Susan Elizabeth (Sue) was born March 30, 1921, the daughter of Joseph Warren and Bertha Mary Hite Nally of Springfield, Kentucky. She was the seventh of eight children — six brothers and one sister. She was baptized at St. Rose Church in Springfield. The Nally home was full of love and faithfulness to the Catholic faith. Sue gave her older sister, Mary Bertha, credit for teaching her a great devotion to the Blessed Mother. She spent the first seven years of elementary school at St. Catherine Academy taught by the Dominican Sisters at their motherhouse just outside Springfield. The elementary section of the Academy closed and Susan finished the eighth grade at St. Dominic Elementary School, also taught by the Dominican Sisters. She returned to St. Catherine Academy for high school and graduated in 1938. She came to Mount St. Joseph Junior College and graduated in 1940. Susan Elizabeth entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph on September 8, 1941, received the Ursuline habit August 14, 1942 and was given the name Sister Bertha Marie.
Sister Bertha Marie began teaching grades 1 and 2 at Wax, Kentucky in 1944. All of her other assignments were also in Kentucky teaching primary grades: Raywick (St. Joseph on four separate occasions), Browns Valley, Fairfield, Waverly, New Haven, Rome, Curdsville, St. Raphael, Buechel, Holy Cross, Clementsville, Leitchfield (St. Paul on two separate occasions), and Lebanon (St. Charles).
Sister Bertha Marie came to the Motherhouse in October of 1977. She ministered mainly in health care until 1990. Sister was an excellent seamstress and made several sets of table linens for the community dining room as well as drapes and sheers for special areas throughout the Motherhouse. She was commissioned to make matching stoles for the priests of the Diocese of Owensboro to wear at the annual Chrism Mass and other solemn occasions when they concelebrated as a body with the bishop. She had a special talent for nurturing flowering plants. She enjoyed special success with African violets, her favorite.
Sister Bertha Marie spent the last several years of her life as a patient under the care of the nursing staff in St. Joseph Villa. Her condition required the constant use of oxygen. Sister died in the early morning of October 6, 2006. The wake was held in the Motherhouse chapel, Monday evening October 9. The next morning at 10:30, Father Charles (Chuck) Thompson, a former pupil from St. Charles in Lebanon, Kentucky, celebrated the funeral Mass and gave the homily. Sister’s remains are buried in the convent cemetery. Her six brothers and her sister preceded her in death.