Mildred, daughter of Henry Frank and Elizabeth Adelade Spalding Abell, was born August 23, 1910, near Elizabethtown, Ky. Mildred was next to the youngest of six children of her father’s second marriage. When Mildred was 3 years old, her mother died giving birth to a baby boy named Richard. The baby also died.
Mildred’s formal education began in a rural school near Elizabethtown. In 1916, when Mildred was 8, her father died. The family was separated. The younger children went to live with the older half brothers or sisters. Mildred went to live with Edith, her half-sister, in Edinburg, Ill., where she finished grade school. She attended Mount Saint Joseph Academy for grades nine through 12.
In September 1927, Mildred entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph. On March 19, 1928, she received the Ursuline habit and the name Sister Mary Damien. The previous September, Anna, her sister, had entered the novitiate.
In September 1928, shortly after professing temporary vows, Sister was assigned to Saint Paul School, Louisville, Ky. Other classroom assignments during the next 56 years of teaching were in Kentucky at: Saint Elizabeth, Curdsville; Saint Joseph, Owensboro; Saint Charles, Lebanon; Saint Francis in Saint Francis; Blessed Mother, Owensboro; and Saint William, Knottsville. Sister was the principal of Blessed Mother School in Owensboro for 19 consecutive years.
In 1993, Sister retired to the Motherhouse where she assisted the community librarian. After a short period in Owensboro Mercy Hospital, August 1997, Sister was confined to the infirmary at the Motherhouse. She slipped away quietly the evening of March 22, 2001. The wake service was Sunday, March 25, followed on Monday by the funeral Mass. Sister’s remains are buried in the convent cemetery.