John Baptist and Mary Ann Busse DeNardi welcomed their youngest child, Mary Ann, on July 16, 1912, joining six older children, one sister and five brothers. Her mother died and the baby was given her mother’s name, Mary Ann. Father James Pike baptized her at St. Charles Church.
Mary Ann began her formal education in 1918 at St. Charles School, St. Mary, Kentucky. She graduated from high school in the spring of 1929. Her teachers were Mount Saint Joseph Ursulines. In September 1929, Mary Ann came to Mount Saint Joseph to enter the novitiate. She received the Ursuline habit and the name Sister Charles Ann on March 19, 1930.
She was missioned to Howardstown, Kentucky, in 1932, to teach the first four grades in a two-room schoolhouse, a seven-month term. In her over 40-year teaching career, Sister Charles Ann ministered in New Haven (Boone’s Mill), Flaherty, Raywick, Holy Cross, Knottsville (St. William), and St. Joseph (St. Alphonsus) in Kentucky. She taught one year in Glennonville, Missouri, and in New Mexico at Blanco, Waterflow, Farmington, and St. Fidel. She found teaching Spanish Americans, Navaho, Acoma and Jamez Indians of New Mexico most enriching.
In 1975, Sister Charles Ann retired from active classroom teaching and moved to St. Ignatius Retirement Center in Louisville as tutor in the St. Ignatius School for two years. In 1977, she joined the Ursulines at St. Boniface Retirement Center who ministered in various ways to the sick and elderly. She volunteered with the Red Cross, helped feed the guests of the Franciscan Soup Kitchen — the homeless living in the street and men, women and children lacking sufficient resources for food. This was her ministry for 11 years.
In 1989, she retired to the Mount Saint Joseph Motherhouse after 59 years of service to God’s children. Sister was among the first to move from the old infirmary into Saint Joseph Villa, the new healthcare facility on campus. Her health declined rapidly as did her eyesight. She spent hours each day enjoying classical music and listening to the rosary on tape. On the afternoon of December 17, 2004, Sister Charles Ann DeNardi quietly passed away. Sister’s brother, Father Charles DeNardi, Father Aloysius Powers and Father Joseph Mills, chaplain, celebrated the funeral Mass on December 20, 2004. Due to the extreme cold, the graveside prayers were recited in the chapel, before her remains were carried to the convent cemetery for burial.