OUR JUBILARIANS
Born in Chicago, Sister Agnes Coveney and her twin sister, Eileen, were number four and five in the middle of eight children born to Eugene and Mary Alice Coveney. The family moved to Dayton, Ohio, where she was educated by Precious Blood Sisters, and then to Columbus, Indiana, where she was taught by the Beech Grove Benedictines. After earning her bachelor of science degree in clinical dietetics at Purdue University, she moved to Louisville to live with Eileen, who was working as a nurse.
Sister Agnes Coveney’s path to becoming an Ursuline Sister of Louisville 40 years ago was that of a serendipitous encounter with them after college. In 1980, Agnes found a job at Humana Hospital-Suburban, and she and Eileen lived in an apartment in the Crescent Hill neighborhood near St. Joseph Children’s Home. While out on an afternoon stroll one day, she saw two Ursuline Sisters in habit watching over children from the home at play in a field behind the orphanage. She introduced herself to the two nuns, Sisters Alodia Thomas and Nunilo Thomas (both blood sisters), and thus began a wonderful friendship. Agnes started coming to the field a few times a week to see the Sisters and the children. Slowly, the idea of becoming a religious sister took hold. Sister Agnes said, “These two Ursulines, so genuine and wise, were the ones who encouraged the spark of the vocation call in me, and that’s how I met and joined the Ursulines.” Sister Agnes also adds, “I wasn’t taught by Ursulines in school, but I was certainly taught by them in my 40 years of Ursuline vowed life! I grew in my sense of being a thinking woman in the Church and in my understanding of the many justice issues that afflict the people of this world and that put in peril God’s creation, our common home, the earth.” A post-Vatican II postulancy and novitiate were different from what most of the older Ursulines had experienced. There were four in her novitiate class and Sister Agnes says, “I always enjoyed the classes and the
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experience of being among other novices and congregations in the intercommunity novitiate that was held in Cincinnati at the Sisters of Charity’s Motherhouse.”
Sister Agnes says that “I’ve worked in health care in one way or another. First, it was as a clinical dietitian at Suburban Hospital and St. Anthony Hospital here in Louisville. Then, I was encouraged by Sr. Angelice Seibert to pursue a graduate degree. I thank the congregation for their support and patience. Their prayers helped me earn that doctorate in health care ethics in 1997 from Loyola University Chicago.” After that, Sister Agnes served in roles that combined mission integration, ethics and outreach in hospitals in Iowa (a Mercy hospital) and Cincinnati (a system with hospitals founded by Methodist Deaconesses and the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati). She speaks with enthusiasm about her years in hospitals and the dedication that the staffs she worked with had for the mission of the organization.
Sister Agnes served on the leadership team of the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville from 2014-2020 and is on the current leadership team. Sister Agnes reflects, “It is rewarding to serve the congregation this way. I am always touched, heart and soul, by the genuine love and faith and life-long witness of service that my Ursuline Sisters give to me, to the Ursuline family, and to the wider community.” The Ursuline Sisters are very blessed to have Sister Agnes’ quiet, thoughtful presence among them.
