Maxine Catherine was born on March 25, 1922, in Manton, Ky., the tenth child of 12 children in the family of Joseph Booth and Alma Austin Bell Carrico. When she was 5 years old, she started at the public school in Manton. Maxine spent her high school years at Holy Trinity in Fredericktown. The Ursuline Sisters inspired her, especially Sister Mary Fides Thompson. After graduation, Maxine considered entering the convent, but decided to wait a year since her older sister, Shirley, planned to enter the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph in the fall. Maxine stayed home, took some pre-college courses at the high school and helped her mother who was not in good health. The following year, Maxine attended Junior College at Mount Saint Joseph. By the end of the year, she was certain she wanted to become an Ursuline.
Maxine entered the novitiate September 8, 1940. She received the Ursuline habit and the name of Sister Mary Corda on August 14, 1941, professed first vows on August 15, 1943, and final vows on August 15, 1946. Her years in the ministry of education took her first to Waverly, Ky., teaching students in the seventh and eighth grades. As the stream of her life continued to unfold, she taught grade school at Peonia, and Louisville (St. Margaret Mary), Ky., and in Wilhelmina, Mo. In 1954, she began teaching in high schools: Paducah (Rosary Chapel), St. Francis, Knottsville, and Fredericktown, Ky., and at Sacred Heart Academy in Waterflow, N.M. She retired from teaching in 1966. For the next 27 years, she was the Director of Maintenance and Central Purchasing at Brescia College in Owensboro. In 1993, she retired from Brescia and came to the Motherhouse to serve as the director of central purchasing.
On Monday, April 16, 2001, Sister Mary Corda had driven a group of Sisters to Madisonville for an Emmaus party with the Ursulines at Christ the King. That evening she became quite ill. She was treated in the infirmary until Friday. In critical condition, she was hospitalized at OMHS where she died in the operating room as a breathing device was being inserted. Sister Mary Corda, a big woman whose physical stature was dwarfed by her magnanimous heart, instinctive compassion, giftedness for teaching, practical vision, and loyal commitment to all things Ursuline, is one of the “unforgetables” among the Ursulines of Mount Saint Joseph.
A wake service was held on Sunday, April 22, first at Brescia, then in the chapel at Mount Saint Joseph. On April 23, Father Joseph Mills, chaplain, celebrated the funeral Mass. Sister’s remains are buried in the convent cemetery. Sister Carmencita, her Ursuline sister, preceded her in death.