. You must pray for me and I will be praying for you. And so, goodbye, my children, goodbye.”

The Sisters in Maple Mount never saw her alive again. Upon reaching Nebraska City, Mother Aloysius suffered a heart attack. She began to feel better while in Nebraska and decided to continue her trip to California. She arrived at the Wathen home in Los Angeles on Sept. 24.

According to records in the Maple Mount Archives, Mother Aloysius enjoyed taking walks and picking great clusters of flowers in Los Angeles. She talked at length about the home she wanted to have there for the ailing Sisters. On Oct. 1, she insisted she was going to Mass and wanted to see Our Lady of Loretto Church, despite protestations from her family.

After taking Communion at the railing, she suffered another heart attack. She never regained consciousness and died at the Wathen home. She was 58 years old, leaving behind a community of 181 professed Sisters and 25 more in the novitiate.

The eulogy at her funeral on Oct. 8 was delivered by Father E.S. Fitzgerald, who had known her for the 28 years he had been ecclesiastical superior for the Ursuline Sisters. This is some of what he said:

“When our Right Reverend Bishop appointed Mother Aloysius the Superior of the community it was really something to arouse one’s sympathy when she received the

Summer 2020 command. Her predilections were for a quiet life, the life of a student, the life of a teacher. Now she will be thrown forth in the world; she would have to be the businesswoman of the community. She would have to meet men of affairs pertaining to the material welfare of the community. She had the burden of the spiritual life of all of the sisters upon her. She was the one after whom they would model their lives. … I would be transgressing upon confidence that would never meet the approval of Mother Aloysius were I to give you the slightest idea of the many charities she exercised. Many a poor father and poor mother came to her to tell her of their ways of poverty and of their aspirations for the education of their daughter, and they never came to her in vain, and no one ever knew what it was but her and God. …

“Through the cross, Mother Aloysius reached her destiny, and you may do the same. Keep alive her example before you and keep alive all she has done for you, and remember as a saint in heaven ... she will do more for you there than she could do for you here.”

Today, Mother Aloysius is honored on the Maple Mount campus with the Carrara marble statue of Saint Joseph in the Memory Garden (left), a gift from the Academy Alumnae Association in 1907, the 25th anniversary of her entrance into religious life. A large meeting room used for the staff and the Ursuline Sisters is named for Mother Aloysius.

Her presence is part of every fiber on the Maple Mount campus and everywhere the Ursuline Sisters serve.n