The daughter of Guy and Elizabeth Davenport Abell, Elizabeth was born in Uniontown, Kentucky, on July 24, 1904. When Elizabeth was small, her mother died. She was sent to school at St. Vincent Academy in St. Vincent and then to Mount Saint Joseph Academy. At the age of 15, Elizabeth entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph in July 1920. On March 19, 1921, she received the Ursuline habit and the name Sister Agnes Louise.
Sister Agnes Louise’s first assignment took her to Immaculate Conception School in Earlington, Kentucky, where she taught for three years. A teacher of grades one through six, Sister Agnes Louise spent all her mission years in Kentucky at the Ursuline schools: Owensboro (St Joseph on two separate assignments), Louisville (St Paul on three separate assignments), New Haven, St. Lawrence, Cloverport, Stanley (on four separate assignments), Owensboro (Blessed Mother on two separate assignments), Owensboro (Immaculate), and Rome.
Sister Agnes Louise retired from teaching in 1971 and returned to Mount Saint Joseph. In 1975, she underwent surgery for breast cancer. The radium treatments that followed the surgery were unsuccessful. She was admitted to Mercy Hospital in Owensboro on December 18, 1975, suffering from pneumonia and died there two days later.
Sister’s cousin, Msgr. George Hancock, Msgr. Bernard Powers, and Father Anselm Ginter, OSB, celebrated the funeral Mass December 22,1971. Sister Agnes Louise’s are buried in the convent cemetery.