Sister Martha Niemann, CSJ
April 7, 1928 - March 16, 2023
(S. Louis Anne)
Dedicated, hardworking, kind
Edward and Elizabeth (Habiger) Niemann of Piqua, Kansas, welcomed their daughter Martha on April 7, 1928. The only church in town was the Catholic church, and the local one-room school was staffed by the Sisters of Mercy. There was no Catholic high school in the area, but her parents wanted her to have a Catholic education.
An aunt who lived in Kansas City noticed in her church bulletin that families were looking for students to live with them in exchange for room, board and help with childcare. Martha stayed with a family for a year. Then, she and her younger sister, Marion, lived with their aunt for a year, which proved to be too much for their aunt. Deciding to go back to working for room and board, Martha found the O’Flaherty family and stayed with them for the rest of her high school and college years. When she realized that Mrs. O’Flaherty was praying for her vocation, Martha told her, “I want to get married. I want a family. I’m not going to go to the convent.”
With the encouragement of one of her teachers at the College of St. Teresa, she earned a bachelor’s degree in the field of medical technology (1950), which she loved. Although Martha did not particularly desire to live in the prison-gray building that was Carondelet, seeing how content her sister Marion was as a novice of the Sisters of St. Joseph, she felt drawn to religious life. Because their brother had just died and her sister had left home the year before, her parents asked her to wait a while before she entered.
In 1955, Martha entered the community. She received the habit and the name Sister Louis Anne in 1956. Since she already had a degree, she did not have to take college courses with the other novices. She found her novitiate days to be “a very relaxing time, a quiet time.”
In March of 1958, Sister Martha began working as a medical technologist in Kansas City, Missouri.
In September, she returned to the St. Joseph Juniorate to study microbiology. In 1959, she ministered as a medical technologist at St. Joseph Hospital in Kirkwood, Missouri. Four years later, she became the laboratory supervisor. In 1970, she continued her service as a laboratory supervisor at St. Joseph Community Hospital in Hancock, Michigan.
In the mid-1970s, Sister Martha began courses to become a pastoral minister, which became her ministry at St. Joseph Medical Center in Kansas City. In 1977, she became a chaplain at the Medical Center. She found that to be very satisfying.
Sister Martha retired in 2006 and continued her service ministry as a volunteer. In 2015, she spent time volunteering at Journey House, a residential center helping people to find work opportunities after their release from prison. She also visited hospital patients and was a Eucharistic minister. In 2019, she moved to Nazareth Living Center in St. Louis.
In her oral history recording, Sister Martha shared, “My heart is just filled with gratitude for what the community has done for me.”
By Sister Helen Oates