Born in Philadelphia as Mary Clare Haughton, she graduated from J.W. Hallahan High School in 1930. She entered the Society of the Holy Child Jesus in 1931 and became Mother Mary Urban, in accordance with then-current naming conventions.

In the 1960s, after Vatican II, she switched to the name Sister Mary Urban.

She served in the Philadelphia area for 30 years starting in 1934, when she taught at the former St. Edward's School in Philadelphia.

In 1949, she opened the Rosemont School of the Holy Child in Rosemont, and taught there until 1952. She also taught at the former St. Leonard's Academy in Philadelphia from 1952 to 1959.

From 1957 to 1958, Sister Mary Urban hosted her own television show, Come, Little Children, on the local NBC affiliate in Philadelphia, which then was WRCV-TV.

Each Sunday morning, children from St. Leonard's Academy went with her to the studio to hear the story of Christ's life. Though the program was intended only as a summer offering, public reaction was so positive that it aired for 91 Sundays.

Sister Mary Urban's career began when NBC asked the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for a nun to host a program for youngsters about the life of Christ.

Studio agents visited Catholic schools to observe nuns in the classroom. While waiting for them to arrive, she played a social studies game, the $64 Question, which her students loved.

When the agents entered her classroom, they told her to continue the game; the next day, Sister Mary Urban learned she had landed the TV job.

In 1959, Sister Mary Urban returned to the Rosemont School of the Holy Child and taught there for eight years. In 1967, she returned to J.W. Hallahan High School and taught French for four years.

From 1979 to 1982, she did admissions and public relations work at Holy Child Academy in Drexel Hill.

Sister Mary Urban held a bachelor's degree in French from Immaculate Heart University in Los Angeles and a master's degree in psychology and guidance from Fordham University in the Bronx.

Sister Mary Urban also served in California for 17 years. She taught at Mayfield Junior School in Pasadena from 1939 to 1949 and at the Cornelia Connelly School in Anaheim from 1971 to 1978.

Sister Mary Urban did pastoral ministry at Sacred Heart Parish in Punta Gorda, Fla., from 1982 to 1983, and at St. Andrew's Parish in Cape Coral, Fla., from 1983 to 1999.

In 1999, she moved to Bryn Mawr, and in April 2000 she retired to New Sharon, a Rosemont retirement residence for the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus.

She is survived by nieces, nephews, grandnieces, and grandnephews.

There will be a brief prayer service at 4 p.m. today in the New Sharon Chapel, 1341 Montgomery Ave., Rosemont.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. tomorrow in the same chapel, with a viewing at 10 a.m. Interment will be in Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken.

Memorial donations may be made to the S.H.C.J. Retirement Fund, 460 Shadeland Ave., Drexel Hill, Pa. 19026.