Why would the April 1982 Sunstone Review print an obituary for a Catholic nun?

Lurlene Romney Cheney had plenty of Mormon roots. She was born in Colonia Juarez, Mexico, a colony established by Mormon polygamists to escape the wrath of U.S. federal laws. She was married in the Salt Lake Temple and had two children. Her older brother was Marion G. Romney, who was an LDS apostle from 1951–1988.

But what caught the Sunstone Review’s eye was the fact that, at age 52, Cheney joined a Carmelite order of cloistered nuns in Holladay, Utah, and changed her name to Mary Catherine.

Though she was a cloistered nun, she took on the role of “extern,” meaning that she was the liaison between the monastery’s nuns and the outside world. And, true to her Mormon roots, she engaged in missionary work.

One of her converts was Barbara Whipperman, who, like Cheney, was LDS. Whipperman grew up in Sugarhouse, Utah, and was such a pious Mormon that she threw out her parents’ cans of coffee.

While in her mid-20s, Whipperman went to visit the Carmel of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Monastery in Holladay, Utah, which had only been going for five years at the time. There she met Cheney.

“Her brother was down on Temple Square and she was here—a nun,” Whipperman told the Salt Lake Tribune. “And that’s all I needed to know. I stepped forth in faith. Blind faith.” She was baptized into the Catholic Church later that year and soon joined the Holladay monastery where she, too, served as extern nun.

Cheney remained with the Carmelite order until her death on January 19, 1982.