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BY PRISCILLA GREEAR
Staff Writer
ATLANTA--In the sixtieth anniversary year of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Home, its auxiliary continued the tradition of supporting the Hawthorne
Dominican sisters who serve at the home by giving its annual Champagne
Luncheon.
Over 700 new and long-time supporters of the home for the terminally ill,
many with loved ones who were cared for there, gathered for the annual autumn
event held this year at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel Oct. 20.
Master of ceremonies was Max Carey, founder and chairman of CRD marketing
and consulting firm. Honorary chairpersons for the event were Ken Cook, WAGA-TV
chief meteorologist, and his wife, Susie, parishioners of St. Andrew Church,
Roswell.
The OLPH home, one of seven run by the Hawthorne Dominican sisters in the
U.S., has nine sisters trained as nurses or nursing aides who currently care
for 25 patients. The order, formally called Servants of Relief for Incurable
Cancer, was founded in 1896 by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, convert daughter of
author Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Located adjacent to Turner Field in Atlanta, the home provides free medical
care to cancer patients, regardless of their social or religious background,
whose resources have been exhausted. Since the home is supported entirely by
donations and fund raising, the auxiliary sponsors the annual luncheon and the
ongoing Medical Supply Fund, supported by bake sales and boutiques.
The home has a grassy courtyard filled with colorful flowers and a towering
black oak, the oldest in Georgia. The interior is attractively decorated, with
art lining the halls and a stained glass window of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
Carey opened the event describing a recent visit to the home. He described
it as a loving and accepting environment where all are treated with dignity, a
serene place of prayer and comfort and a house of God.
The auxiliary president, Myra Pawlowski, thanked attendees for their
continuing support of the home and thanked the sisters for their ongoing work.
“As we move into the new millennium, we can take great comfort in
knowing that the sisters will continue the work they started 60 years
ago,” she said.
Pawlowski said the luncheon is dedicated to the Hawthorne Dominican sisters,
who arrived in Atlanta in 1939 and opened the cancer home under the patronage
of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Since then thousands of patients have found
comfort, peace and security there. She spoke of the celebration in April
honoring the sisters for 60 years of service in Atlanta.
Pawlowski introduced the sisters, a joyful presence amidst the busyness of
the lively social event, and Father Richard Lopez, chaplain at the home. Those
attending were Sister Florence Gilmore, OP, superior; Sister Joan Marie
Cheuvront, OP; Sister Kevin Clutterbuck, OP, who was superior for six years in
New York; Sister Marian Galliers, OP, bookkeeper; Sister Mary Walter Ziajor,
OP, director of nursing; and Sister Eugenia Frascatore, OP, volunteer
coordinator, who has served at the home for over 30 years.
Ken Cook said the event was a time to thank the sisters. “We are all
here to support the sisters in their work, Christ’s work, for all that
they do.” Susie Cook added that the sisters are a Christian example.
“I need to be an example for my family, my friends, for you, for myself,
and I thank the sisters for being that for me. They are wonderful. They are
nuts and they love to have fun. Visit the patients, but visit them, too.
They’re wonderful people to work with.”
The luncheon included a silent auction, the showing of an informational
video on the home and a performance by the band, Banks & Shane. Supporters
had deep gratitude and a spirit of celebration for the sisters’ ministry
to those suffering physically and emotionally from cancer. Pauline Hobbs, a
parishioner at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, Smyrna, whose aunt died of
cancer, volunteers at the home where she witnesses the sisters’ care.
“It’s so clean and these nuns really care. I’ve heard them
when they didn’t know anybody was listening, talking to those patients,
and they really care,” she said. “We don’t talk about dying. We
stress listening.”
After one patient, with whom she developed a special friendship, died, she
considered no longer working there. But she continued and said she still gets
more out of the work than she gives.
Irene Wiggins, a parishioner at Corpus Christi Church, Stone Mountain, whose
sister is a member of the order in Hawthorne, N.Y., said their father died at
OLPH home in 1987. Having him there took the nursing burden off the family, she
said, and enabled them to concentrate on their relationships.
“Most of us aren’t medical people. We don’t know how to care
primarily for the patients,” Wiggins said. “That takes the pressure
off and you’re able to go take them outside, watch a TV program with them,
just be able to spend quality time.”
A former activities director at the home, she also now volunteers giving
tours. This is “one of my favorite things to do,” she said, “to
show people the home and tell people the history. Other than that I play
croquet (with patients), I play bingo … and I go and visit the
patients.”
She said the patients are beautiful. “The patients for the most part
are in the last stage of cancer where they’ve accepted what’s
happened to them and they’re just beautiful people. Feeling like you could
make a difference in their last days is just really special.”
Sara Goldin-McLeod said she has been playing the piano and keyboard at the
home for 60 years as a volunteer. Christmas, when every room is decorated and
gifts are given to patients, is one of her favorite times.
“They just enjoy it and the elderly like “Old Time Religion”
and old-time songs like that … I just love doing it and it’s so much
a part of my life,” she said. “Victory in Jesus” and
“I’ll Fly Away” are favorite songs there. “They love it,
they really do. You feel like you’re doing something worthwhile these 60
years. It’s wonderful.”
Sister Gilmore said the luncheon is also a way to thank the home’s many
supporters and is their celebration. “We wouldn’t be here if it
wasn’t for all the work they do to raise money to support us,” she
said.
Serving in Atlanta and at three other homes in her 32 years of ministry, she
gets great satisfaction in knowing “it’s God’s work that
we’re doing or we wouldn’t be able to survive, if not for the support
that we get. We trust in God’s providence. As long as we do what
we’re supposed to be doing, the Lord is going to support us and we have
total trust that God is going to take care of us.”
In addition to making patients as comfortable as possible, she said the
sisters strive to help them accept their suffering, as everyone has to endure
pain in life. They also spend time supporting and talking with families. She
said it is difficult to turn patients away when they have a waiting list.
Sister Gilmore said the home strives to provide unconditional love to every
patient. “Our whole ministry is love,” she said. “It
doesn’t matter whether they’ve come to us off the street or if
they’ve been well taken care of. They still get the same care.”
Pawlowski, a 28-year member of the auxiliary, said the luncheon achieved a
goal of attracting new supporters in addition to lifelong auxiliary members and
that many younger people have been joining the organization in recent years.
“I think that the luncheon is good not only for the people who’ve
been around for a while but for the new people coming in,” she said.
“We’ve brought in a lot of new people and we have a lot coming to the
board now … young people with new and young ideas. I think that you need
the old, but you also need the young.”
Pawlowski believes members of the 670-person auxiliary share a common desire
to support the sisters in their work. At the luncheon, committee chairpersons
Kathy Giannini and Diane Tanger acknowledged the contributions of various
members.
“Once you go to the home and you see the peace and almost joy, then you
just feel that you want to do anything you can to help the suffering,”
Pawlowski said. “You know that the sisters give their whole lives to (the
dying) and you just want to help them.”
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