ARTICLES

15 Sisters now serve in Appalachia

By Jean Denton
Special to The Catholic Virginian

The first religious sisters to serve in southwest Virginia’s Appalachian region were the Poor Servants of the Mother of God who came in 1948 at the request of the Glenmary missioners who had arrived only three years earlier.

This group, known as “the hospital sisters,” took on operation of the medical clinic in Norton which became St. Mary’s Hospital. The SMGs served there until 2003.

Including the hospital sisters more than 40 have served in southwest Virginia since the 1970s, according to Sr. Jackie Hanrahan, director of the diocesan Appalachian Office of Justice and Peace in St. Paul.

Currently 15 women religious minister in various capacities throughout the Appalachian region of the Richmond Diocese. They are:

• Sr. Beth Davies, CND, who since 1972 has been coordinating substance abuse programs and prison ministry in Lee County; Sisters Margaret Flynn, OP, and Beth Jaspers, OP, who serve in Wise County have also been in the region since the 1970s as has Sr. Bernadette Kenney, MMM, who established the St. Mary’s Health Wagon that provides service to the indigent in Wise, Buchanan and Dickenson counties.

• Sr. Pauline Champagne, DHS, and Sr. Mary Hecker, SSND, are in Hurley in Buchanan County and Sr. Jean Korkisch, CHC, serves in Dickenson County. They all came in the early 1980s as did Sr. Jackie.

• Sr. Stephanie Ward, OSF, is director of the diocese’s Jubilee House Retreat Center in Abingdon; Josepha Haskins, RSM, and Martha Meyer, RSM, are in Tazewell County and Sr. Jane McDowell, HM, serves in Pocohantas also in Tazewell County.

• Sr. Clare McBrien, RSHM, recently retired as ecology educator for the diocese, and Sr. Maria Timony, RSHM, who provides legal assistance to low-income families, are both in Wytheville. Sr. Frances Barber, SNJM, serves in Bland County.

read related article »

back to top