Frances Athel was born April 15, 1906, one of seven children of Joseph and Nettie Hughes Newton of Manton, Ky. She attended public school there until her mother died. The family moved to Flaherty where Frances became a student at St. Martin of Tours School.
Responding to the call to religious life in June 1923, she entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph. On March 19, 1924, she received the Ursuline habit and was given the name Sister Josepha.
Sister Josepha began her mission life in September 1925 when she was sent as housekeeper for the Sisters teaching at St. Catherine School in New Haven, Ky. For 41 years, with care and sensitivity, she attended to the needs of the Sisters in their Kentucky convent homes at Fancy Farm (St. Denis), Hardinsburg, Cloverport, Shively, Howardstown, Clementsville, Peonia, Flaherty, Owensboro (Episcopal residence, Blessed Mother, St. Mary’s Home, SS Joseph and Paul), Fredericktown, Raywick, St. Francis, St. Raphael, Mayfield, Louisville (St. Columba), Jeffersontown, Cloverport and Loretto. Sister also ministered in Snyder, Wynot and Nebraska City, Neb.
Sister Josepha came to the Motherhouse infirmary in 1966 because of increasing health problems. She served as a nurse’s aide or spent nights in the hospital with Sisters who needed companionship and care during those hours. She herself became a bed patient for several years preceding her death on January 28, 1984. Father Bernard Barnes, OSM, Mount Saint Joseph chaplain, and Father Paul Pike Powell concelebrated the funeral Mass. Sister’s remains are buried in the convent cemetery. Among her survivors were her two Ursuline sisters, Sister Joseph Volk and Sister Agnes Leo.