Biography
Elizabeth was a sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) and Plowshares peace activist arrested for a disarmament action and held at the Bay County Jail in Saginaw, Michigan. Convicted of federal sabotage and depredation of government property. Documented in PFOC Breakthrough magazine.
Calculated incarceration date for the stay ending November 18, 1985: September 19, 1985. This is obtained by subtracting the reported 60 days actually served from the release date, using elapsed-day counting. It is a calculated date, not a separately documented admission date.
Calculated release date for the stay beginning September 9, 2000: September 15, 2000, adding the recorded completed custody duration of 6 days with elapsed-calendar-day counting. This is a calculated date from the recorded admission and duration, not a separately documented physical-discharge date.
Calculated release date
Calculated release date for the stay beginning September 9, 2000: September 15, 2000, adding the recorded completed custody duration of 6 days with elapsed-calendar-day counting. This is a calculated date from the recorded admission and duration, not a separately documented physical-discharge date.
Calculated incarceration date
Calculated incarceration date for the stay ending November 18, 1985: September 19, 1985. This is obtained by subtracting the reported 60 days actually served from the release date, using elapsed-day counting. It is a calculated date, not a separately documented admission date.
Birth-year source
- St. Petersburg Times, April 21, 1990 — identifies Sister Elizabeth Walters as 47 during her imprisonment for the missile-silo protest, supporting 1943 as her birth year.
Separate completed 1985 Williams imprisonment
Sister Elizabeth Walters was released November 18, 1985 after serving 60 days for refusing a fine for disturbing the peace and conspiracy to do so in the Williams International resistance campaign. The report expressly verifies the completed 60 days and release, but no exact first admission; no admission is back-calculated. This is a separately identified Williams case, not the existing unlocated sabotage and federal depredation Plowshares case.
The Nuclear Resister No.36, December 9, 1985, original PDF pages 2.
Separate documented 1986 Wurtsmith imprisonment
The December 12, 1986 report and its current-prisoner directory individually identify Elizabeth Walters as actually imprisoned for repeated peace leafleting at Wurtsmith Air Force Base. The printed nominal term is ninety-day, and the historical place is Bay County Jail, Michigan. This is a distinct Wurtsmith sentence-service episode, not the later sabotage/property-damage case already stored. No exact initial arrest, sentence-admission or discharge day is supplied. Directory estimates in February or April 1987 are not verified releases, and the nominal term is not converted to an actual completed total. Her support fast began December 5; that is not a prison-admission date.
The Nuclear Resister No.43, December 12, 1986: Original PDF page 2 (printed page 1); Original PDF page 4 (printed page 3).
Contemporary 1986 custody evidence
For Sister Elizabeth Walters’s May 11, 1986 Wurtsmith arrest, the contemporary update reports conviction and August 19 sentencing to 45 days, while the current-prisoner directory places her in Bay County Jail. October 7 is a prospective release, not a confirmed discharge. This earlier 45-day sentence is not silently merged into the later December report of a ninety-day Wurtsmith stay; any relationship or intervening freedom requires further evidence. No physical admission date or completed 45-day total is inferred.
The Nuclear Resister No. 41, September 18, 1986, original PDF page 4 (printed 3), The Nuclear Resister No. 41, September 18, 1986, original PDF page 6 (printed 5).
Walters had completed forty-five days before receiving a separate ninety-day sentence October 27.
The August 1982 Sawyer account individually identifies this resister among four held overnight, refused recognizance August 10 and kept in Marquette County Jail for fifteen reported days before suspended sentences. No discharge day is inferred from the August 23 sentencing.
Her congregation’s biography describes Elizabeth Walters’s upbringing in southwest Detroit and her teaching assignments at Our Lady of Lourdes in River Rouge and St. Patrick School in Detroit. Her later educational work included Marygrove College. IHM Sisters, Elizabeth Walters biography, pages 1–2.
