Lura Mae Lush was born December 7, 1914, in Wax (Grayson County) Ky., the seventh child of 13 born to Leo and Ida Johnson. Her brothers included Joseph Arnold, Clevie, Isadore, John Edwin and Joyce; her sisters were Daisy, Evangeline, Generose, Carrie, Mary Richard, Audrey and Mildred. She had a happy and carefree childhood, commenting that they were poor in material possessions but rich in love, caring, and sharing. Her earliest memories of her mother and father was when as a 4-year-old she watched them cooking and delivering food to the victims of the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. She fondly remembered family prayer each evening and she learned early on that “ideals are not taught but caught.”
Lura attended the one-room Blue Springs Public Elementary School in Iberia. She never heard of a sister until two Ursulines came to conduct Vacation Bible School in the parish. When she announced to her family that she was coming to Mount Saint Joseph to become an Ursuline, her family and friends were greatly surprised. Lura had spent much attention during her teenage years on dating, fashionable clothes, and having fun. Her mother especially told her she would never make it as a sister. “Oh yes I will, too” was Lura’s confident response. She received the habit and the name Sister Walter Louise on August 14, 1936. On that day, she recalled, that her family and many of the other guests were late for the ceremony because of the large crowd gathered in Owensboro to witness the execution of Rainey Bethea, a young black man hung in the last public lynching in America. The horror of that day, to the very end of her life, remained vividly up front in her memory, and throughout her life activated a zeal for protecting the personal dignity of each human person.
After entering the novitiate, Lura took her high school courses privately at Mount Saint Joseph Academy and St. Bernard High School in Nebraska City, Neb. Later, she earned a BS degree in history and English from Brescia College, Owensboro, Ky., and an MA in elementary education from Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. She did post-graduate studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder and Lehigh University, Valley Forge, Penn. Her teaching career of 32 years included Kentucky schools St. Anthony, Browns Valley; St. Lawrence, Philpot; St. Rose, Cloverport; St. Joseph, Central City; St. Bernard, Clementsville; St. Mary Magdalene, Sorgho; St.Romuald, Hardinsburg; and Lourdes in Nebraska City, Neb.
Sister Walter Louise loved to travel. She was as ambassador of the first Friendship Force of Owensboro to Cremona, Italy, in July 1979, enjoying an extended six-day tour of that country. Later she was privileged to join a group from America on a tour of the Holy Land.
She retired from teaching in 1982. First, she ministered at Mount Saint Joseph as program planner for the retired. In 1986 she became parish minister at St. Romuald, Hardinsburg, Ky. In 1991, she served in Caneyville, Ky., and surrounding areas as a Catholic presence in outreach ministry to the sick, homebound, elderly, the unchurched, the poor, and the lonely. Caneyville had only three or four Catholic families so she ministered to everyone in town. When Sister retired to the Motherhouse in 1995, two of her Baptist friends sobbed. The entire community in the Caneyville area was saddened. They were losing a healing presence, a compassionate listener, a Gospel woman who showed them that genuinely simple loving can make the world a happier place.
The Mass of Christian Burial for Sister Walter Louise was celebrated by Father Patrick Reynolds in the Motherhouse chapel at 10:30 a.m., Saturday, December 27. Sister’s remains are buried in the community cemetery at the Motherhouse.