On April 21, 1889, William and Mary Jane Boarman Buckman in New Market, Ky., were happy to welcome a baby girl, Mary Caroline, to their family. These pioneers, stemming from Maryland days, had Mary Caroline baptized at Old St. Matthew Church in Finley. Carrie learned her religion from her parents and attended the New Market Public School. As she grew older, she helped out at home and became an angel of mercy visiting the sick and elderly in the neighborhood. In 1921, Carrie followed her sister, Sister Madeline, to the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph. On March 20, 1922, she received the Ursuline habit and the name Sister Jane Patrick.
Having begun her apostolate of housekeeping at St. Anthony in Jeffersonville, Ind., Sister Jane Patrick spent many more years keeping house for the Sisters in the following Kentucky missions: Louisville (St Columba and St. Paul), Rome, Calvary, Shively, Raywick, Peonia, Earlington, Clementsville, Raywick, Waverly, Buechel, Owensboro (St. Joseph and Blessed Mother), Mount Saint Joseph, Browns Valley, Fredericktown, and Fancy Farm. She spent three years in Nebraska, one at Plattsmouth and two at Paul.
An overview of her labors is well written by Sister Mary Anselm Beavin in her account of the year of the Big Snow of 1937 in Paul, Neb. “There were four Sisters at Paul that year and as usual on Friday after school, two Sisters caught a ride to Nebraska City to grocery shop and return the next day. The weather was wintry but bright and sunny. During the night, temperatures dropped to minus seventeen degrees and snow piled high around St. Joseph convent, drifting to 13 feet. Sister Jane Patrick kept the ‘home fires’ burning with the help of the Durr boys who brought in coal and water. The regular convent daily schedule was followed closely except for the plentiful leisure hours when Sister Jane Patrick sewed, embroidered, prepared the regular meals on a classroom stove or just dozed and prayed her rosary by the stove. Sister was a wonderful companion during those two weeks of snow enclosure. Finally we were dug out and could go across the road for Mass.”
Sister Jane Patrick was diagnosed with cancer while at St. Denis, Fancy Farm, in 1963. She returned to Mount Saint Joseph. For a few years, she was able to sew and embroider. Despite intense suffering that continually weakened her, she tried to live the day-to-day Motherhouse schedule. She died on April 21, 1970, her 81st birthday. Two days later, Father Bernard Powers, chaplain, celebrated the funeral Mass, using white vestments for the first time at a funeral at Mount Saint Joseph. Sister Jane Patrick’s remains are buried in the convent cemetery. Her Ursuline sister, Sister Madeline, preceded her in death.