Born August 29, 1878, in Kellina, King’s County, Ireland, Mary Elizabeth was the daughter of Joseph and Mary Elizabeth Malloy Cummins. She received her schooling in Ireland, then sailed to the United States in 1901. Arriving in New York, she went to a boarding house kept by the Sisters of Mercy and placed an ad in a Catholic newspaper informing the Catholic public that she was in the United States for the purpose of entering a religious community. Sister Augustine Bloemer responded to the ad and invited Mary Elizabeth to come to Mount Saint Joseph. She traveled to the wilderness of western Daviess County, Ky., and entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph on August 28, 1901. Two months later, on October 24, Mary Elizabeth received the Ursuline habit and the name Sister Patricia.
Sister Patricia was first assigned to St. Columba School in Louisville where she taught for 13 years. Her next Kentucky assignments took her to Curdsville for a year and to Raywick (St. Joseph) for seven years. She was sent in 1932 to teach in Nebraska at Snyder, Plattsmouth, and Nebraska City for a total of eight years. While in Nebraska, she studied at Creighton University in Omaha. She returned to Kentucky and taught at St. Joseph High School in Owensboro, Flaherty High School, Waverly, Clarkson, Lebanon (St. Charles), St. Francis and Knottsville. Sister’s health began to fail in the early 1950s, but until she returned permanently to Mount Saint Joseph in 1958 as a patient in the infirmary, she spent time as substitute teacher in several schools.
Following a heart attack in March 1963, Sister was hospitalized several times at Mercy Hospital in Owensboro. On December 20, 1963, she suffered a fatal heart attack in the Motherhouse infirmary. The funeral Mass was celebrated the day before Christmas Eve 1963. The priests, pallbearers and Sisters made their way through a peaceful blanket of deep snow in the procession to the convent cemetery for the final blessings and burial of Sister’s remains.