Florida Catholic | St. Mary’s Medical Center

St. Mary’s Medical Center founders honored

The Franciscan Sisters of Allegany are honored for 70 years of dedicated medical services in Palm Beach County.

BENNET BOLTON AND LINDA REEVES | FLORIDA CATHOLIC STAFF

Published: 02.08.08

Sister Mary Murphy is the last remaining Allegany Franciscan at St. Mary’s.
LINDA REEVES | FC

WEST PALM BEACH | A small band of Franciscan nuns who opened a tiny 50-bed nursing home for the poor here in 1938 were honored last month on the 70th anniversary of their deed.

Today, that original place is St. Mary’s Medical Center, a huge facility with 463 beds, located on 45th Street on a 100-acre campus — one of the biggest hospitals in Palm Beach County.

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Palm Beach chose to recognize the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany at its 12th annual fundraiser banquet Jan. 27 at the historic Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach. The event is held to benefit the many programs of the organization.

“It is a special honor for me to take part in this recognition because my two sisters and I are graduates of St. Mary’s nursing program,” said Mary Cleary Ierardi, head of the Catholic Charities board of directors. “The holistic nursing principles that were instilled in me during my three years as a student nurse had a lasting profound effect in both my personal and professional life and as a nurse administrator.”

Courtesy Allegany Franciscans
A small group of nuns who first opened St. Mary's nursing home in 1938 pose for a photograph.

In January 1938, Mrs. R. Stuyvesant Pierrepont, socially prominent in Palm Beach, went to St. Ann Church and asked the pastor, Father R.T. Bryant, what she and other women could do to build a place where the poor could go to recover from illnesses.

The pastor contacted Mother Mary Damien Fitzpatrick at St. Francis Hospital in Miami, and a convalescent home — as nursing homes were called in those days — was built and opened in 1939. It was named St. Mary’s by Mother Jean Marie Greeley. Within a year, the Franciscan nuns realized that the greater need was a hospital for acute care.

Mother Fitzpatrick was the first administrator. Her secretary was Sister Josephine Marie Waters, for whom the main pavilion was named in 1976. A school of nursing was opened in 1952, from which 121 nurses graduated during the next decade.

Over the years, the hospital expanded, adding new buildings and specialty wings, with more and more property acquired through the generosity of philanthropists. Today the hospital offers a broad spectrum of medical services, including trauma, obstetrics and a children’s hospital.

“We deliver more babies than any other of the 21 hospitals in Palm Beach County — more than 4,000 last year,” Kimberly Eloe, director of marketing and media at the medical center, told the Florida Catholic.

“Our trauma center with its heliport landing site is one of only two in the county. In addition to infant births, we have 800 neonatal visits a year, plus a perinatal staff for high-risk fetuses and mothers. We also have a separate children’s hospital with 81 beds for children from birth to 18 years old,” she added.

Sister Mary Murphy is the last remaining Allegany Franciscan at St. Mary’s. Two of her fellow religious women were transferred to Catholic hospitals in the Tampa area after St. Mary’s was acquired seven years ago by Tenet Healthcare Corp., which also administers Good Samaritan Hospital in West Palm Beach.

“I have been here 18 months and just love it,” said Sister Murphy who comes from Miami where she served the poor. She also worked in Jamaica for 25 years and ministered in education.

Her ministry took a shift to medical facility work when she moved to this area to care for her ailing parents, who were parishioners of Mary Immaculate Parish in West Palm Beach.

“They both just passed away,” said Sister Murphy. “I cared for them for a year.”

She is a member of the medical center’s pastoral care service. The full-time staff addresses grief and loss care, spiritual counseling on tissue and organ donations, crisis intervention and other matters of the soul and mind.

The diverse and close-knit pastoral team is comprised of Sister Murphy; Father Aiden Lacy, former pastor of Holy Name of Jesus; the Rev. Greg Mansfield, who is also an associate pastor at Guardian Angels Episcopal Church in Lantana; and the Rev. Lena Bates, a nondenominational minister.

“St. Mary’s has always recognized the mind-body connection,” Rev. Mansfield told the Florida Catholic. “We are holistic, meaning that healing involves the spirit and the mind as well as the body.”

“We are there for everyone,” said Sister Murphy about her work with the hospital facility and St. Mary’s pastoral team. “We bring the Lord to anyone who stops, from the time we get out of the car in the parking lot until we go back home. Not just the patients, but the man who cleans and the doctors and nurses and everyone.”

According to Father Lacy, when Tenet took over the facility, the company preferred to keep the name St. Mary’s. Along with the name came an agreement that the hospital would continue to abide by Catholic ethics.

“There is an agreement,” said Father Lacy. “The church has kept the Catholic identity. There are no abortions. There is a lot of outreach. Last year St. Mary’s provided $46.8 million in charitable care.”

As far as other nuns in her order, Sister Murphy said there are 340 Franciscans in the community. Locally, there are two others in addition to Sister Murphy: Sister Joan Dawson, superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Palm Beach, and Sister Janet Finely of St. Luke Parish.

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St. Mary’s Medical Center founders honored

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