Mary Cecilia was born October 29, 1901, the second daughter of Ferdinand and Nannie Blair Smith. She attended the public school at Chicago, Ky., until her First Communion year. That year she and her older sister, Lillian, boarded the train each Monday morning to spend the week in New Hope attending St. Vincent de Paul School. They returned home on Friday after school. This was the regular routine until 1912 when the Ursulines of Mount Saint Joseph opened St. Francis of Assisi School in Chicago.
In 1919, Cecilia entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph. She received the Ursuline habit on March 19, 1920, and was given the name Sister Nympha.
The following summer, Sister Nympha taught private music lessons at St. Paul School in Louisville. In September, she was assigned to St. Joseph School in Owensboro as organist for the school and church choirs, and continued private music lessons. Four years later she was following the same routine in Wynot, Neb. She was assigned to other Kentucky schools, sometimes as classroom teacher in the primary grades: Leitchfield (St. Joseph and St. Paul), Louisville (St. Columba), Finley, Stanley, Calvary, Cloverport, Holy Cross, Shively, Mayfield, and Paducah (Rosary Chapel and St. Thomas More), and Glennonville, Mo.
Sister was last assigned to St. Peter School in Waverly, Ky. In the early morning of March 12, 1961, while still at Waverly, she became seriously ill suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. Father Joseph Rhodes, pastor, anointed her. Sister died quietly and peacefully that morning. Her remains were taken to the funeral home in Henderson in preparation for being transported to Mount Saint Joseph. On March 15, Msgr. Gilbert Henninger, chaplain, and Father Joseph Rhodes concelebrated the funeral Mass. Sister’s remains are buried in the convent cemetery. Among her survivors was her Ursuline sister, Sister Ferdinand.