Catholic ladies who bought pregnant out of wedlock in Chicago 100 years in the past would quietly disappear into the Misericordia Maternity Hospital and Residence for Infants on forty seventh Avenue to bear their illegitimate infants below the care of the Sisters of Mercy, joined by indigent married ladies and people “of overseas delivery or parentage.”
They typically emerged with out their infants. A lot of the wholesome kids left behind would ultimately be adopted. However these with disabilities grew to become costs of the Archdiocese of Chicago, which warehoused them “out of sight, out of thoughts” till they turned 6 and may very well be delivered to the state of Illinois and its notoriously nightmarish psychological establishments, the place residents have been tied to beds and worse.
By 1954, the Residence for Infants housed about 50 kids with developmental challenges like Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. In 1969, the duty of preserving them alive till the state may take over fell to Sister Rosemary Connelly, a 38-year-old nun from the Sisters of Mercy who knew little of Misericordia however instantly realized she had discovered her calling.
“I felt God’s presence on my very first day at Misericordia,” she stated. “I may inform that each one the kids have been beloved.”
They have been well-dressed then however stayed in mattress all day. They ate there. Sister Rosemary determined these weren’t inert objects that ought to simply be allowed to languish however God’s kids, treasured souls, every with the spark of humanity, regardless of how buried. That flame needed to be nourished, bodily and spiritually.
She determined she would supply them with the wealthy and rewarding lives they deserved. Since programming for such kids didn’t exist, she created it, within the course of turning into the dynamic, irresistible drive constructing Misericordia into the preeminent dwelling in Chicago for kids and adults with developmental challenges.
Beloved for the power, ability, devotion and unwavering religion she delivered to Misericordia for greater than half a century, Sister Rosemary died June 19 at Misericordia. She was 94.
“Sister Rosemary was the guts and soul of Misericordia for greater than 50 years,” stated the Rev. Jack Clair, president and government director of Misericordia. “Her love and steering helped construct a group the place tons of of individuals with developmental disabilities get pleasure from dwelling the very best high quality of life. Sister’s life was a lifetime of religion devoted to God’s promise of everlasting life.”
“There are few individuals within the metropolis of Chicago who’ve performed a lot for therefore many as Sister Rosemary,” then-Mayor Richard M. Daley stated in 2009 at her fortieth anniversary as the top of Misericordia.
“Whenever you consider the variety of lives she touched — 1000’s,” stated David Axelrod, who was senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “Not simply the parents who lived in Misericordia however their households. It modified my daughter’s life, and it modified my entire household’s life for the higher. This entire place exists due to the drive of her will.”
Rosemary Connelly was born Feb. 23, 1931, on the West Aspect, the third little one of a pair of immigrants from County Mayo, Eire: pub proprietor Peter V. Connelly and Bridget Moran. She joined the Sisters of Mercy when she was 18, served as a psychiatric social employee in Aurora and a faculty trainer in Chicago earlier than drawing the Misericordia project.
Why her? No one ever defined.
“I don’t know,” Sister Rosemary stated on her ninetieth birthday in 2021. “That’s been a thriller. They all the time had a nurse in cost. And I had a grasp’s diploma in social work and one in sociology. Possibly that’s why.’”
She graduated with a level in social science from St. Xavier College in 1959, acquired her grasp’s in sociology from St. Louis College in 1966 and one other grasp’s, in social work ,from Loyola College in 1969.
Certainly one of her inspirations was a nephew with disabilities. Her first order of enterprise after being put accountable for Misericordia was to go to Sears for tricycles and wading swimming pools. Then, she opened a eating room so kids may eat collectively, as a group.
Misericordia — the phrase means “mercy” or “compassion” in Latin — stopped sending kids to the state.
“I made a decision we’d maintain them,” she stated.
That meant the inhabitants grew. By 1976, the Misericordia Residence for Particular Kids was too small.
In the meantime, the most important Catholic kids’s dwelling within the metropolis, the Angel Guardian Orphanage at Devon Avenue and Ridge Highway, had closed for lack of state funding and the rise of foster properties. Sister Rosemary noticed its prospects and talked Catholic Charities into placing the 31-acre campus below her management.
On March 29, 1976, 39 kids boarded a yellow college bus for the journey from forty seventh Avenue to the North Aspect. This being a Sister Rosemary Connelly operation, the bus stopped on the way in which on the Lincoln Park Zoo so the kids may go to the animals.
“To place these kids in a nursing house is unfair,” she stated. “We wish to assist them turn into caring individuals. We’re attempting to interrupt this entire condescending world by which [developmentally disabled] individuals reside.”
Sister Rosemary inherited an aged campus of cottages in want of restore and exercised two strengths she confirmed a constructive genius for: mobilizing volunteers and elevating cash.
“She was the perfect politician on the town,” stated Axelrod, who was additionally founding director of the College of Chicago’s Institute of Politics. “She knew everyone. You didn’t wish to disappoint her.”
“She seemed like a candy, white-haired nun till you realized she was manufactured from structural metal,” stated Carol Marin, the previous newscaster and former Chicago Solar-Occasions columnist who’s co-director of the DePaul Middle for Journalism Integrity & Excellence.
When Marin realized that her son Gideon was “by no means going to be cured,” she went to see Sister Rosemary.
“I used to be a multitude,” Marin stated. “She simply talked to me. She didn’t have me tour. The following time, she went round.”
Sister Rosemary confirmed Marin a resident whose mom had stored from interacting with others for years.
“She stated: ‘Don’t you be that particular person. You’re doing it in your son. He must have a group. You’re doing this for him and never for your self.’ She was completely proper,” Marin stated.
Misericordia was not a spot the place households may park their children and neglect them.
“There’s an expectation that each one of us to by no means depart the lives of our youngsters,” Marin stated. “I’m the bingo-caller at Household Fest. His dad was a full time volunteer for years and years. Misericordia turns into a second dwelling.”
Misericordia’s lunches and breakfasts have been obligatory stops for the highly effective and the rich — notably those that had kids in Misericordia.
Axelrod’s daughter Lauren is a resident.
“When my daughter was a young person, we wouldn’t have guess that she’d be alive as we speak,” he stated. “We definitely didn’t suppose she would have as full a life as she does. That will be a miracle, and Misericordia has made that doable.”
Sister Rosemary noticed that residents interacted with the true world. The Greenhouse Inn, which Misericordia opened in 1989, wasn’t an train in occupational remedy however a functioning full-service restaurant open to the general public, maybe the one one staffed by waiters and cooks with Down syndrome. The Hearts & Flour Bakery not solely gave significant jobs to 50 residents but in addition raised cash for Misericordia, with an outlet in Glenview and a daily presence at farmer’s markets. Many have acquired a present tin of its heart-shaped brownie cookies. About 10,000 mail orders a month are stuffed.
Misericordia’s authentic dwelling, dubbed Misericordia South, remained open till 2005, offering look after severely disabled, non-ambulatory residents. Specialised tools at Misericordia’s fundamental campus made doable superior therapies, and the buildings had the decor — and cleanliness — of a ritzy North Shore nation membership or a resort lodge.
Misericordia expanded, constructed new buildings, ultimately using 1,200 staffers for 600 residents, plus one other two dozen volunteers a day.
Such an operation hasn’t been with out controversy. Households of eligible kids may languish for years on the 600-person ready record. The incapacity rights motion, plus the horrible popularity of group properties typically, induced some to assail Misericordia for not letting residents reside independently in common neighborhoods. Medicaid funding grew to become tougher to get for individuals with mental difficulties in group settings. In 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act funneled help towards community-based properties and away from locations like Misericordia.
Sister Rosemary took criticisms to coronary heart and within the Nineteen Nineties opened the Group Built-in Residing Association off-campus, inserting residents who may thrive below these circumstances into close by personal properties.
“She noticed our youngsters are individuals, not as disabilities,” Marin stated. “There’s actually a distinction. She noticed them on equal footing with all the remainder of us, as human beings. She all the time stated, ‘You don’t give them a life; you give them a life value dwelling.’ And she or he did.”
Sister Rosemary acquired dozens of humanitarian awards and 9 honorary doctorates, from the College of Notre Dame, St. Mary’s School of Notre Dame, MacMurray School, Loyola, DePaul, Lewis College, St. Xavier College, Marquette College and Dominican College.
Survivors embrace her sister Kathryn and lots of nieces and nephews.
Marin stated she was grateful she was in a position to converse with Sister Rosemary lately.
“I instructed her, ‘You saved our lives. You saved Gideon’s life, which has been a terrific life.’ I used to be so grateful to have the ability to have an opportunity to inform her all of the miracles she has wrought. To be a saint, you want three documented miracles, She has a thousand extra.”
