A gentle giant.
     A blessing.
     A good friend.

Sister Marie Joseph stands behind senior companion clients Louise and Allen. Louise says, "Sister is a blessing to both of us." Allen says, "I think she's great!"

     Sister Marie Joseph Coomes, a tiny, soft-spoken Ursuline Sister of Mount Saint Joseph, is being called all of the above as she settles into her newest ministry as a senior companion for Audubon Area Community Services. She is completing one year of caring for three clients in the volunteer program, which is an agency of the United Way. She visits an elderly couple twice a week and an elderly woman three times a week. The main focus of the four-hour sessions is companionship, but she is also there to do light housework for them, to take them to the doctor, the bank, the grocery. She even takes them to vote when there is an election.
     In the short time she has been associated with the program, she has earned the admiration, respect and love of her clients, her fellow volunteers, and her supervisor. The clients call her “a blessing” and “a good friend.” Her immediate supervisor calls her “a gentle giant.”
     Sister Marie Joseph was a natural for the role of senior companion. For a quarter of a century, she had helped care for those in need in the Mount Saint Joseph Infirmary and Saint Joseph Villa.
     Sister Marie Joseph Coomes is a native of Daviess County. She was born on a farm 15 miles east of Owensboro in the Knottsville area, the first of nine children (five girls and four boys) born to J.B. Coomes, a farmer, and Josetta Coomes, a homemaker. Her youngest sibling – Theresa Roby – died of leukemia this past January. All of her other siblings survive as well as her father, now 86 years old and living in Philpot.

Senior Companion program manager Cathy Campbell calls Sister Marie Joseph a "gentle giant." She says, "Sister always puts her clients before herself."

     Raised in Saint Lawrence parish, Sister Marie Joseph attended Saint Lawrence Grade School where she was taught by the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph and, in the third grade, had her first thoughts of becoming an Ursuline Sister. “I thought of it back then,” she recalls, “but I didn’t think about it very long. I put it out of mind. I didn’t think it was something I could do.” Those thoughts wouldn’t resurface for many years.
     After grade school, it was on to Saint William High School in Knottsville, where she was Ursuline-taught for four more years before graduating in 1959. “I did have one lay teacher in high school,” Sister Marie Joseph recalls. “Her name was Mary Rose Shoemaker. Except for her, all of my teachers in grade school and high school were Mount Saint Joseph Ursulines and only one of them survives today – Sister Mary Evelyn Duvall, who is ministering in New Mexico (as librarian at Saint Francis of Assisi School, Gallup, New Mexico).”
     At different times after high school, Sister Marie Joseph again felt a calling to religious life, but she remained at home, where she was busy helping her mother with her younger siblings and with chores on the farm. “I’d hoe the garden, pick vegetables, feed the chickens and even mow the yard,” she recalls.
     In addition to working on the farm, Sister Marie Joseph worked in town at Newberry’s and Kresge’s as a sales clerk during the busy Easter and Christmas seasons.

Sister Marie Joseph with teacher, mentor, friend, Sister Mary Evelyn Duvall.

     She then made a big move and went to work fulltime as a factory worker at the Cigar Factory, making cigars. She worked at that job for four years. While she was working at the Cigar Factory, her thoughts about religious life returned. She remembers,  “I kept having these thoughts, Should I be a nun?” 
     It was also during this time that Sister Mary Evelyn Duvall, who had left the Knottsville area, returned to Saint Lawrence and was teaching some of Sister Marie Joseph’s younger siblings. She contacted Sister Mary Evelyn and they talked about her wanting to become an Ursuline Sister. “She then helped me get ready to go the Mount,” Sister Marie Joseph fondly recalls.
     She became a postulant on September 6, 1964. She started college level courses at the Mount and later took summer school classes in Owensboro at Brescia College.
     She began her teaching career in 1968, teaching first grade at Sacred Heart Grade School in Waverly, Kentucky, for two years.
     She then taught for four years in the Flaherty, Kentucky, public school system, teaching third grade at Flaherty Grade School, which was located on the grounds of Saint Martin Church. One year she had 34 children in her class, 25 boys and only nine girls.

Sister Marie Joseph and Sister Alicia have been best friends for many years.

     Then it was on to Saint Martin in Rome, teaching first grade for one year; Saint Frances in Loretto, teaching third grade for two years; and then the public grade school at Raywick, on the grounds of Saint Francis Xavier Church, teaching first grade and part of second for one year.
     Along the way, Sister Marie Joseph earned her B.S. degree from Brescia and her masters in education from Western Kentucky University.
     Her one year of teaching at Raywick would prove to be her last year in the classroom. “I was 29 when I started teaching, and after 10 years I asked to get out of teaching for a while,” Sister Marie Joseph explains. “And that while has grown into 29 years!
     “They asked if I would work in the infirmary, and I told them I’d try. I had no healthcare or nursing background, but I still said yes. I took Sister Joseph Cecelia Muller’s famous six-week training program and began work in September of 1978.”
     After working as a nurse’s aid for four years, Sister Marie Joseph left health care to maintain the prayer house for four years, the last three under spiritual director Sister Fran Wilhelm.
     She returned to the infirmary – which was located in the Lourdes building at that time – and spent one whole year following Sister Alicia Coomes around in her job as healthcare receptionist and supply coordinator. Sister Alicia was preparing to go off to nursing school, and Sister Marie Joseph had been asked to take over her job while she was gone.

Sister Marie Joseph's 86-year-old father, J. B. Coomes, lives in nearby Philpot.

    “Things were changing in the healthcare scene at the Mount,” Sister Marie Joseph  recalls. “The younger sisters were getting nursing degrees – Sister Jacinta (Powers), Sister Betsy (Moyer), Sister Rebecca (White) and Sister Claudia (Hayden).”
     When Sister Alicia returned with her nursing degree, she was named director of nursing, and Sister Marie Joseph was formally named receptionist and supply coordinator. She stayed on the job for 20 years.
     One of the highlights of her many years in healthcare was the move into the new Saint Joseph Villa in 2002. “It was a beautiful building,” she recalls. “It was nice, very clean, and everything.” She added with a giggle, “I had a hard time learning the systems to get in and out of the building.
     “Overall, it’s so nice. I also learned a little bit about the computers, all kinds of things.”
     Sister Marie Joseph retired from the Villa two years ago. She took a one- year sabbatical, living at Blessed Mother parish, reading books and doing volunteer work. She took a trip to Europe with her closest friend, Sister Alicia, who was celebrating her 25th jubilee, and 46 other people.
     Sister Marie Joseph’s life took another unexpected turn in March 2006 when she answered an ad for the Audubon Area Community Services’ Senior Companion program. She was hired, went through orientation, and was assigned to three clients.
     Sister Marie Joseph visits Allen and Louise twice a week. “She’s very special to us,” says Louise when asked about Sister Marie Joseph and her visits. “She’s a blessing to both of us. What she does, she does well. We’re thankful to have her. We thank God for her every day.”

Joining Sister Marie Joseph at the celebration of her 40th Jubilee were classmates, l. to r., Sisters Marie Michael Friedman, Barbara Jean Head, Mary Ellen Backes, Emma Anne Munsterman, Ann McGrew, Mary Henning, and Maureen Griner.

     Allen, a retired salesman, says, “I think she’s great. From the first day she came into our home she fit right in. She’s just like one of the family. We love her. She’s just one of us.”
     Client Hazel has similar feelings about Sister Marie Joseph and the visits she makes to her home. She says, “Not only is Sister Marie a blessing, she has also become a good friend. Because I’m not able to take care of my aging mother and my disabled daughter, Sister is a real comfort to me.”
     Cathy Campbell is manager of the Audubon Area Community Services’ Senior Companion Program. Sister Marie Joseph is one of 86 volunteers Cathy oversees in the program. Allen, Louise and Hazel are three of 240 clients served by the volunteers in seven Green River Area counties.          
     As Cathy talked about the program, it became obvious Sister Marie Joseph is one of her favorite volunteers. When her name was mentioned, her face lit up, she broke into a smile and said, “Sister Marie is a gentle giant. She puts her clients before herself. There have been times when she’s gone to her clients even when she’s not feeling very well herself because she knew they needed her. She’s very dependable. Anything asked of her she does.”
     Cathy continued, “Sister recently received special training to serve Hospice clients, which has expanded her service to the community.”
     How has she enjoyed her new venture? Says Sister Marie Joseph, “When you realize you can’t keep up the pace you once kept up, there is a relief in a way, but yet you have the knowledge that you are helping people – and you are being helped also.”
     Even though she is beyond retirement age, Sister Marie Joseph says she has no plans for retirement. “I enjoy what I’m doing,” she says. “As long as I have the health to tend to my clients’ needs, I will do so.” 

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