The daughter of Alex and Martha Thompson Wethington, Gertrude was born January 17, 1889, in St. Joseph, Ky. Gertrude was one of nine children, three of whom became Ursuline Sisters. She attended Mount Saint Joseph Academy during the year 1900-1901. At the age of 21, Gertrude entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph on July 10, 1910, and received the Ursuline habit and the name Sister Richard on August 30, 1910.
Sister Richard’s first assignment took her to St. Romuald School in Hardinsburg, Ky., where she taught music for a year. Her other Kentucky assignments — always as a music teacher — were St. Columba School in Louisville, St. Joseph School in Owensboro, and St. Charles School in Lebanon. Her out-of-state assignments were in the Ursuline-staffed schools at Dixon and Nebraska City in Nebraska, and at Jeffersonville, Ind.
Sister Richard suffered from what was finally diagnosed as arthritis of the spine. She returned to Mount Saint Joseph after the school year in 1933. The treatments she received offered little relief. She died of pneumonia on December 24, 1936.
Father Andrew Zoeller, chaplain, celebrated the funeral Mass. Father Leo Smith, a family friend, delivered the sermon. Sister Richard’s remains are buried in the convent cemetery. Among her survivors were her two Ursuline sisters, Sister Robertus and Sister Augustine.