Molly Keown thought she was going to another routine location when she was scheduled to visit Mount Saint Joseph in her role as an occupational therapist with Amedisys Home Health.
Little did she know that her family had a history with the Mount.
When Molly recently told her mother, Robin Nance, that she was visiting a client at the Mount, her mother told her that her great grandmother, Eliza Ellon Johnson, lived at the Mount as an orphan in the late 1800s. That’s all Molly knew about her.
“I just thought it was interesting,” Molly said.
She shared that story with Sister Mary Matthias Ward, who she sees for therapy once a week. It spawned a quest to find more information about her great grandmother, and a recollection of how orphans were a regular part of Maple Mount for its first 50 years.
According to Ancestry.com, Eliza Ellon Johnson Benson was born Nov. 23, 1889. She died Dec. 12, 1977, in Evansville, Ind. She is buried in the Slaughters (Ky) Cemetery. Her death certificate says her parents were Joseph S. Johnson and Kate Wedding, but no information on their deaths was found.
Unfortunately, Mount archival records are sparse on the details of the orphaned children raised at Mount Saint Joseph. There is no mention of Eliza Ellon Johnson, nor is there a way of determining what year she arrived or when she left.
Robin Nance – Molly’s mother – said she remembered her grandmother, who died when Nance was a senior in high school, but she couldn’t shine much light on her.
“She had a sister at the Mount too, but I don’t know her name,” Nance said. “She never talked about her time at the Mount.”
Ellon Johnson married Guy Benson, and together they had 12 children, one of whom was Frank Benson, Nance’s father. He died in 1992 at age 67 when a tractor overturned on him, Nance said.
The family has lived in Slaughters, Ky., for generations, and both Nance and her daughter live there now.
Molly has been an occupational therapist for 12 years, the past three with Amedisys. She enjoys her job and coming to the Mount.
“I love it,” she said. “I love the people and helping others.”
Orphans have been part of the Mount nearly since its beginning. The first orphan was brought by Father Paul Joseph Volk, who invited the Ursulines to open Mount Saint Joseph Academy in 1874. Just three years later, Jake Kiefer arrived from St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Louisville.
Mother Augustine Bloemer, the influential local superior at the Mount in the late 19th century, accepted many orphans in her day, affectionately known as “minims” among the Ursuline Sisters.
Mother Aloysius Willett, who took over from Mother Augustine as local superior and then led the community to become independent, continued the tradition of accepting orphans at Maple Mount. Often in those days, when a child’s mother died, the father felt incapable of caring for the children while also trying to work to support them. In a March 1971 interview contained in the Mount Archives, Sister Mary Joseph Peterson, who entered the community in 1915, described Mother Aloysius’ predilection for welcoming orphans.

Sister Mary Eva Thompson
“Mother Aloysius took in every orphan that was brought to her. Everybody else knew it and they brought them to her. We sure never were without a whole gang of little orphans, and not only were they here, but they stayed here during vacation. She saw to it that they got some attention as well as just to be here. We can recall many of them who have done well in the world.”
Sister Mary Matthias said that the late Sister Mary Eva Thompson was raised as an orphan at the Mount.
Born in 1917 as Mary Lillian, her mother died when she was 7. She and two of her sisters were taken to Mount Saint Joseph, while her four brothers were taken to St. Thomas Home in Louisville. Lillian attended grade school at Mount Saint Joseph Academy remaining there until she graduated from high school in 1933. After a year in Louisville, she returned to Maple Mount to attend Mount Saint Joseph Junior College. In 1937, she joined the Ursuline Sisters as Mary Eva.
She was a high school teacher for 21 years, before she joined the faculty at Brescia College in Owensboro in 1963. She later became a full-time librarian at Brescia. None of that may have happened had she not been influenced by the Ursuline Sisters who raised her as an orphan.
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