Leah Olive Hunter, Sister Mary Constancia

 

Selected, from her obituary: 

Leah Olive Hunter was born in 1887 in Shenandoah.  She studied at Western Normal College in Shenandoah then Nebraska Methodist Hospital in Omaha.  She became a registered nurse in 1911.   Initially she did family nursing in Shenandoah.  In 1926, she entered the Order of St. Anne, an Episcopal order, in 1926, caring for orphan children until 1933.  She converted to the Catholic church in 1933 and entered the Dubuque Franciscan Community in 1934.  She changed her name to Sister Mary Constancia.  She continued nursing at various locations in Dubuque and LeMars.  She retired in 1963 and died in Dubuque in 1978.