Three Sisters of Mercy from the South Central Community are celebrating jubilees this year. A press release from the community noted that, though their numbers in the Archdiocese of Louisville are few, the Sisters of Mercy have been a presence here since 1869. That’s the year they arrived at the old Marine Hospital in Louisville’s Portland neighborhood and began caring for wounded service men and river boat men.
Celebrating 75 years as a Sister of Mercy is Sister Mary Rosalia Schroering, a native of Louisville, who has ministered for 35 years in elementary and secondary schools in Cincinnati, Springfield and Columbus, Ohio, and in Louisville at Mercy Academy and Assumption High School.
After a brief time in parish ministry, Sister Schroering directed business services at Sacred Heart Home in Louisville and at Marcum & Wallace Hospital in Irvine, Ky. She also served at Project AIMM and at the Sister Visitor Center in Louisville.
Sister Schroering served for 10 years as the coordinator of financial services for Shively Area Ministries. Sister Schroering also served with the community of developmentally challenged residents at Day Spring’s Baxter Avenue campus, and continues her connections with Day Spring. She also assists refugee families sponsored in the Louisville area by Catholic Charities.
Sisters Mary Corinne Burt and Elizabeth Jean Mills are both celebrating their 60-year anniversaries as Sisters of Mercy.
Sister Burt is a Kentucky native who grew up in Louisville and served in elementary and secondary education for more than 30 years in Louisville and Paducah, Ky.
In Louisville, she taught at Mercy Academy and Assumption High School. She also taught in Nashville, Tenn., and in Kingston, Jamaica.
Her education ministry also included serving as a principal, library duties and substitute teacher. She continues to work as a volunteer at Mercy Academy.
Sister Mills was born in Uniontown, Ky., and grew up in Morganfield. She worked in the business office of Mercy Hospital in Morganfield, and that is where she first encountered the Mercy Sisters.
She served in elementary education for more than 40 years in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton and Springfield, Ohio, and Paducah, Pewee Valley, La Grange and Louisville, Ky.
Though retired, Sister Mills is to serve at the retirement convent where she resides, and where she is known as “the flower lady.”
That’s because she routinely keeps the chapel and dining room bedecked with flowers of all types.
Sister Mills also ministers to the sick at the convent infirmary.
