Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm

Since the time of Bishop Maes, no Homes for the Aged had existed in the Diocese. During that time a Catholic Home for the Aged had long been an urgent need. Bishop Mulloy, shortly after his coming to the Diocese, turned his attention to this need. In November, 1948, the Diocese purchased the forty-two acre Kramer estate at Ft.Thomas, Kentucky, which adjoined the property of the Ft. Thomas Rehabilitation Center, as a site for a Diocesan Home for the Aged Poor. The site was a part of the original Eli Kinney Highlands Home Subdivision of the 186-0’s. At the time of the purchase of the estate, there were two buildings on the property, the historic old three-story stone “Kinney Mansion,” and a smaller six-room frame building. In January, 1949, the “Kinney Mansion” was remodeled to serve as a Home for the Aged. The smaller six-room house was converted into a convent for the Sisters.  The Diocesan Home for the Aged was placed under the care of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, a Religious Congregation founded in New York in 1929, under the direction of His Eminence Patrick Cardinal Hayes, with the Motherhouse located at Avila on the Hudson, Germantown, New York. In July, 1949, two Carmelite Sisters, Mother Mary Teresa, O.Carm., and Mother Mary Martin, O.Carm., arrived in the Diocese to oversee the final stages of the remodeling of the new Diocesan Home for the Aged. The Home was blessed by Bishop Mulloy on December 13, 1949, and received the name of Carmel Manor. It was the twentieth foundation of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged in the United States. Carmel Manor was opened in December, 1949, to men and women of the Diocese over sixty-five years of age, who met the qualifications set down by the Carmelite Sisters. Carmel Manor at present serves thirty-seven aged persons. From the very beginning, the Home has been filled to capacity, with a waiting list numbering over two hundred, a fact which speaks of the need of considerable expansion. 

excerpted from History of the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky, on the Occasion of the Centenary of the Diocese, 1853-1953, by Rev. Paul E. Ryan