Sister Joan will be sorely missed

This past week, your Deaths column noted the passing of Sister Joan O’Sullivan, CSJ (Community of St. Joseph). Sister Joan was a proud member of two amazing families. Years ago, when this area was scourged with deadly disease, this dedicated family of nuns risked their lives to initiate health services and related services for orphans. Those services flourished and have broadened over the decades since. Health care is provided on a non-denominational basis at St Joseph’s Hospital, their villa in Dundas and other institutions across the Hamilton Diocese. Sister Joan’s fellow sisters will be remembered for such educational institutions as Cathedral Girls High School and similar schools in the diocese. I served for nine years on the hospital board of trustees, where I observed the innate leadership skills, experience, common sense and Irish wit Sister Joan brought to her role as CEO of St. Joseph’s Hospital. Her other family is her immediate one. Her late brother Paul managed the Royal Connaught in its heyday. It was there that his son encountered The Chief, John Diefenbaker. Sean was inspired to run for elected office and became the youngest member of our federal parliament. He cut short his political career to study for and be ordained as a priest in the Archdiocese of Toronto. His religious career, while outstanding, was also too brief. Sister Joan had the tragic responsibility to oversee an aggressive program of chemotherapy, which was too late to prevent the premature death of her nephew, Father Sean O’Sullivan. Understandably, she will be sorely missed by both her families, but also by countless others who met this amazing lady and came to know and love her simply as Sister Joan. May she rest in peace.

JIM SHERLOCK, BURLINGTON