She served with the Dominican Sisters of Hope (formerly the Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor) for 47 years.

"She was very committed to people in need," said a friend, Kathleen Hebbeler, OP, of the Women's Connection in Price Hill. "She spent her life caring for people. She was a very joyful person."

Born in 1936 in Somerset, Ohio, Sr. Mary Ellen graduated from the Columbus School of Practical Nursing in 1956.

From 1963 to 1986, Sr. Mary Ellen worked in home health nursing and pastoral care in Columbus, Minneapolis, and in Ossining, the Bronx, Harlem and Hampton Bays, N.Y. She operated an Appalachian gift shop in Mariandale, in Ossining, for 10 years, where quilts and other handmade items were sold, and the profits sent to the Appalachian people who made the crafts.

Sr. Mary Ellen lived in the West End from 1987 until 2001. In 1989, she became a house manager for Bethany House Services, a shelter for women and children. She coordinated the pickups of household items for families moving out of the shelter and into their own apartments.

She also volunteered at the Peaslee Neighborhood Center in Over-the-Rhine and the Women's Connection.

Sr. Mary Ellen was a member of St. Joseph Parish in the West End. She was a Eucharistic minister and took communion to housebound parishioners.

Illness forced her to retire in 1999, but she continued to volunteer at Bethany House as a receptionist.

Her survivors include three sisters, Sister M. Clarita Elder, OP, of Columbus, Eleanor Kelley of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, and Ellen Jones of Seattle; and a brother, James, of Tucson, Ariz.

Burial was in St. Joseph Cemetery in Columbus. A memorial service is 5 p.m. Oct. 16 in the main chapel of Mariandale Retreat Center, 299 N. Highland Ave., Ossining, N.Y.

Memorials: The Dominican Sisters of Hope, 916 York St., Cincinnati, OH 45214.

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E-mail kandrew@enquirer.com