Josephine Elizabeth, one of three children, was born on June 20, 1910, in St. Louis, Mo., to William Thomas and Susan Elizabeth Wathen Thomas. She was baptized at St. Thomas of Aquinas Church, St. Louis, on July 10. The family moved to Kentucky in 1913, and the father, along with a brother-in-law, bought a farm in the Lagoon Section of Marion County and shared a house. William died within the year of typhoid fever, but the two families continued to live together on the farm for 13 years.
In September 1917, Elizabeth began her formal education in the Lagoon Public School. She finished grade school and two years of high school at St. Joseph, Raywick. She completed her secondary education at Mount Saint Joseph Academy. On June 25, 1927, Josephine Elizabeth accompanied the Sisters returning to the Mount for the summer, and entered the Mount Saint Joseph Novitiate. In September, 18 other young ladies joined her, including a first cousin, Catherine Wathen. Josephine Elizabeth received the Ursuline habit and the name Sister Mary David on March 19, 1928. At that same ceremony, Catherine Wathen received the name Sister George Marie.
After professing first vows, Sister was assigned to Flaherty, Ky., as substitute for one semester. In the next 48 years, she taught in Kentucky public and parochial schools in Waverly, St. Raphael, Sorgho, Vine Grove, Fredericktown, Knottsville, Holy Cross, Owensboro, Clementsville, Calhoun, St. Alphonsus, Raywick, St. Charles High, Marion County High, Grayson County, and in Glennonville, Mo. Twenty-seven of these years were as a special-education teacher. Having reached the mandatory age for teacher retirement, she ended her teaching career by serving as the “Catholic presence” and parish minister at Piedmont and Van Buren in the Ozarks Region of Missouri. She is remembered in that area with great respect and reverence as she is in all the places where she taught and lived.
Sister Mary David retired to the Motherhouse in 1983 and, as usual, found a need and jumped to fill it. With the encouragement and advice of Dr. Gore, a podiatrist who came weekly to the Mount to care for the Sisters with foot disorders, she became the community’s skilled practitioner in foot care. At first she worked with Dr. Gore, but after his death, continued her practice. As her health failed, she discontinued this ministry among the Sisters, 88 patients at one time, in 2000. She was able, however, to give special assistance in the care of her first cousin, Sister George Marie Wathen, a patient in the infirmary suffering the final stages of Parkinson’s.
Sister Mary David’s long and beautiful life ended quietly just before sunrise October 03, 2007. Officiating at her funeral Mass on October 5 were Glenmary priests Father Tom Kirkendoll, celebrant and Father David Glockner, homilist. Nieces, nephews and other family members participated in appropriate ministries during the liturgy. A large number of family, friends and Ursuline Sisters joined in the procession to the convent cemetery for the burial of Sister Mary David’s remains. Sister was preceded in death by her sister, Sister Mary de Sales Thomas.