On March 12, 1907, during a terrible electrical storm, Mary Alice was born in Loretto, Ky., to Hugh Bernard and Mary Lila Lyon Mattingly, the second of five children. She began her faith journey with baptism on March 17, 1907, at St. Francis of Assisi Church. Soon after this, the family moved from Loretto to St. Charles into the house where her father was born. Alice loved the outdoors. She passed up the opportunity to help her mother and sisters. Instead she felt a calling to look after her brother Henry, teaching him to play ball, ride horses and play croquet. They spent many happy hours sitting by the creek and ponds with fishing poles.
Alice attended St. Charles School, under the direction of Ursuline Sisters. She decided that God was calling her to work for the education of young people. On September 7, 1926, Alice, along with nine other young women entered the novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph. On March 19, 1927, she was invested with the Ursuline habit and received the name Sister Therese Martin.
In September 1929 after professing temporary vows, Sister Therese Martin was assigned to St. Columba School in Louisville, teaching grades 4-8. She remained there for 18 years. Other assignments in her 55 years of teaching were in Ursuline-staffed Kentucky schools in Howardstown, Clementsville, Harrodsburg (along with Sister Rita Klarer, opened the school in 1954), Calvary, Shively (principal and superior at St. Denis), Lebanon (principal at St. Charles), Leitchfield (St. Paul), Lebanon (St. Augustine), and Louisville (St. Bartholomew). In August 1984, Sister Therese Martin and Sister Aloise Boone were appointed by Bishop John McRaith to go to Benton, Ky., to bring the presence of the Catholic Church to Marshall County. Their ministry was to be women of faith, living a simple life and dedicated to loving and serving the people. They rented a small apartment that became St. Angela Convent, a welcoming place for persons of all faiths. The Sisters were quite visible in the community, delivering Meals-on-Wheels to the homebound, visiting the hospitals and nursing homes, inviting people to the convent for prayer, scripture study and sharing a simple meal. An important part of their ministry was visiting with inmates of Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville where they conducted sessions of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, attended Mass with the inmates and visited men on death row.
Because of failing health in 1996, Sister Therese Martin reluctantly left Benton and returned to the Motherhouse. She left her heart in Marshall County, but in her diminishment of bodily strength, she never lost her powerfully contagious trust in God’s way and through her dry wit kept persons around her highly entertained with stories of her missionary experiences. Sister Therese Martin defined her life: “My job was to show Christ’s presence to His people and I still love doing it.” In the early morning of October 20, 2001, with graceful dignity, she went home to God
Father Joseph Mills, chaplain, and sister’s cousin, Father Joseph A. (Doc) Lyon, celebrated the funeral Mass, Tuesday morning, October 23. Sister’s remains are buried in the convent cemetery.