The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis

A Story about Sister M. Amalia

(told by one of our patients at St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria)

I was a young Sister and Registered Nurse who had graduated a few months before and was working in our Rehab Center on Forest Park 3. When coming to work one morning, the nurses from night shift told me that a Mrs. McClugage had been admitted. They said that she wanted to know if there were still Sisters working there, because if so she wanted to speak with one of them. I went to see her and in the course of our conversation she told me that she and her husband had been good friends to the Sisters and helped with many projects. She especially remembered Sister M. Amalia who often came to Mr. McClugage begging for money to cloth poor children for their First Communion. One time when money was very scarce, he had to tell Sister that this time he was very sorry, that he was unable to contribute as he just had nothing. Sister nodded and said, “I’ll pray, you are always so good.” Two hours later Sister appeared again and handed him $5 and said, “I hope this helps a little bit.” He was amazed to tears.

When another time Mr. McClugage was a patient in the Hospital, Sister came to see him and greeted him with a big bouquet of flowers. He looked at her in amazement and said, “Sister, you shouldn’t spend your money on me for flowers.” She replied, “Don’t you worry about, I just went along the hall and took one flower out of each bouquet there, so that you couldn’t even see that any were gone.” (At that time all flowers had to be removed in the evening from the rooms and put into the hall as it was believed that they’d take oxygen away from the patients.)

I guess Sister Amalia was a “Brother Juniper” of our Community.

(from Sister M. Josephina, O.S.F.)

A Story of Mother Frances

Whenever a crisis arose or a situation needed to be resolved, Mother Frances would immediately go to the Chapel and kneel and pray and remain there until an answer was received. The other Sisters came to accept this posture and felt confident that everything would turn out for the best, for it seemed that God could not refuse her prayers.

On one occasion the Sisters informed Mother that their food supplies were dangerously low and that even with begging they did not have enough food to feed the patients in their care, much less themselves. Mother Frances went immediately to the Chapel and began praying. Within a short time one of the Sisters came to her with concerns that a food delivery wagon was standing in front of the house, loaded with food supplies, but that no driver could be found. The wagon remained there the entire day. The Sisters did not want the food to spoil, so they unloaded the food and stored it in the cellar of the house until the driver returned. The next morning the wagon was gone. The Sisters realized that God had answered their prayers and they had enough food for several days.

Cardinal Tony

There was a bird nest outside the lab window at the hospital in Rock Hill. The mother cardinal had abandoned the nest by the time the chick hatched so Sister Solana took the chick and fed it with an eye dropper. She named it “Tony” because it was born on the Feast of St. Anthony.

Tony was quite attached to Sister Solana. When she was in the lab he would sit on the crown of her veil. Each morning she would walk to the door with Tony perched on her veil and let him fly out for the day. Every night he would return and Sister would bring him to his perch in the lab.

Tony stayed there at the hospital for about nine months and then disappeared. Some weeks later he returned with a female cardinal which Sister assumed was his wife. And that was the last she saw of Tony.

A story told to Sister Joan by Sister M. Carmela

Sister M. Carmela was working in the nursery at St. Mary Hospital in Marquette, Michigan. They had a newborn premature baby that weighed about one and a half pounds. There were no incubators at that time, 1930's, so in order to keep the baby warm, she had the boiler man secure a board over the steam radiator. She then put the baby in a large blanketed shoe box and placed the shoe box on the radiator. Then she hung a lighted lamp over the baby to keep the baby warm both from the bottom and the top. Sister fed the baby with an eyedropper. She cared for the baby for several months until the baby was well enough to go home.

Twenty-five years later, a young Sister from a teaching order came to visit Sister. She was "the baby" and she wanted to thank Sister Carmela for saving her life.