Patricia Hill, SCN, 88, (formerly Sister Patricia Marie) was born in Louisville, Kentucky. She died on July 28, 2020, in Nazareth, Kentucky. She was a professed Sister of Charity of Nazareth for 68 years.
Sister Pat served in educational ministries, teaching primary grades at schools in Kentucky and Ohio from 1952-1972. She was also principal at St. Mary Grade School in St. Clairsville, Ohio.
In 1972, Sister Pat began an internship at Montessori School in Columbus, Ohio and earned a Master’s Degree in Montessori Education at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was inspired by this innovative approach to education and founded the King Center Montessori School in Nazareth, Kentucky in 1973. It was later renamed Nazareth Montessori Children’s Center and is now called the St. Joseph Montessori Children’s Center. Sister Pat taught at the Montessori School for 46 years, until her retirement in 2019.
Sister Pat enjoyed the arts and served as a volunteer with the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts in Louisville for 40 years.
Preceding her in death are her parents, Sylvester and Elizabeth Hill; her brothers, Sylvester Hill, Edwin Hill, Jerome Anthony; and her sisters, Elizabeth Raque, Vera Heckmann and Mary Jane Hill. She is survived by her siblings, Martha Owens, Frankie Mills, Jerry Hill, Doris Lincoln, Evie Gallusser, and sister-in-law Katie Hill. She is also survived by several nieces and nephews and by her religious community.
- Sister Pat will be buried in the Nazareth Cemetery on Tuesday, August 4, 2020, at 1:30 p.m. The prayer ritual will be filmed and will be shared.
- A memorial Mass will be held at a later date.
Funeral Arrangements are being handled by Houghlin-Greenwell Funeral Home, 1475 New Shepherdsville Road, Bardstown, KY 40004. Memorials may be offered to the Office of Mission Advancement, P.O. Box 9, Nazareth, KY, 40048.
Sister Pat’s love and encouragement to young children for so many years was a true testament to her calling. She taught us all to respect and give dignity to each other so that our true nature as a child of God could develop and be revealed as our own unique expression.
My sister, a genuine treasure, and a constant inspiration to our family and the family of her sisters at Nazareth, as well as the enormous and extended family of her many, many students and their parents over the years. What a blessing she was and will always be.