70 Years

Sr. Mary Salome Bayer, fmm

From 1950 to 1962 Sr. Mary was supervisor of the Occupational Therapy Department at Kennedy Memorial Hospital, today’s Franciscan Children’s Hospital. Here, children with physical and mental disabilities came for treatment and care. From 1962 to 1964 she was in charge of the Sisters’ Infirmary in North Providence, Rhode Island. Following this she was Health Coordinator and Registered Nurse at Divine Providence Shelter in New York City from 1964 to 1967 and at Cardinal Hayes Home in Millbrook from 1967 to 1968, and then Administrator at Cardinal Hayes Home from 1968 to 1974.

In 1974 she was granted a temporary leave to care for her mother and her sister.

Mary says, “This was a difficult period emotionally because I was obliged to be absent from my community. However, it was very fruitful in terms of ministry and spiritual growth” During this time she was attentive to the needs of her mother and sister alike and worked four days a week in a Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Rehabilitation Program at Holy Spirit Hospital in Camp Hill, Pa. under the auspices of the Sisters of Christian Charity.

Following this time of ministry, she attended a seven-month course in Spiritual Direction. In the years following this from 1986 to 2001, she gave service to the community as coordinator of the communities at Franciscan Children’s Hospital in Boston, Cardinal Hayes Home in Millbrook, and Queen of Peace Community in Providence. During the time in Boston she volunteered two days a week at a soup kitchen and day shelter for the homeless organized by the Franciscan Fathers in downtown Boston

From 2001 to the present Sister Mary is part of the Assisted Living community at 399 Fruit Hill Ave. in North Providence, a time as Sister herself describes it as ”a time of diminishment and detachment but also a blessed time of prayer and reflection, a time in which all the years are recalled and all God’s gifts are remembered with a grateful heart.”

Despite her physical limitations, Mary remains a joyful person whose hearty laughter lifts the spirits of those around her. She is interested in world and Church events and reads as much as her eyes allow her to do. She stays in contact both by means of the written word and by E-mail with many friends and former patients who remember her with gratitude.