Born at Anthoston, Ky., on Nov. 11, 1900, Mary Elizabeth was the daughter of John and Caroline Lee Wathen. Soon after birth she became “May” to her family. Most likely this was because she had a twin brother, Raphael Joseph, so the twins were called Ray and May. Raphael Joseph died when he was less than a month old. Beginning in 1907, May received her formal elementary education at Wathen’s District School. Her high school years were spent at Mount Saint Joseph Academy. May was called to the religious life at an early age. She attributed her vocation to the admiration her father had for his first cousin, Sister Aloysius Willett. On July 16, 1920, May entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph and received the Ursuline habit on March 19, 1921. She received the name Sister Mary Aloysius in memory of her beloved cousin who had died in October 1920.
Sister Mary Aloysius’ teaching days began with the assignment to St. Elizabeth School in Curdsville, Ky., where she taught grades eight through 11. Other teaching assignments took her to schools in Plattsmouth, Neb., Affton, Mo., and Kentucky schools: Louisville (St. James and St. Leonard), Shively (St. Denis), Calvary, Holy Cross, Rome, Flaherty, Knottsville, and Owensboro (Blessed Mother). For 16 years while teaching she also served as supervisor of teacher training for the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph.
In 1970, Sister Mary Aloysius retired from teaching and returned to Mount Saint Joseph where she helped in the archives and served as community annalist. In 1982, because of partial blindness, she retired from the archives. She spent her time in prayer and in visiting the sick Sisters.
Because of a fractured skull received in a fall, she spent her final years as a patient in the infirmary silently suffering, most of the time irrational but nonviolent. She developed pneumonia with congestive heart failure and died February 7, 1990. Father Anthony Shonis, chaplain, celebrated the funeral Mass the next afternoon. Sister’s remains were laid to rest in the convent cemetery. Her three Ursuline sisters, Sisters Mary Antonia, Caroline, and Jean Marie, preceded her in death.