As a girl growing up in Phoenix in the early 1920s, Sister Rosemary Lynch would ride her bicycle to the edge of town and take morning walks amid the ocotillo and saguaro. She became enchanted by the Native America lore and learned to speak the language of the desert.

That clear-eyed curiosity and adventurous spirit would serve her well in years to come as a Franciscan sister. Her selfless spiritual service has taken her throughout the United States and Mexico to Europe, Africa, Indonesia and all the way to Las Vegas.

As she approaches her 90th birthday April 1, you'll find Sister Rosemary at the Franciscans' Bartlett Street house, where charitable programs are administered to the poor of pocket and spirit. Like the girl she was, she still awakens early to take her sunrise walks. These days, Sister Klaryta Antoszewska joins her as they make their way through the care-worn neighborhood near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue.

"My first prayer of the day is one of gratitude that I can get up in the morning and that I still have the faculties that God graced me with, and that I still have enough health to go through the day," she says. "Sister Klaryta and I try to take a walk every morning. We walk around our neighborhood. We walk for the better part of an hour as a rule. It's a very wonderful time of the morning."

Like most places rich and poor in Southern Nevada, Bartlett Street stands within sight of the shimmering casino towers that have come to symbolize Las Vegas as the socially acceptable Sodom in the desert of desire.

Sister Rosemary and her friends live in a decidedly unglamorous Las Vegas, where flash appears to trump faith almost everywhere you look. In my conversation with her, I began to feel that she wouldn't be anywhere else.

She still works for the Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, a group started in 1989 by Franciscans and their friends that networks with peace practitioners throughout the world. Pace e bene means "peace and all good" in Italian and was the greeting St. Francis of Assisi gave to everyone he met.

Sister Rosemary also assists Sister Klaryta with what was once called the Sisters of St. Francis Refugee Program, which rendered assistance to immigrants. Because not many people obtain refugee status these days, it has been renamed the Sisters of St. Francis Social Program. From school registration to an appointment with a doctor, the sisters never stop working.

"People who come to this country, they need help on every level," Sister Rosemary says. "She does every kind of help that they need. I try to help her in whatever way I can."

Sister Rosemary has been doing whatever she can to serve others for so long that at first she has difficulty remembering a time she wasn't a Franciscan sister. She began her devotion approximately 73 years ago, spent 16 years traveling the world as an administrator based in Italy, and followed Franciscan Father Louis Vitale to Las Vegas at a time of social and political unrest in Southern Nevada.

She still speaks five languages, but almost cheerfully admits she's forgotten several others with the passage of time.

Sister Rosemary and her friends are comfortable down on Bartlett Street, a place many Las Vegans probably wouldn't feel comfortable driving. She wouldn't consider relocating.

"When I look back at the life of Jesus and the life of Saint Francis, they didn't stay in safe, sanitized places," she says.

If Jesus and St. Francis taught her to serve the people on the street, the words of Pope John XXIII remind her to keep her heart light and her outlook positive.

"Good Pope John said he never knew of anything good that had been accomplished by pessimism," she says.

And so, as an optimist, she sees many Las Vegans who turn away from the city's darker elements.

"There are so many good, well-meaning people here," she says. "There are people who don't have very much, but are willing to share. There are beautiful and authentic people who, somehow or another, managed to gravitate together. There are thousands of sturdy people who are doing their best in a culture that's not very encouraging. That's kind of how I look at it."

After all these years walking in the desert, Sister Rosemary continues to help it bloom.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.. E-mail him at smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.