BEFORE AND ABOVE EVERYTHING LET CARE BE HAD OF THE SICK, SERVING THEM IN VERY DEED AS CHRIST HIMSELF, SINCE HE HATH SAID, ‘I WAS SICK AND YE VISITED ME.’ AND ELSEWHERE: ‘WHATEVER YE DID TO ONE OF THESE MY LITTLE ONES, YE DID TO ME.’ ” – Rule of Benedict Chapter 36 “Of the Sick Brethren”
St. Cloud, Minnesota, had been established as a city for more than 30 years before it held an actual hospital. And, for the most part, the city was okay with that. Care for the sick and injured, prior to the late 19th century, was generally handled at home, at the hands of loved ones. Hospitals were seen as warehouses for the lonely and destitute – a place to go to die.
Many nearby buildings were leveled, but the hospital was left intact, and for the next 48 hours, the sisters worked until help could arrive from the Twin Cities. The tornado, while tragic, served to break down local prejudice against hospitals in general and against sisters as nurses.
But as St. Cloud – and the United States – grew, needs changed. The arrival of the railroad made travel much easier and people more transient. With more unattached people without established homes, it became impractical to rely on family ties and charitable neighborliness to handle the sick. St. Cloud needed a hospital. And since, as S. Grace McDonald puts it in her book With Lamps Burning, “it had been the practice of Benedictines throughout the ages to undertake whatever work the needs of the time or place dictated,” the sisters seemed likely candidates to run it. St. Benedict’s Hospital was opened in February 1886. But minds aren’t changed quickly. In their first month the sisters received two patients. In their second month, four. Perhaps St. Cloud wasn’t ready for a hospital after all. Then, as S. Grace tells it, “There is a story that the sisters, worried about their venture, decided to pray together for nine successive days asking for Divine help in deciding whether or not to close their hospital. On the fifth day the answer came! A cyclone swept over the city and neighboring towns on April 14, 1886, injuring hundreds and killing many.”
S. Danile and S. Rita Claire in the St. Cloud Hospital pharmacy, 1957 – photo courtesy of Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives, used with permission.
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