The family moved to Portland, Oregon, where Lenora worked and went to school to become a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) at Multnomah County Hospital. In time, she shared with her family the desire to become a Sister, but she also wanted to care for her mother whose health was failing. With encouragement from her mother, she went to Seattle to enter the Sisters of Providence.
A short time after entering, she remembers saying to the novice director, Sr. Julian, “This is not working for me.” Sister told her to “go to the chapel right now and ask God to keep you here.” Sr. Lenora made first profession in 1956.
She was assigned to Mount St. Vincent Home for the Aged for several years. Eventually, she became a Registered Nurse, serving first in Port Townsend and then in Portland at St. Vincent Hospital.
She earned certification as a chaplain and served in that capacity at a parish in Medford, Oregon. In 1990, she was assigned to Providence Elder Place in Portland. In this capacity, Sr. Lenora made arrangements for the elderly to stay in their own homes and she would visit them regularly to assess their ongoing health needs.
Her next assignment was volunteer service with the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Portland where she prepared food that would be taken to homes of the needy by others. In 2011 she and Sr. Rita Ferschweiler were the last Sisters to move out of the convent at Providence Hall in Portland.
She remembers her time as a nurse in oncology fondly. In one of her more memorable cases, a partnership with a doctor led to a new way of hydrating a struggling patient with watermelon juice – a solution in which she is proud to have played a part.
Sr. Lenora reflects with much gratitude on her life being baptized as an infant and raised by faith-filled parents. One of her greatest influences came from Sr. Elizabeth Claire, SP, whose example taught her what it meant to be of service to others. She is also grateful for Pope John XXIII who opened the church to sunshine with Vatican II.
Of her three sisters and three brothers, two sisters still are living. One is 100 and the other 96 years old.
“They have been wonderful mentors,” she said. “I learned lessons from them and even in difficult times, as I look back, I realize how blessed and grateful I am to God and to the Sisters who have truly graced my life.
“Sisters of Providence are meant to serve the poor. That is our legacy,” she said. “It is a great consolation to see our younger Sisters so devoted to that legacy,” she added. “Provident God, we thank you for all.”