January 22, 2019 - A Prayer Service was held today in observance of the 40th anniversary of Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS). The Service was held at the HSHS System Services Center. HSHS was incorporated on December 26, 1978.

Mary Starmann-Harrison, HSHS President and CEO, welcomed the guests of Sisters, Board members, and colleagues and stated that “Whenever a new colleague or board member joins HSHS, we share with them the wonderful history of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis: their arrival from Germany in 1875, and their creation of a Franciscan healthcare ministry that now includes 15 hospitals in two states. We provide this information to colleagues not as a history lesson, but as a way of conveying our Franciscan values and inviting them to join this ministry and carry the torch forward. We want our colleagues to understand that God had a plan for those first Hospital Sisters who arrived from Germany, and God has a plan for all of us who continue their work in their name.”

During the Prayer Service Sister Marianna Kosior, founder and first president of HSHS, was recognized. In her remarks, Mary shared “Today, we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of HSHS, and we also want to celebrate the vision and achievements of the Provincial Superior, the Provincial Council, and the original HSHS board of directors who made it possible. We are presenting this plaque in recognition of Sister Marianna. The plaque contains this quote from Sister Marianna: “The reason we, a religious community, can be involved in such a gigantic project as a system of hospitals is that we have the professional training, and are gifted enough to do this. We want to bring others to an awareness of God’s love by the way in which we serve them.” The plaque will be displayed here in the System Services Center and to honor Sister Marianna’s essential role in the founding of HSHS, we feel it is important that our Board Room be named the Kosior Board Room."

A Presidential photo
Sister Marianna (seated left) served as HSHS President from August 1979-November 1989 and Sister Jomary Trstensky (seated right) served in that role from November 1989-July 2006. Mary Starmann-Harrison (standing) has held the position since April 2011. (Not pictured is Stephanie McCutcheon who served from September 2006-June 2010.)

The Leadership Team of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis has joined the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and signed the petition sponsored by the Shut Tornillo Down Coalition National and Local Partners. (This detention camp for child immigrants is located in the desert in Tornillo, Texas.)

The camp was built with the express purpose of discouraging immigrants from coming to the U.S. Thousands of children are imprisoned there. There is no healthcare there for them and their abusive imprisonment causes irreparable harm to their normal development.There are many other, much more suitable places to house the children in a significantly less expensive way. The petition asks that the children be placed with family or sponsors, who will not be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation and that no more centers be built to replace it.

The Leadership Team of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis
Springfield, Illinois
January 1, 2019

This year marks the 175^th anniversary of the founding of the Hospital Sisters of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis. This graphic was designed by Sister M. Theodora (Japan Province) and will be displayed throughout the year in various ways including as a flag on a new flagpole at Convent Entrance and on the flagpole at Chiara Center.

The central image of the graphic is Our Lady of Grace Chapel (Telgte, Germany) where Father Christopher Bernsmeyer, OFM, welcomed young women to begin their life of caring for the sick on July 2, 1844. Surrounding the Chapel are the flags where the Sisters have a Province: Germany (since 1844), Poland (since 1849), USA (since 1875), Japan (since 1948), and India (since 1973).