Slain nuns being honored in funerals in Kentucky, Wisconsin

Merrill’s funeral was held at St. Vincent Church on the leafy home campus of her religious order, the Kentucky-based Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.

The scholarship will honor the lives of Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill.

“They needed the people of MS, and the people of MS needed them”, said Darlene Nicgorski, a friend of Held’s for 50 years. Sister Held earned a master’s degree in 1994 and served for many years as a preceptor for The W’s family nurse practitioner students. Sister Merrill was found murdered in her MS home August 25.

Johnnie Sue Wijewardane, head of graduate nursing at The W, said that both Sister Held and Sister Merrill had touched many W students, past and present.

Merrill and another nun, Sister Margaret Held, were stabbed to death a week ago in their home in Durant, Miss., where they worked in a medical clinic.

Sister Held, 68 at the time of her death, was a Wisconsin native who graduated from Alverno College and taught before turning to social work and nursing.

“She listened when so many others would not listen”, Fehribach said.

Her patients told stories “of jobs lost, of a minimum wage not covering both medicine and food for the table, of home violence, and racism experienced, of becoming hooked on pain pills because some doctor had overused a prescription pad, of just not being able to resist the snacks despite being a diabetic”, Sister Fehribach said. Sister Merrill, with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth and. “She listened with love, knowing she was encountering the suffering Christ”. “Let us hold everyone involved in prayer”. The casket containing the remains of Sister Paula Merrill leads the processional to her final resting place, following her funeral service, Friday, Sep. Sister Merrill was murdered in MS last week.