Former Nakuspian Sister Hope Marie Fulkco has celebrated her 50th jubilee as a Franciscan Sister of the Atonement.
Hope is the daughter of Nakusp pioneers David and Ellen Fulkco. David arrived here in 1918 and Ellen in 1927.
Hope grew up in Nakusp and attended elementary school and high school here. She entered St. Francis Convent Graymoor in Garrison, New York, on Sept. 27, 1962 and professed her final vows as a a Franciscan Sister of the Atonement on Oct. 3, 1970.
Throughout her 50 years, Hope has been an Atonement Missionary throughout the northeastern United States, California, British Columbia and Alberta doing different kinds of ministry.
Over her 50 years, Hope's ministry has covered teaching religion classes to elementary and high school students preparing them for the first Holy Communion and Confirmation; doing home visiting and taking the census in whatever parish she was involved; and visiting the sick in hospitals and nursing homes.
Hope's happiest years were raising children who were brought to the Atonement Home for boys and girls in Edmonton, where she cared for 50 children aged 2–16.
Hope has spent the last 36 years nursing throughout Alberta, the northeastern United States and in California.
She is presently nursing her senior Sisters at St. Joseph's Home in Edmonton since 1997.
Last year, she traveled with a group of young adults from St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church in Edmonton to Madrid to see the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI and went on to Rome to the Vatican, and to Lourdes, France.