Sister Mary Elko dies at 92

Sister Mary Elko, who gave 49 of the 73 years she spent as a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul to missions in Bolivia and nine years to a hospital in Baltimore, died Sept. 22 at Villa St. Michael in Emmitsburg. She was 92.

A native of Petersburg, Va., Sister Mary entered the Community of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in October 1943. She earned both her bachelor’s degree in nursing (1953) and her master’s degree in psychiatric nursing (1958) from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

From 1954 to 1963, she served at Mount St. Vincent/Mount Hope Hospital in Baltimore. In 1965, she joined the foreign missions in Bolivia where she nursed in various locations and became director of the AMANECER Program for homeless women and abused or abandoned children.

She joined the ministry of prayer in Emmitsburg in 2014. A funeral Mass was offered there Sept. 29 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.

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