“We were all involved in the church, singing in the choir, altar serving,” Sister Elaine said. “In the sixth grade, Sister Alberta taught me to lead the Litany of the Saints in Latin.”
Sister Elaine was attending Okolona Public High School and considered joining the Ursulines of Louisville at 16, but her parents thought she was too young, she said. “My mom suggested I check out the Mount before deciding.”
Her mother’s sisters were Ursulines of Mount Saint Joseph, Sister Mary Carmelita Mattingly (who died in 1964) and Sister Mary Nazaria Mattingly (who died in 1992).
These 10 members of the Mount Saint Joseph Academy class of 1949 returned for their 60th reunion in 2009. (From left) Sister Mary Angela Matthews, Gertie Hall Mayhew; (second row) Sister Elaine Burke, Doris Mattingly Schadler, Mary Kennedy, Rose McCarty Pease; (back row) Betty Rumage Bickett, Joan Clayton Payne, Sister Joan Walz, and Rosella Cotton Whitsett.
Sister Elaine transferred to Mount Saint Joseph Academy for her junior year. “It was just a great place to be, we went to Mass every day, and said prayers in the evening,” Sister Elaine said.
“I loved being with so many girls, to play games and goof off,” she said. “I just found a family, we loved being together.”
Gertie Hall Mayhew is one of her classmates who remains a close friend.
“We were a big party group, and she would watch out for us,” Mayhew said. “If we heard one of the sister’s side rosaries making noise, Elaine would let us know. But every once in awhile, she joined in,” Mayhew said. “I think Mount Saint Joseph was glad when the class of 1949 graduated.”
In 2009, the class celebrated its 60th reunion with 10 members present. “That’s pretty good for as old as we are,” Mayhew said.
Sister Elaine said she didn’t learn until she arrived at the Mount that she’d been saying the rosary incorrectly her whole life, with only nine Hail Mary’s instead of 10.
“The first bead was the Our Father, the large bead in between was the Glory Be to the Father, which left only nine Hail Marys in between,” she said. “I just thought everyone else had lost their place.”
A life of prayer
Sister Elaine enjoyed a deep prayer life from an early age, which led her to make her vows with the Ursuline Sisters.
“I don’t know where I got this great desire to pray. I was caught up in it,” she said. “I felt that was my calling. I thought, ‘Where else do people pray like that, other than a convent?’ I never lost that desire for prayer. I don’t know how you can be a religious woman without a deep prayer life.”
The decision to join the Ursulines came during March of her senior year at the Academy.
“I was in church praying after breakfast, and Mother Immaculata (O’Riley) asked if I wanted to walk under her umbrella,” Sister Elaine said. “I told her I was becoming a nun. We went to her office and she gave me the paperwork to fill out.” Sister Elaine went home for the summer and got involved in softball and other things, failing to fill out the paperwork.
Sister Elaine (second from right) was one of several Ursuline Sisters who sang in the choir Feb. 10 during the ordination of the bishop of Owensboro, William Medley. Other sisters pictured are, from left, Sisters Grace Swift, Alicia Coomes, Mary Susan Mudd, and Mary Henning.
“She called me about two weeks before I was to begin to see if I were coming, and I said ‘Oh yes.’ She told me to get my paperwork in.”
Her novice class had 25 women, one of the largest ever. She is one of nine sisters from that class celebrating her 60-year jubilee this year.
“I had a hard time calming down in the silence,” she said.
Her first ministry in 1952 was at St. Benedict School in Nebraska City, Neb., where she taught kindergarten and rotated with other sisters to teach the first four grades. “They were all beautiful kids. I loved them,” she said.
It was in Nebraska that she got instruction on playing the piano.