WALSH, ELLEN E. (1867-1946)

WALSH, ELLEN E., Sister Dwyer of the Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph; teacher and superior at Chatham, 1921-24; b. 20 Oct 1867, d/o Richard Walsh and Ann Dwyer; sister of Catherine Walsh and Richard D. Walsh; entered religious life, 1887; d. Chatham, 19 Jul 1946.

After studying at St Michael's Academy, Ellen E. Walsh became a teacher. She held a 2nd class license in June 1887, at which time she reported two and a half years of teaching experience in Chatham and elsewhere. In the same year, at age twenty, she entered the novitiate of the Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph. Like her sister Catherine Walsh, she taught and served as principal of St Michael's. She had nineteen and a half years of classroom and administrative experience by 1906-07.

Walsh retired from teaching at a relatively young age and took on other responsibilities within the religious community at Chatham. In 1915 she was made mistress of novices, and in 1921 she was elected superior. Her term of leadership was renewed in 1924, but illness overcame her, and she was forced to resign in November of that year.

In 1929 Walsh was one of three Chatham Sisters who went to New London, Wisconsin, to assist in the opening of a new hospital. "She generously lent herself" and "proved to be a great moral support to the other sisters." After four years, however, her health had become so much impaired that she returned to Chatham. She soon lost her eyesight. The infirmary was her home in the years prior to her death in 1946, at age seventy-eight.