Sister Mary Lee Hansen

Sister Mary Lee (Concepta Marie)

Hansen, age 89, died on February 1, 2023, at Nazareth Home-Clifton. She graduated from Technical High School in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1951 and entered the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville in 1957. Sister Mary Lee celebrated her 60th jubilee in 2017.

Sister Mary Lee obtained a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Ursuline College, Louisville, and a master’s degree in education from Creighton University, Omaha.

In Louisville, Sister Mary Lee taught in the 1960s and early 1970s at Our Mother of Sorrows, Saint Raphael, and Our Lady of Lourdes parish schools, as well as Sacred Heart Model School. She was also on the faculties of schools in Omaha, Nebraska; Columbia, South Carolina; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Of contracting polio right after high school, Sister Mary Lee said, “I don’t see any of these things that have happened to me as something to mourn, or to ask why God did that to me. That was not part of the way I thought. You look at God and look at what He had to go through, and the Blessed Mother, what she had to go through.”

Post-polio issues forced her to give up teaching, but God opened a door to a new ministry. Beginning in 1974, Sister served the Ursuline Sisters as the director of communications, and then as an administrative assistant to the Leadership Team until 2005.

Sister Mary Lee also enjoyed calligraphy, painting watercolors and photography. In 2017, she reflected, “When I get finished, I look at it and say: ‘That must be how God feels. It may not be perfect, but it’s mine.’ God wouldn’t do this, but once in a while I do pitch something!”

Sister Mary Lee is the daughter of the late Emil and Opal Cossairt Hansen. She was also preceded in death by her brother, Don Hansen, and is survived by her sister-in-law, Anne Clark, of Salome, Arizona; niece, Ronda Bowley; great-nieces and nephews, as well as her community of Ursuline Sisters and Associates.