Spirit
Fall 2016
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Winter 2017
I
t has been called the worst pandemic in American history. In 1918 and 1919, the “Spanish flu” infected about 500 million people worldwide – one-third of the planet’s population at that time. It killed more than 600,000 Americans and caused an estimated 20-50 million deaths worldwide. At St. Mary’s Orphanage in Beaverton, the flu struck hard. The Sisters gave round-theclock care to more than 120 patients. All but one survived. In Verboort, Oregon, Sisters Mary Agnes and Mary Alexia O’Rourke closed the school to care for seriously ill adults and children. They had no medical training. Sister Mary Agnes wrote: “In a little three room house four flu patients were very ill with a little three-year-old and a two-year old tottering around. A baby was in bed with the parents. The house was like a bake-oven, so hot.” Some survived. Many did not.
Compassionate Health Care Sisters Mary Agnes and Mary Alexia O’Rourke closed the Sisters’ school in Verboort, Oregon, to care for seriously ill children and adults during the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918.
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This was the first time that Sisters would see a critical health care need and take action to meet it. It would not be the last.
MARYVILLE In the late 1950s, the Sisters saw the increasing need for health care for the sick and elderly. Sister Theresa Margaret Yettick, who was then general secretary of the Sisters’ Community, led efforts to obtain a government grant and borrow the