Sister Marie de Lourdes Falk, who worked with the Denver Catholic housing office for 20 years, died in Leavenworth, Kan., on Wednesday. She was 82.
Services will be in Leavenworth, where her order, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, has its headquarters.
She had been in failing health for more than a year, said her sister, Pat Falk of Denver.
Marie Falk managed one of the six Denver metro high-rise apartment buildings (Holy Family) that the archdiocese built for seniors and low-income people. Sister Owen Marie Falk, sister of Marie Falk, was the activities director at the same building. There are several other housing units outside of Denver.
Before that, Marie Falk was an elementary- and middle- school teacher and principal for 30 years, working in the West and Midwest. She was the principal at St. Bernadette Catholic School in Lakewood for many years.
“She was a wonderful person with a sense of humor that could just draw you in,” said Sister Peg Johnson of Leavenworth, another member of the order.
At the housing unit Falk managed, she learned line dancing so she could teach it to seniors.
“She was a character,” Pat Falk said.
In her memoirs, Marie Falk wrote, “Learn to dance. Otherwise the angels in heaven won’t know what to do with you.”
Dolores Helen Falk was born in Fort Collins on Feb. 15, 1928, and earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education at the University of St. Mary in Leavenworth.
She changed her name to Marie de Lourdes when she took final vows in 1949 in the Sisters of Charity. She was a member for 63 years.
After retiring, she and her biological sister, Sister Owen Marie Falk, visited oncology wards at St. Joseph Hospital in Denver. Every day for 10 years, they visited with those waiting for radiation treatments, said Pat Falk.
“Some patients said they were scared to death” and said they found some comfort from the two nuns who “would laugh and cry with them,” said Pat Falk. “They tried to give the people some lighter moments,” including giving graduation ceremonies for those who had completed treatment.
Marie Falk volunteered at the hospital until November, when she moved to Leavenworth.
In addition to her sisters, she is survived by another sister, Anne Brenner of Denver.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
