PITTSBURG, Kan. — After a lifetime of offering compassionate care to others, Sister Ann Meyer, 84, is retiring from the Neighborhood Well being Heart of Southeast Kansas this month, though she nonetheless plans to assist others have a good time their lives in her new location.

“God has held onto me and spoiled me all the time, I can say, even within the exhausting knocks,” Meyer mentioned. “I usually inform folks I’m a spoiled baby of God, due to the way in which the Lord cares for me all via these years and opens my eyes to be there for an individual in want.”

Meyer grew up on a Southeast Kansas farm, simply east of the KOAM tv station, and fondly remembers going to Joplin in the course of the summer season for watermelons on the farmers market. She graduated from St. Mary’s Colgan in Pittsburg and attended faculty at College of St. Mary in Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1958, Meyer determined to enter the convent of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita. After educating college for 30 years, she realized it was time to search for a special space to make use of her items.

The Sisters of St. Joseph strongly inspired Meyer to enter pastoral care, working in nursing houses. Meyer mentioned issues weren’t simple for her firstly.

“To be sincere, earlier than I didn’t like going into nursing houses,” Meyer mentioned. “I can bear in mind getting in to go to a household buddy in a nursing residence who had a stroke. All she may say to me was, ‘Sure.’ I stayed there lower than two minutes and I used to be out the door. It was blended feelings.”

Meyer credit the instruction she obtained from Lutheran Church Missouri Synod seminarians in St. Louis with serving to her change into comfy with pastoral care. The coaching helped open her eyes to see God’s presence in these she helped, a celebration of every particular person’s journey of life, she mentioned.

She continued to work in pastoral look after the following 20 years.

“That was an amazing present to me, to know the best way to honor these seniors once I went into the nursing residence, to assist have a good time their lives and to journey with them till they went into everlasting life,” Meyer mentioned. “I’ve an actual ardour for that.”

Historical past in Southeast Kansas

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita have maintained that zeal for Southeast Kansas for greater than 100 years. Below the route of Mom Mary Bernard Sheridan, they first got here to Southeast Kansas within the late Nineties to assist coal miners.

They’re credited with opening the primary insurance coverage firm within the space for miners. They might ask for 1 / 4 from every coal miner after every payday, in change for well being look after them and their household. In addition they opened the primary Mt. Carmel hospital in Pittsburg in 1903, they usually performed a significant function within the institution of the parish and educating at St. Mary’s.

Meyer is the final of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita within the Pittsburg area. When she leaves for Wichita, it is going to shut a historic chapter of service and care in Southeast Kansas.

“It breaks my coronary heart, however I’m at peace with shifting again to our middle in Wichita and utilizing my pastoral care coaching with our older sisters. I’ll discover so much to maintain me out of hassle, I hope,” she mentioned with amusing. “I’m wanting ahead to getting again into portray, too.”

On the well being middle in Pittsburg, Meyer labored within the medical data division. When she first began there, it had just lately relocated from a trailer right into a small constructing. She recollects with delight the work that CEO Krista Postai and her group have completed to develop the middle to make use of greater than 700 folks in clinics all through the realm.

Meyer mentioned she is glad to have been a small a part of bringing high quality well being care to Southeast Kansas.

“I’m very proud to have been a part of the group right here,” Meyer mentioned. “I really feel that what I do is primary, however to me it’s extraordinarily essential — when a affected person is available in for well being care, and their data are proper there for a receptionist or nursing workers to tug up and provides the standard well being care that every particular person affected person wants.”

Carrying on the mission

After a lifetime in Southeast Kansas, Meyer mentioned she is going to miss her relations, buddies and her coworkers and workers on the well being middle. She’ll additionally miss having the ability to empty her basket of medical data every day earlier than she leaves.

However she values her lengthy profession of service to the group.

“I see many individuals right here journey with the Lord as they create high quality well being care to sufferers,” Meyer mentioned. “Within the lifetime of Jesus Christ, he walked alongside the street along with his companions. When he noticed a necessity, he addressed it. He teaches us to see the Lord in one another.”

Meyer mentioned she is grateful to have used pastoral care to deliver dignity and have a good time folks’s lives, and he or she seems to be ahead to persevering with this help in retirement.

“I’ve actually been honored that I’ve been capable of be right here on the Neighborhood Well being Heart with every certainly one of my experiences, sharing with the Lord wherever he’s known as me,” Meyer mentioned. “I’m grateful to be right here and for all of them to hold on our Sisters’ mission to deliver well being care to all folks.”