Sr. Helen Kelley, DC, died March 14 at age 89. She had served the Catholic health ministry for more than four decades, including as CHA president from 1976 to 1978.
Born Catherine Ann Margaret Kelley in 1922, she grew up in upstate New York and then joined the Daughters of Charity of Emmitsburg, Md., in 1940, taking the name Helen. She taught elementary and junior high school before transitioning into health care ministry.
Sr. Kelley earned her nursing degree from Catholic University in Washington, DC, and then taught nursing at St. Joseph's College in Emmitsburg. After earning her master's degree in health care administration from Saint Louis University, she began her career in health care administration in the late 1950s. She served in administrative roles at what was then Providence Hospital in Detroit and Sisters of Charity Hospital in Buffalo, N.Y.; and was president of Saint Agnes Hospital in Baltimore and Carney Hospital in Boston.
After next serving as provincial councilor of the Daughters of Charity's northeast province and in international ministry in Mexico and Panama, Sr. Kelley returned to the Catholic health ministry, first as president of what was then Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton, N.Y., and then as president of CHA.
Throughout the 1980s, Sr. Kelley served in administrative or directorship positions in health ministry, including at the Laboure Center, a health and social service ministry in Boston; St. Louise House, a Daughters of Charity retirement center in Albany, N.Y.; Carney Hospital; and the Intercounty Home Health Care Agency of the Diocese of Albany. Throughout the 1990s, she was active in parish and diocesan ministry work, mainly in New York State. For the past decade she had lived at St. Louise House and had been developing a historical record of the Daughters of Charity's northeast province.
During a worship service for Sr. Kelley, other sisters recalled her fun-loving nature, her readiness to serve and her willingness to use her talent in service to others.
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