ATLANTA--Sister M. Loretta Purcell, OP, one of the founders of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cancer Home, died Saturday, May 28, at the home where she had served her entire religious life. She was 89.

Raised in Flushing, N.Y., Sister Loretta professed her first vows to the Hawthorne Dominican Sisters in 1938. She had wanted to be a sister since grade school, but put the decision aside for years to care for her widowed father.

One of the co-founders of the order, Alice Huber, known as Mother Rose in religious life, interviewed this small woman with a late vocation and accepted her into the order. Mother rose assigned Sister Loretta to be one of the sisters to open the new home in Atlanta. In 1939, Sister Loretta made the trip to Atlanta by train with Mother Rose and another sister.

One of her most famous patients was s child named Mary Ann, a young girl who unexpectedly lived 13 years at the home, about whom the sisters wrote a book with an introduction by Flannery O’Connor.

A confirmed sports fan, Sister Loretta was particularly supportive of the Georgia Bulldogs, receiving a visit and gifts from then Coach Vince Dooley.

Sister Loretta served as a nurse, a bookkeeper and filled in as a cook during her decades at the home. She had retired several years ago and had been bedridden about a month before her death.

The funeral Mass for Sister Loretta was held in the home’s chapel June 1. Dom Bernard Johnson, OCSO, was the principal celebrant. Concelebrants included Trappist monks, Dom Augustine, Father Clarence and Father Charles, as well as home chaplain Father Joseph Drohan and Msgr. Donald Kieran. The Mass was attended by many volunteers and auxiliary members and by two nephews and a niece from California.

Sister Loretta was buried in Westview Cemetery.