A few days ago I accompanied a family member to St. Mary’s Hospital. While I waited for their appointment to end I enjoyed, as always, sitting in the hospital cafe drinking a cup of coffee and observing the people there, in particular an old couple who spoke lovingly to each other, not about anything in particular, it was how they spoke to each other that expressed their love. And then I looked at historical photographs on the café’s walls, the elite were there, there was even a photograph of future American President John F. Kennedy and his wife who had attended a hospital ball, raising money for St. Mary’s, in the 1950s. And then I thought of Sr. Helen Morrissey who had originated the idea for the hospital. Her aggressive approach alienated board members and my great great uncle, Fr. Luke Callaghan, was called in to dissuade Sr. Helen from continuing her campaign for her vision of the future hospital; the hospital's board were about to resign because of her. It occurred to me that she must have realized what she was up against, it was the social and financial elite of Montreal Irish society; she subsequently withdrew from the hospital’s planning committee. And then this photograph (below) stood out for me, it shows the president of the hospital’s board of directors and Canada's Governor General, and other financial and ecclesiastical leaders, laying the cornerstone of the new hospital. How could she compete with them, a nun, a woman, and without allies in high places? This is not to say that she had not dealt with similar people in her position of pharmacist at Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal hospital, but she was a spiritual person, not a business person, and why spend time dealing with contentious issues that brought out the negative parts of her personality? After she was forced off of St. Mary’s Hospital planning committee she continued working at Hôtel-Dieu and she wrote a book on Fanny Allen, who entered the religious life at the same hospital where Sr. Helen Morrissey worked, and Fanny Allen was also a pharmacist there. I wondered at how easily it seems that Sr. Helen acquiesced to abandoning her concept of the future St. Mary's Hospital; she was an old family friend of Fr. Luke, she had been there in 1915 when his older brother Fr. Martin Callaghan died, and she shared a family name with Fr. Luke's sister, Mary Callaghan, who had married Thomas Morrissey (my great grandparents). I think Fr. Luke was also a member of the elite, he had built the enormous St. Michael's Church in Mile End and it rivalled St. Patrick's Church for Sunday attendance for Montreal's Irish population. Sr. Helen has been made out to be a harridan, aggressive, bossy, domineering, demanding, even frightening for these poor wealthy professional men! In fact, all of the adjectives used against intelligent women who aren't afraid to express themselves are used against her. She was difficult for the men because she disagreed with them; however, this isn't to say that her plan for the new hospital was the right one, in retrospect we can see that the Board of Directors had a vision for the hospital that worked best. My point is that Sr. Helen has been demonized and her better qualities--intelligence, vision, perseverance, spirituality--are ignored, and we think of her as being fairly unpleasant because that is the way the establishment elite portrayed her. Both Sr. Helen and Fanny Allen turned away from the secular world and were dedicated to the religious life. I, too, viewed Sr. Helen Morrissey in this negative way--it took Fr. Luke Callaghan to whip her in to shape! and I was proud of what he did!--and, I hope, this is now somewhat corrected.
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| I guess Sr. Helen Morrissey wasn't invited to this event... |
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| St. Mary’s Hospital from av Jean Brilliant |
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| The av Lacombe entrance to the hospital |
