Frances Helena was born November 15, 1893, the daughter of John and Mary Purdy of Curdsville, Ky. She attended school at the Blandford School until 1906 and another small school for a few years. For one year she attended Mount Saint Joseph Academy but had to return home to help her mother and received the rest of her education at St. Elizabeth School in Curdsville. After entering the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph when she was 18, Frances Helena received the Ursuline habit and the name Sister Mary John on November 21, 1912.
Sister Mary John’s first assignment was to St. Francis School in Chicago, Ky., where she remained for six years. Her later assignments took her to Nebraska for 12 years and to New Mexico for three years. Sister Mary John also taught in both the parochial and public schools of five different counties in Kentucky. In her teaching career she taught all the grades in elementary school and all four grades in high school. During her 33 years of teaching high school, her subjects were wide and varied from English to math, from history to languages, from science to business subjects, from dramatics to aeronautics. Sister Mary John was the first to teach home economics in the Marion County (Ky.) Public School System. When she retired from classroom teaching, Sister Mary John served as a teacher’s aide at St. Peter of Alcantara School in Stanley, Ky.
Returning to Mount Saint Joseph in 1975, Sister Mary John spent her last years there. Her years of retirement were filled with various activities as long as her health permitted. After several days of increasing weakness and illness, she breathed her last on July 30, 1988. Two days later Msgr. Bernard Powers celebrated her funeral Mass and was the homilist. Sister Mary John was then buried in the convent cemetery. Her survivors included her Ursuline sister, Sister Jean Catherine. Her other Ursuline sister, Sister Dolorosa, preceded her in death.