IN LOOKING AT THE HISTORY OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA, we are usually referred to historical figures such as George Washington, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and Henry Clay Frick. However, along side of these illustrious persons, there should be placed the thousands of unrecognized women who contributed to the growth of Western Pennsylvania and the advancement of healthcare here and across the United States. These women, often unrecognized except by their communities and families, established and ran numerous healthcare institutions in Western Pennsylvania. Their history is overshadowed and almost forgotten by today’s world of healthcare giants, but their work and sacrifice laid the cornerstone for healthcare enjoyed by today’s Western Pennsylvanians.

DURING HIS THREE YEARS OF PUBLIC MINISTRY, Jesus attracted followers, who were inspired by His example, and who wanted to be of service to others, in imitation of Him. Among these followers, were women. Luke names “Mary, called Magdalene … Joanna…Susanna… and many others.” Jesus counted two women, the sisters Martha and Mary, among His closest friends. “Martha served,” and was “busy about many things,” while Mary “sat beside the Lord…listening to Him speak.”

Mary’s model of quiet meditation shaped the first communities of women who joined together in the Christian era, in the fourth century after Christ. But the impulse to serve was strong: religious women taught and nursed in their homes and in monasteries. By the 17th century the call to service was so strong that a new form of religious life for women came into being. The French priest, Vincent DePaul and the pious aristocrat Louise DeMarillac organized a “Company of Charity” of women. This new form of service would attract countless women, particularly in the years following the French Revolution, when the number of new groups of “Sisters”— a term used to distinguish them from cloistered “nuns”— multiplied rapidly.

Coming out from behind the walls of convents, some called the Sisters the “walking nuns.” It was precisely that mobility that made Sisters particularly valued co-workers in the Catholic Church’s newest mission territory: the United States of America.

Cloistered nuns came to what is now the United States as early as 1727, establishing a convent in New Orleans. The first convent founded after the American Revolution was another cloistered community at Port Tobacco, Maryland, in 1790. Both of these groups had roots in Europe. An American-born woman, widow, mother of five, and convert to Catholisicm Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton was the first “Sister” in the United States, gathering a band of Sisters of Charity around her in Baltimore in 1809. A group of those Sisters came to Pittsburgh in 1835. Though they did not remain, they were the first Catholic Sisters to serve in Western Pennsylvania. In time, another group of Elizabeth’s Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill, would come to Western Pennsylvania in 1870.

THE FIRST PERMANENT FOUNDATION of Catholic Sisters in Western Pennsylvania was made by seven Sisters of Mercy from Carlow, Ireland, in Pittsburgh in 1843. Led by Mother Mary Frances Xavier Warde, the Sisters originally served as educators, but with wide experience in healthcare in their native land, the Sisters of Mercy opened Mercy Hospital in 1847, the first permanent hospital in Western Pennsylvania and the first Mercy Hospital in the world.

Over the course of the next 120 years, many more communities of religious women came to Western Pennsylvania. Some were cloistered nuns, dedicated to a life of prayer. Many came in answer to the call for teachers in the parochial schools established in the Dioceses of Pittsburgh, Erie, Altoona-Johnstown and Greensburg. Some of those communities also responded to the need to provide nurses and agreed to begin healthcare facilities of their own, or to staff or manage hospitals sponsored by local community groups.

A handful of religious communities were devoted exclusively to healthcare. In all, a total of 16 communities of Roman Catholic Sisters worked in over thirty-four hospitals and healthcare facilities in Western Pennsylvania during the period from 1847 to 1969. Although some communities are no longer involved in hospital work, their work in various healthcare-related ministries continues to the present day.

When Sisters began their nursing ministry, some ten years before Florence Nightingale made professionalism a watchword among nurses, they were looked down on for being both nurses and Roman Catholics. Anti-Catholic sentiment was high during those early years in the history of the United States. The turning point for the Sisters and their work was the Civil War. As one of the first groups of organized nurses, Sisters were called to service to care for soldiers regardless of whether Union or Confederate, and without regard to race or religion. The Sisters of Mercy of Pittsburgh responded to the call of Abraham Lincoln and sent Sisters to run military hospitals and care for injured soldiers from the battle fields. Their service, along with that of other congregations throughout the country was recognized by President Lincoln.

"Of all the forms of charity and benevolence seen in the crowded wards of the hospitals, those of Catholic Sisters were among the most efficient. I never knew whence they came or what was the name of their order. More lovely than anything I have ever seen in art so long devoted to illustration of love, mercy, and charity are the pictures that remain of those modest Sisters going on their errands of mercy among the suffering and dying..."

Attributed to Lucius Chittenden in his book "Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration" (1891)

The Sisters also distinguished themselves by going beyond the care of the general public. Often they devoted themselves to care of the poor, disabled, abandoned children, and aged and for those who were ignored by society. In general hospitals, nursing homes, facilities dedicated to the healthcare needs of children, and in specialized hospitals for expectant mothers, newborns, and abandoned infants and children, Catholic Sisters became a familiar, needed, and well-beloved part of the local landscape of Western Pennsylvania.

They dedicated themselves, too, to the education of other nurses and healthcare professionals in schools of nursing and allied health sciences. These pioneer women worked without the aid of modern medicines and technology and made significant advances in the practice of medicine and nursing. This was done in the face of great odds. Throughout much of their history in Western Pennsylvania, the Sisters worked for the care of others despite their own poverty, their lack of fluency in English, and their service in a male-dominated world.

In spite of these obstacles, they opened and staffed hospitals and other healthcare facilities, often working 14-hour days, seven days a week. Their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience strengthened their ability to do what they were called to do by God. In imitation of Jesus, who healed all the sick who were brought to Him, and as an expression of God’s love for people, Catholic Sisters gave their best efforts to serving the sick in Western Pennsylvania. They created a climate of care characterized by deep faith and loving devotion to the welfare and well-being of others.