Sister Eva Marie Boone, 90, an Ursuline Sister of Mount Saint Joseph, died Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at Mount Saint Joseph, in her 73rd year of religious life. She was a native of Howardstown, Ky. She earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Brescia College (now University), Owensboro, Ky., in 1966, followed by a master’s degree in parish ministry from LaSalle University in 1985.
Sister Eva had a love for social justice and protecting the environment. She was always welcoming to those she met.
She served in Kentucky as a teacher at Immaculate School, Owensboro (1954-57), teacher and principal at St. Elizabeth School, Curdsville (1958-64), teacher at St. Columba School, Louisville (1967-68) and religion teacher in the parish (1976-77), teacher at St. Edward School, Jeffersontown (1968-69), St. Christopher School, Radcliff (1973-75), and at St. Andrew School, Harrodsburg (1982-84). She was director of religious education at St. Mary Parish, Hillview (1984-89), and served in parish ministry at Emmanuel Church, Albany, and Holy Cross Church, Burkesville (1989-93). She served as pastoral associate at St. John the Baptist Church, Fordsville (1993-98). At Maple Mount, she was receptionist at the Mount Saint Joseph Conference and Retreat Center (1999-2006), oversaw the Quilt Club until 2013, and served as Peace and Justice coordinator.
Sister Eva also taught in Nebraska at St. Joseph School, Paul (1957-58), and was teacher and principal at St. John School, Plattsmouth (1964-67). She served in Missouri as a teacher at Seven Holy Founders School, Affton (1969-73) and teacher and principal at Sacred Heart School, Poplar Bluff (1977-82). She taught one year at St. Paul School, Sellersburg, Ind. (1975-76).
Survivors include the members of her religious community; siblings Doris O’Daniel and Patsy Boone, both of Louisville, Bob Boone of New Haven, Ky., and Newman Boone of Bardstown, Ky.; nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents, Richard Leo and Regina Eva Boone; and her siblings Jerry Boone, June Riley and Ricky Boone.
The funeral Mass will be at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 23, at Mount Saint Joseph, where visitation will begin Wednesday at 4 p.m., with a wake service following at 6:30 p.m.
Glenn Funeral Home and Crematory, Owensboro, is handling arrangements.
Donations in memory of Sister Eva may be made to the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph, 8001 Cummings Road, Maple Mount, KY 42356.
Wake Reflection
Delivered on Jan. 22, 2025, by Sister Sharon Sullivan, congregational leader
Just after 5:30 in the evening on Wednesday, January 15, 2025, Sister Eva Marie Boone completed her earthly journeys of faith, learning, questioning, discovery, sharing, and caring and went home to her loving God. It is interesting that on that same day, the publication – Give Us This Day – featured the life of Saint Ita (or eye-ta). Saint Ita was a popular, sixth-century, legendary Irish Saint, born of noble blood, and known for her early determination to become a nun.
Upon reaching that goal, Saint Ita soon began to think outside the box. Eventually she won renown as the Abbess of a double monastery consisting of both men and women. Saint Ita wrote of her spirituality: “Three things that please God most are true faith in God with a pure heart, a simple life with a grateful spirit, and generosity inspired by charity.” Perhaps she was describing the generous soul that millennia later would become our Sister Eva Boone.
Such reflection could lead us directly to the words of the prophet Micah which also seemed to infuse Sister Eva’s journeys: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” This she did.
Now, it was also a Wednesday when Sister Eva began her earthly journeys on April 25, 1934, as Mary Estelle Boone. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, at Saints Mary and Elizabeth Hospital, Estelle was the fourth child of Richard Leo and Regina Eva Spalding Boone. Ten days later, on Sunday, May 6, 1934, surrounded by her family, Estelle was baptized at Saint Leo the Great Catholic Church in Louisville, and thus began her faith journey.
Just a few years later, when Estelle was four-years-old, her father gave up his job with DeSota Company (and possibly his rumored Kentucky moonshine bootlegging) and the whole family returned to their true Kentucky homeplace in Howardstown. It was over the next decades in Howardstown that the family grew to completion; the first four siblings – Francis Gerald (Jerry), Doris Therese, Margaret June, and Mary Estelle were joined by Patricia Ann, Robert Lawrence, Joseph Newman, and Richard Leo, Jr. (Ricky). Family was incredibly important to Sister Eva, and so to Doris, Pat, Bob, Joe, and all the nieces and nephews, we Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph offer our love and our condolences for your loss, and we extend our thanks to you that you shared Estelle, our Sister Eva, with us.
The Boone’s homeplace in Howardstown was right across the street from the Ursuline convent; it was nestled between the Saint Ann Church and the rectory; and it was just catty-cornered from the Saint Ann School. In short, the Boone family was immersed in and surrounded by all aspects of their Catholic faith. As Estelle started first grade at Saint Ann School in 1940 when she was six-years-old and was later confirmed in May of 1944 when she was ten, she could simply turn around from school or church and see her family house right next door.
Years later, Sister Eva would reflect: “Having been born into an extremely Catholic environment, it would seem inevitable that my [heart and mind] would be heavily laden with Catholic impressions.” In that same 1975 term paper on “Belief and Unbelief,” she would add, “My early experience of frequent Church attendance, daily family prayer, and parochial school education helped to convince [me] that there was a God. . . [and] going directly from a loving, but rigid, Catholic home environment to an even more rigorous Catholic convent life might have made [my] normal growth. . . at least a little less than normal.”
After eight years with the Mount Saint Joseph Ursuline teachers at Saint Ann School, Estelle journeyed beyond Howardstown to Saint Charles High School in Lebanon, Kentucky. Estelle was to study with the Ursulines at Saint Charles High School for just three years, for like Saint Ita of old Ireland, Estelle was impelled by a deep desire to join the Sisters. She wished to become an Ursuline Sister of Mount Saint Joseph.
In fact, Father Bancroft’s letter of recommendation for Mary Estelle to join the Ursulines would assert: “She has been trying to enter the convent for several years.” Now, at that time Estelle was just barely seventeen – so “several years??” However, let’s return to Father Bancroft’s note: “She has been trying to enter the convent for several years and has taken the disappointment very well. . . [Now] her mother and father are very willing and quite proud of her decision.”
Just a few months later, Estelle journeyed to Mount Saint Joseph in Maple Mount and entered as a postulant with seventeen other young women. She began both her postulancy and her senior year of high school that Friday, September 7, 1951. A couple of semesters later, on a Tuesday in June 1952, Estelle earned her diploma and graduated from the Mount Saint Joseph Academy.
She was now ready to begin the next journey within her life; on a Thursday, August 14, 1952, Mary Estelle was invested within the Novitiate of the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph and became Sister Eva Marie Boone. And what a group she joined; the Novitiate class of 1952 included sixteen young women: Sisters Mary Winifred Ball, Eva Marie Boone, Helen Leo Ebelhar, Ruth Gehres, Mary George Hardman, Martin dePorres Metzger, Michael Ann Monaghan, Marie Stephen Mudd, Marian Powers, Vincent Mary Pryor, Gerald Catherine Riney, Ann Bosco Saltzman, Mary Diane Taylor, Mary Claude Thompson, Mary Linus Wathen, and Mary Christopher Williamson. My goodness, what a group!
And to Sister Ruth and Sister Michael Ann we offer our love and prayers as you mourn the loss of your classmate, Sister Eva.
In just two years, on Sunday, August 15, 1954, Sister Eva would make her first vows; then just two weeks later would be ready to begin her teaching ministry with the second grade at the new Immaculate School on Christie Place in Owensboro, Kentucky. Over the next thirty years, Sister Eva would share the journey of Catholic Education with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young students and colleagues.
During this time, Sister Eva would also earn from Brescia College in 1966 her Baccalaureate Degree in Education; she would take further studies in the summers at Catherine Spalding College and Saint Louis University. In 1975, she would begin studying for a masters from LaSalle College in preparation for the next chapter in her life’s journey.
For her first ten years in Catholic parochial school education, Sister Eva served in the early grades, teaching at Immaculate School in Owensboro; Saint Joseph School in Paul, Nebraska; and at Saint Elizabeth School near here in Curdsville. But then for the next twenty years, Sister Eva would find her niche working with children in grades six through eight, those difficult transitional middle school years. She helped young people through those years of questioning and self-discovery both as a classroom teacher and later as a principal in schools in Nebraska, Kentucky, Missouri, and even in Indiana.
Comments from colleagues and those who saw her teach during these school years include plaudits such as:
- Always has a very attractive classroom.
- Has such a comforting, pleasant way of conducting her class.
- Can even make mathematics exciting for her students.
- Has a personal interest in each of her students. . . she brings a calmness with her. . . recognizing the dignity of each of the students.
- Builds a strong faith community among her faculty and staff.
In fact, it seemed Sister Eva could even make a school-wide search for head lice seem like an engaging, pleasant, and supportive journey!
However, as early as 1975, Sister Eva had begun to attend to the call to consider the possibility that her next journey would take her in different directions. She began studying Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry during summers through the graduate program at LaSalle College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1985 she would graduate from LaSalle University with a Master of Arts in Religious Education and would begin 15 years of service in religious education and pastoral ministry within rural parishes in Kentucky. This ministry took her to parishes in Hillview, in Burkesville and Albany in southern Kentucky, and back west to the church in Fordsville in Ohio County.
In a paper, written in the early years of her LaSalle studies, Sister Eva wrote: “I feel I have arrived at a new threshold, where I can continue to ask more questions. . . If I come face to face with God, I would like to know that I have been honest in my drive to understand [about my belief].” She also wrote, “The sense of awe we feel when viewing a work of art – either human made or by nature – the indescribable feeling we experience when hearing a beautiful piece of music, the endless joys we share on different occasions – are these not a form of communication [of love]?” Sister Eva’s belief in the value of questions and the power of awe surrounded her loving work with the parishioners she served during this time of her ministry.
Sister Eva was also deeply in love with Howardstown – both the town and her family; she would often say, “There is nothing as beautiful as Howardstown in the Autumn.” Perhaps she echoed the thoughts of one of Howardstown’s pastors – back when the Ursuline rules of cloister were strict and Sisters were not permitted to visit off the Church property. He would assure the young Sisters, “All of Howardstown is holy, so you can visit wherever you want!”
This love of home and sense of awe embraced her parishioners and encompassed the beauties of the surrounding world. All benefited: her family; her friends and colleagues; A-Frame, her dog; and Bop the cat. Sister Eva was known through this love and awe to accompany migrant families to court appearances, reach out to those she encountered who were in need, and even to travel to Dale Hollow Lake at sunset to befriend the deer gathering to browse. She invested this love and awe in Cursillos, Marriage Encounters, workshops, climate and environmental initiatives, boards, commissions, and councils.
In 1999, when Sister Eva journeyed home to Mount Saint Joseph, she brought with her this same love and awe. For six years she welcomed visitors to the Mount Saint Joseph Conference and Retreat Center, and expanded her creativity – remember her attractive classrooms? – by becoming a quilter with the MSJ Quilt Club. After her time at the Center, while still continuing her quilting ministry, Sister Eva would serve the next eight years as Peace and Justice Coordinator for the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph.
Perhaps this last journey was the culmination of all her earlier journeys of discovery and exploration. When asked about her peace and justice work, she shared, “My duties are to support and educate the community in matters of peace and justice. I look, I explore all available computer sites, for possibilities for us to be involved. . . We need to explore how to make the world more peaceful and just.” Clearly she was still engaging the world in her questions, her discoveries, and her search for understanding.
As her journey began to draw to a close, Sister Eva just kept widening her net. Her creativity continued to flourish with quilting, weaving, and basket-making; and, while she still could, she adopted all who called Mount Saint Joseph home – critters from birds to spiders to butterflies and to Francis, the young homeless owl in the Mount Saint Joseph park.
While Sister Eva longed ever more for the comforting certainty of God’s enfolding arms, she was surrounded by those who shared her love. We thank all her care-givers both in the Villa and among her friends and companions. Remembering her words of fifty years ago, “If I come face to face with God, I would like to know that I have been honest in my drive to understand,” we can say, “Sister Eva, surely now in God’s loving embrace, you understand it all.”
Blessings and thank you for sharing your life with us.
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