Founding Sisters

Sr Carmel Bourke, former boarder and later St Aloysius College Principal (1945 – 1953) wrote the following description of Sr Lucy, who she knew from her boarding school days.

Adelaide Le Couter was born in Argentina on 4 August 1852, her parents having migrated to South America from France. She entered the Sisters of Mercy in Buenos Aires at the tender age of 16 and took the religious name of Lucy. As she was professed as a lay sister, she spent her religious life in humble service of others. The boarders had a great deal to do with Sr Lucy, as her chief domain was the boarding school kitchen and the House of Mercy, and she supervised the serving of all our meals.

She was a tiny Sister, very slender and small in stature and like a little bird in her quick movements. Sr Lucy reigned supreme in her little world and had a good deal of authority. Tiny though she was, we had a good deal of respect for her, and she could issue a sharp reprimand.

Yet she was gentle and kindly, especially if a girl was sick and she was particularly kind to Ruby, and to old Bib and Maria, the last of the inmates of the House of Mercy. Her particular apostolate for years, since coming to Adelaide, had been the supervision of the girls staying in the House of Mercy and she was most attentive to their well-being and future prospects. In her hidden way she had exercised one of the great works of the early Sisters of Mercy.

Sister Lucy was aged twenty-seven when she came to Adelaide. She died at Angas Street on 19 October 1938, at the age of eighty-six and continued her duties right up to the time of her death. She is buried at the West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide.