News

Provincial leader comes home

By Jaye Alderson
Compass Correspondent

OSHKOSH -- For Sr. Sylvia Egan, SSM, provincial/administrator for the U.S./Caribbean Province of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, the relocation of provincial headquarters to Oshkosh brings her full circle. She was born in Oshkosh at the old St. Mary's Hospital, run by the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, and grew up on a dairy farm on Highway 116 south of Omro. She later studied nursing at St. Mary's, where she also found her calling to the religious life.

	Related article: • Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother Move to Oshkosh

"I've been back and forth between Wisconsin, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico all my life," Sr. Sylvia said. "I've had roots all over. It's nice to come back here."

A brother, Robert Egan, still lives in Omro, where his sons run Egan Dairy. A sister, Mary Jane Fox, lives in Fond du Lac.

Sr. Sylvia is the youngest of five siblings. She was to have been born in October, but instead was born on Sept. 15, the feast of the Sorrowful Mother.

"I ended up entering the congregation of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, which is kind of providential, wouldn't you say?" she said.

She attended public schools. St. Mary in Omro was her home parish. Several factors led to her entering the religious life.

"Good parents help vocations," she said. "My mother had a great devotion to the rosary. We said the family rosary on our knees every day during Lent."

Also, she said, there was much illness in her family, and she always wanted to take care of people, which was why she entered nursing training at St. Mary's.

"I was a little country girl going to the big city," she said. "I didn't know how I was going to handle it. I decided I needed the Lord's help and started to go to daily Mass. After one liturgical year, I knew I had a vocation."

Sr. Sylvia took her novitiate in Milwaukee in 1949 and graduated from Mercy (as the hospital and nursing school were renamed after moving) and Marquette University. She then transferred to St. John Hospital in Tulsa, where she was an instructor in the school of nursing.

"I loved teaching," she said. "I felt I had a real opportunity to instill in these young women our philosophy as sisters to be caring and compassionate people. Mary at the foot of the cross was our model."

She also served as director of a nursing school in Roswell, N.M., administrator of St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Wichita, provincial of the southwest province of the order, then headquartered in Broken Arrow, Okla. (That headquarters has now moved to Oshkosh; see story.)

Sr. Sylvia also oversaw the establishment of Franciscan Courts in Oshkosh and cared for her mother for several years until her death in 2004. Sr. Sylvia was elected provincial of the consolidated U.S./Caribbean province in 2005.

She has done a lot of traveling, including Rome several times. Six years ago, she attended a private Mass and audience with Pope John Paul II and was asked to do a reading at the Mass. Afterward, he spoke with each of them, shook their hands and gave them each a rosary.

"I thought it was quite a privilege," she said. "We were very close to him. His private chapel holds only 25 people. You could tell he was a holy man and very personable. He was human. Sometimes, he seems so far away, but he gave us plenty of time, and it was really a warm experience."

She also made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Egypt and Greece. A visit to the shrine of St. Anne in Canada was special since she had entered the convent on the feast of St. Anne (July 26), and her mother had Masses said there for many years "for my perseverance."

"That was so touching to go to the place where I felt I was helped over many rough edges because I had those prayers," she said.

But being back in her home area is special, too. She recently attended a Mass at St. Mary's in Omro and afterward took her brother to lunch downtown.

"So many people came up and knew me," she said. "I have lots of memories and re-established many, many friendships."