Cecelia Higdon was the oldest of 10 children born to Lawrence Henson and Mary Rose Coomes Higdon. She was born on June 2, 1907, in a log house in St. Lawrence, Ky. When about 3 years old, Cecilia was struck by lightning and temporarily blinded. Throughout her entire life, she relived that trauma during thunderstorms and high winds, always seeking shelter in dark, hidden places. By the age of 9, Cecilia was driving the farm team, and loving and caring for animals. Her younger sister died at the age of 5, leaving Cecilia to walk alone about three miles to the public school until 1920, when the Ursulines from Mount Saint Joseph opened a school in Knottsville. Cecilia started taking music lessons that year, and when the Sisters left for the Mount in June, Cecilia became the church organist.
At the age of 21, she began to think seriously about doing something worthwhile. She thought about being a cowgirl, or an orchestra leader, or to care for orphans. She never thought about being a nun. Cecelia visited the Mount when her cousin, Sister Mary Edith Coomes, took the habit. Mother Agnes tried to interest Cecilia in becoming an Ursuline. Cecelia decided to enter the novitiate, despite the protests of some of her relatives who said she was too much of a tomboy. She had won prizes in horse shows, driven the tractor, handled the bush hog and cared for animals on the family farm. Cecilia’s father was saddened by her leaving home.
Cecilia took the habit on March 19, 1931, and received the name Sister Georgetta. During her postulancy and novitiate days, Sister Georgetta studied music but her first mission was classroom teaching, three grades at Curdsville, Ky., for two years. She taught music in Kentucky at Stanley and Jeffersontown; grades 1-4 at Fairfield; music at Flaherty and New Haven; grades 4-5 at Blessed Mother in Owensboro; music at Shively, Lyndon, Hardinsburg, and Owensboro at St. Joseph, as well as in Farmington, N.M. During the next 29 years, Sister either taught, served as principal or librarian in the following Kentucky schools: Owensboro (Blessed Mother on two assignments and SS Joseph and Paul), Jeffersontown, and Mayfield. She spent the last 14 years of her teaching ministry working with children in the classroom and library at Precious Blood in Owensboro.
In 1988, Sister came to the Motherhouse and served as director of food preparation for the main kitchen for one year. Sister’s brother had given her a classic golf cart when she retired. Although her strength was failing, this easy means of transportation made it possible for her to travel around campus. She found great joy in gathering and cracking walnuts to feed the squirrels and converse with them at their regularly scheduled mealtimes, to get to the farm entrance and care for the barnyard cats or to the garden, apple orchard and grape arbor. She delighted in taking the sick and infirm Sisters for a ride around campus to see the flowers and shrubs, the old shrines and the new ones, visit the cemetery, count the vacant places where storms had claimed the trees, and to feel the sunshine and warm breeze caress their delicate skin. She was able to be this independent, carefree “tomboy” until a few weeks before being confined to Saint Joseph Villa, where in the early evening of December 22, 2002, she gave a little shrug of finality, closed her eyes and left the world she loved so much for a lasting place in heaven.
The wake service was held Sunday evening, December 22, followed by the funeral Mass, celebrated by Father Joseph Mills on the eve of Christmas Eve, 2002. Sister Georgetta’s remains are buried in the convent cemetery.