Mary Dolores (Dola) was born January 13, 1923, in the small rural community of Little Saint Joseph in Marion County, Ky., the eighth of nine children to William Spalding and Lallie Marie Thomas Robinson. At age 2, her mother died. Shortly afterward the family moved to St. Mary, Ky. In 1929, her father married a kind motherly woman, Stella Spalding. She attended St. Charles Elementary and high school under the direction of the Mount Saint Joseph Ursuline Sisters. In September 1941, Dola entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph. In August 1942, she received the Ursuline habit and the name Sister Mary Dolorita.
Sister Dolorita received her higher education at MSJ Junior College and graduated from Brescia College in 1965 with an A B. in social sciences. In 1970, she received a master’s in education from Catherine Spalding College in Louisville, Ky., and a Kentucky certificate in principalship. She spent 39 years in the parochial schools of Kentucky involved in teaching and administration at both the elementary and secondary levels. These years took her to Leitchfield, Fairfield, Central City, Vine Grove, Knottsville, Louisville and Lebanon. Various ministerial experiences during seven years at Mount Saint Joseph found her as local superior, director of the craft room, and director of activities for retired Sisters. From 1990-1998, she served as pastoral associate at Saint John the Evangelist Church, Sunfish, Ky.
In 1998 Sister Dolorita retired to the Motherhouse where she worked in the Archives until 2006, when she needed to be under skilled care in Saint Joseph Villa.
Sister Dolorita died March 23, 2011, in Saint Joseph Villa. Following the Mass of Resurrection in the Motherhouse Chapel on March 25, 2011, Sister’s remains were taken to her place of rest in the Motherhouse Cemetery.