Sr. Nora Marie Walsh, CCVI, died Feb. 23 at age 67. She had served the ministry since the mid-1960s, including as president and chief executive of Incarnate Word Health Services in San Antonio. (Incarnate Word merged with other Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word ministries in Texas in 1999 to form CHRISTUS Health.)
Born in Ireland in 1944, she entered the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word congregation in Dunmore, Ireland, in 1958. She traveled to the U.S. two years later and then professed her perpetual vows in 1968.
Sr. Walsh earned her bachelor's degree in nursing from what was then Incarnate Word College of San Antonio, a master's in nursing from the University of Alabama and a master's of health administration from Saint Louis University. From 1964 to 1984, Sr. Walsh served as a nurse in ministry hospitals in Texas and Missouri and then in an administrative position at what was then St. John's Hospital of San Angelo, Texas.
She headed Incarnate Word Health Services from 1985 to 1989 and served as its board chair from 1989 to 1996.
Sr. Walsh then became a certified holistic health practitioner and, over the past 15 years, provided these services and continued other work in the Catholic health ministry.