Sister Nancy Lyons, MM
Born: May 19, 1936
Entered: August 22, 1981
Died: January 19, 2025
Sister Agnes Mary Lyons, better known to us as “Nancy”, was born in Hamilton, Scotland on May 19, 1936 to Bridget Dougan Lyons and Michael Lyons. She was one of seven children. However, two sisters died before she was three years old and her sister Fay and brothers Hugh and Patrick have predeceased her. Her brother, Michael, who many of us have the pleasure of knowing is here with us now along with Betta, his wife, and Nancy’s best friend.
After grade school, Nancy attended St. Mary’s High School in Hamilton, graduating in 1953. She worked at several jobs until 1956, when she entered LAW General Hospital, Carluke, Scotland, and received her RN certificate on January 1, 1960.
In 1961, she immigrated to Cleveland and worked at Mt. Sinai Hospital before moving to Oakland, California in 1963, where she worked at St. Mary’s Hospital. On October 24, 1967, she became a citizen of the United States.
For the Lyons family, the message was “Look after one another!”, so she was joined in California by her sister Fay, and brothers, Michael and Patrick. Her mother made sure to spend six to nine months of each year there with her children.
The Operating Room was Nancy’s field of choice. She became OR manager and then Supervisor for seven years at St. Mary’s Hospital, during which time she also helped design its new surgical suite. She resigned her position there in 1979.
At that time, she wrote: “I went to a Charismatic Prayer Retreat with a friend. I left speechless and tongue-tied over the manifestation of God’s love for me.” Four months later, sponsored by Catholic Relief Services, she went to Thailand to work in a Cambodian refugee camp from November 1979 to August 1980. Afterwards she said, “How little one needs to live in this world” and “what a privilege it is to really work with the poor.” However, she said that at that time, vocation to the religious life never entered her mind.
Eventually, she did begin to feel that God was calling her to religious life, but where? An article on Maryknoll appealed to her at once, but she was 42 years old! Nancy, herself, admitted that the idea of religious life at her age scared her!
In spite of her age, Nancy was accepted into the novitiate at Maryknoll, NY on August 22, 1981; and made her First Profession of Vows on December 11, 1982 at Maryknoll, NY.
Sr. Nancy was assigned to Bangladesh on January 1, 1983, but reassigned to Kenya-Sudan Region on July 1, 1983. Her first mission in Bura, eastern Kenya, is an isolated area where she did dispensary/health work and organized a nursery school.
In 1985, Nancy visited the Sudan. Sisters Ruth Greble and Jeanne Yamashiro were working in Juba and took her to Kworijik, a village outside of Juba, where Sisters Marilyn Norris had a clinic and Mary Ellen Manz had established a parish primary school. Nancy asked to stay at Kworijik, and stay she did. She had a natural talent with little children and before long, dozens of little pre-school children and toddlers were lining up to be fed some of the porridge prepared for the school children; and a health program for the mothers and their babies was also soon started.
In July 1986, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) had the Juba area under siege and all were warned to leave the village at once. Everyone left, carrying what they could. On Sunday, July 20, village girls told the sisters that it was safe to go to Kworijik. Nancy and Sister Sean Underwood, a Medical Missionary who was living with our sisters in Juba, left in a car to go and see. They were attacked after entering the mission compound, captured by an SPLA patrol, and made to walk for miles to the rebel camp. There they were held for five days and released the night of the fifth day along with an elderly village man and a young girl. The next morning they were found by the northern army and taken to Juba, questioned and finally released. The governor of Juba declared them “persona non grata”, expelling the two from the country. However, Bishop Paride Taban arrived and insisted that the two sisters were not spies, but missionaries working to help the people. The governor relented, but said that still the two must leave the Sudan in order to rest. After many tries to get a visa back into the Sudan, Nancy succeeded in 1987 and returned to Kworijik.
On May 4, 1989, now in a displaced camp, all the people of Kworijik gathered for Nancy’s Final Profession of vows at a Mass concelebrated by the Archbishop of Juba with most of the priests from the area. Religious Sisters and Brothers came from Juba and from nearby. The people seemed to grasp very well the meaning of what was taking place. To show their appreciation and love for Nancy, they gave her the name “Keji” which means “Favorite Daughter”.
In August 1992, all missionary expatriates were ordered to leave by the Khartoum government, and on August 20, they boarded a huge Russian cargo plane and wept as they looked down on Juba, while the plane circled up and up over the airport to avoid being shot out of the sky by the SPLA.
In June 1993, after ten months of rest, medical, and psychological exams at Maryknoll, NY, Nancy and her Sudan community, plus Sister Joan Sauvigne were in a plane flying back to Africa, this time to the diocese of Torit, in SPLA territory at the invitation of Bishop Paride Taban.
They first settled in the Acholi tribal parish of Loa in July 1993. Nancy reached out to the smallest children, and with the help of older girls taught them games and songs. But, once again, in early February we were packing up and leaving immediately because the two armies were approaching. At a Diocesan meeting held in Uganda, Bishop Taban assigned the Maryknoll Sisters to Chukudum among the Didinga Tribe. This was in an area controlled by the SPLA and possibly safer from raids, except for occasional bombings.
Nancy was in Chukudum from May 1994 to 1997, helping organize classes to teach teen-age girls and women, reactivating the parish women’s center and helping with classes in the new Diocesan Pastoral Center for training diocesan catechists and teachers.
Nancy returned to Scotland to care for her mother in 1997. After her mother’s death in 2000, Nancy returned to Maryknoll for Congregational Service and for medical attention before returning to Africa in 2001.
On returning to Africa, Nancy opted to remain with Sister Ruth, helping to administer the Africa World Section House in Nairobi, and volunteered service in the Kibera parish ministered to by the Guadalupe Fathers. Kibera is known as the largest, worst slum in all of East Africa. Nancy saw the terrible conditions of the smallest children, playing in the filth of muddy paths with open sewerage. Of course, something had to be done! She first found women in Kibera who were high school graduates, willing to learn to become Kindergarten teachers. Eventually, three very simple, huge rooms were constructed in three different sections of Kibera. Finally, three genuine Kindergartens opened, changing the lives of the extremely poor children living in unbelievable conditions.
In April 2006, Sisters Ruth and Nancy left Nairobi and Africa to return to Maryknoll, NY.
Nancy was assigned from the Sudan to the U.S. Western Region on August 1, 2007 and arrived in Walnut Creek, Oakland, CA on August 8. She introduced herself to the parish priest, and began discerning what parish needs and interests there were for volunteer service.
From 2008 to 2014, Nancy was a visitor at the Women’s Federal Detention Center, Monument Crisis Center, and Contra Costa County Hospice Care.
In 2015, Nancy was assigned from the Western Region to Monrovia, CA where she was welcomed in that community for the next eight years.
Nancy’s health began to decline and on November 1, 2022, she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center and the Eden Community where her health needs could be more readily cared for.
At the time of her death on Sunday, January 19, 2025, Sister Nancy was 89 years old and a Maryknoll Sister for 44 years.
We welcome our Maryknoll brother, Fr. John Lang, MM, our Presider as we celebrate this Liturgy of the Resurrection.