Ida Isabelle was born August 22, 1890, the daughter of James and Mary Louise Crews Kennedy of Hardinsburg, Ky. Her family was one of the pioneer families in St. Romuald Parish. She attended Hardinsburg Elementary Public School, St. Romuald Parish School (taught by lay teachers), and Mount Saint Joseph Academy. Ida became a certified public school teacher through studies at Western Kentucky University. After a time, she felt called to give a more dedicated service to her pupils. Her older sister, Sister Eligius, had become a Sister of Charity of Nazareth, but Ida felt called to the Ursulines. She entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph, received the Ursuline habit and the name Sister Mary Romuald on August 5, 1919.
Sister Mary Romuald was assigned to St. Alphonsus School in St. Joseph, Ky., on September 1919. The next school year she and two other Sisters were sent to Marion County to open the public school at Calvary, Ky. All of Sister’s assignments were in Kentucky: Howardstown, Holy Cross, Flaherty (High School), and Lebanon (St. Charles High School), Knottsville (High School), Loretto (St. Francis High School), Owensboro (St. Joseph), Mount Saint Joseph Academy, and Brescia College. In most of these assignments she served as principal and superior. She gave summer vacation time to teaching catechism in parishes where there were no parochial schools, or attending college classes and seminars to strengthen her teaching skills. Sister Mary Romuald was elected mother assistant in 1957 for a term of six years. In 1963 she was appointed superior of Brescia Convent in Owensboro.
Because of ill health, Sister Mary Romuald retired to Mount Saint Joseph in 1967. She suffered from diabetes and cancer, but was confined in the infirmary for only a short time. She died on March 19, 1972, after having been admitted to Mercy Hospital in Owensboro. Msgr. Bernard Powers, chaplain, offered the funeral Mass on March 21 and delivered the homily. Sister Mary Romuald’s remains are buried in the convent cemetery.