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Ministry in Appalachia: Sisters settle in, determine needs

By Jean Denton
Special to The Catholic Virginian

Even though they didn’t have a specific job or ministry lined up when they first arrived, most of the women religious who came to southwest Virginia have stayed for 20 years or more, said Sister Jackie Hanrahan, CND, director of the diocesan Appalachian Office of Justice and Peace.

The sisters were basically directed by their religious communities first to settle into the area and get to know the local people to determine their actual needs.

Sister of Mercy Josepha Haskins recalled that when she came to Tazewell County with fellow RSM Martha Meyer, they were expected to find a way to be financially self-sufficient.

“We were told to sit for a year because there were no jobs,” she said.

So Sister Josepha became involved with local literacy initiatives and volunteered with Meals on Wheels while Sister Martha worked at a homeless shelter as a VISTA volunteer.

Now Sister Martha teaches at Richlands’ Sunrise Center — which was established by another Sister of Mercy, Carolyn Brink — assisting adults working to earn a high school diploma. She also works part time at the Tri-County Health Clinic, a free clinic offering primary health care to the uninsured.

Sister Josepha has been a mainstay on the free clinic staff for 15 years, including a number of years as director.

The development of the clinic illustrates the common experience of how the Appalachian communities have embraced and shared in the work initiated by the women religious.

Yet another RSM, Sister Helena Sanfilippo, started the Tri-County Health Clinic in 1992. Since then it has increased its patient list to nearly 500 people in Tazewell, Russell and Buchanan counties.

Currently 14 local volunteers staff the full-service facility which is open every Tuesday. That includes two doctors, two nurses, a pharmacist and a pharmacist technician. Sister Josepha noted that eight doctors in the community serve the clinic regularly and 34 specialists in the area are available to see free clinic patients on referral at their own offices. Funding comes through grants and donations.

Moving from ministry to ministry serving where needed has been a typical experience of the nuns in Appalachia. Many serve in several programs at once. For instance, Sisters Josepha and Martha also operate an emergency financial assistance ministry out of their house.

“We are treated like queens,” laughed Sister Josepha in describing how the local people, especially Catholics, provide for many of their personal needs and generously support their outreach work.

Although at first they requested Richlands and Tazewell parishioners to help through donations, they no longer have to ask, “and the amount never goes down,” she said of their funds on hand. When families get in a bind, she smiled, “People say, ‘Call the sisters.’”

Likewise Sister Jackie, who arrived in 1982, has served the region in several capacities. She’d been teaching for 13 years in a Catholic high school in Connecticut when she visited a fellow sister in Appalachia to discuss a possible service project for her students.

Instead, she herself discerned a call to serve in the region and, after getting permission from her congregation, arranged a teaching position in the Hurley public schools.

The job fell through, but her superior prevailed upon her to go to Hurley anyway — without a job.

She looks back on that period in amazement over what she gained.

“Being unemployed, I learned a lot about the value of the person,” she said. She spent her time sometimes substitute teaching, sometimes visiting troubled families with Sr. Pauline Champagne, DHS, who preceded her in Hurley.

Eventually, Sister Jackie got a teaching job and taught in the Hurley public schools for 12 years, working with students and families who had enormous struggles — a far cry from a Catholic school in an upscale Connecticut community.

After some years Sister Jackie’s superior suggested she consider studying law. She thought it made sense considering the many “litigious issues” she saw families in Hurley deal with.

“In teaching you have a direct connection to the future,” she said. “You see what’s coming down the pike.”

Her ministry in Hurley, she easily recognized, “was as much about being a presence in the school as anything I taught.”

She completed law school at the University of Virginia and returned to the Appalachian region to work in legal services for 10 years before going to the diocese’s Appalachian Office of Justice and Peace.

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