DECATUR - The tradition that started in a small house on the corner of Wood and Webster Streets is as much a part of the Decatur community as it has been for the past 130 years. In mid-November 1878, the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis arrived in Decatur and opened St. Mary's Hospital, according to the hospital's Web site.

"The sisters have been very progressive even from the very first sisters that came here," St. Mary's Chief Operating Officer Teresa Rutherford said. "They couldn't speak the language, but the idea of a group of women traveling around the world to start a healthcare industry because that was needed - that's very progressive."

The roles of the sisters and the ways in which they communicated their mission have changed over time, but the foundation of care at St. Mary's has remained the same, she said.

"They had terrific courage and love of God and neighbor and willingness to come into a foreign country and didn't know much English at all," Sister JoAn Schullian said. "But yet they wanted to serve and care for the sick and do what they could to heal people."

Sister Chaminade Kelley said she is continually inspired by the sense of sacrifice the founding sisters embodied.

"You try to imagine that, and it's almost beyond our imagination because we left our homes, too," she said. "But we go back and visit with our families and all those kinds of things. Now we take that for granted."

Four Decatur-based sisters, including Sister Anna Phiri, who came to St. Mary's in January, are very much involved in the activities of local parishes and the hospital. They agreed that health professions necessitate service and sacrifice.

Sister Jocelyn Serwatka, whose first stint at St. Mary's was as a nurse in the late '60s, said she was often called away from meals and religious exercises to sit with the dying on the seventh floor.

"I was with more dying patients in my day than I can count," she said. "But that, to me, I just felt like I was especially blessed because I was able to do that, and I would never think of leaving a dying patient's bedside, ever."

But times have changed from the days when the sisters had a very physical presence in the hospital. As recently as the late 1980s, there were still 17 living at the hospital, but their living quarters have since been converted into offices.

"The format has changed," Kelley said. "Certainly the technology has changed. The people's names have changed, but the mission has remained the same. The ministry has remained the same, even though we've had to adapt it in so many ways."

Each person who has passed through the doors of St. Mary's as a staff member, patient or visitor over the years seems to have a story about what the hospital has meant in his or her life.

"I really believe that just by the welcome they gave me, I felt healed within," Phiri said. "It's not just physical healing that we're talking about, but we're talking about the healing of the whole person."

She leads hour-long "busy person's retreats" at the hospital to help employees who couldn't otherwise step away from their work stay in touch with their spirituality. They take time to pray and reflect on their lives.

"This helps them to even be more available to people, patients and their coworkers," she said.

In Dr. Larry Penning's stints at the hospital, he experienced incidents that ranged from somber and moving to downright hilarious. He remembered two sisters driving their golf cart around the parking lot of the old hospital.

"Wouldn't you know it," he said. "Two of those young gals in there with their wimples flying and everything like that, flipped that golf cart."

A handful of retired employees agreed that spirit of the sisters and their humanity and vision have forged a sense of family around the place.

"Their spirit has permeated through the entire hospital," former labor and delivery nurse Erma Rubenacker said. "Through everybody."

Mary Handley, the hospital's director of mission and spiritual care, came to St. Mary's in 1985 as staff chaplain. She was hired on by the first lay chaplain.

"I came here because I was called," she said. "I was called in a spiritual sense; I was called to be here."

Rutherford said the sisters' caring hearts and their business acumen to put together a hospital system in this country and sustain missionary activities in many countries are admirable and astounding.

"I think the sisters would be proud of that, when you think about what they started with," Rutherford said.

The hospital's leadership needs have changed drastically along with changes in technology and healthcare policy, she added.

"We'd had periods of struggle, but the one thing that stayed consistent throughout that was the staff stayed committed to what they were doing as far as the mission," she said.

Many employees say they were drawn by the fact that the hospital is faith-based. Those involved in all aspects of direct patient care have their reminder of the hospital's mission right in front of them, Rutherford said. But leadership also works to remain keenly aware of that mission in planning for the future.

The upcoming building improvements, hospital expansion project and a new advertising campaign will help to reinforce the quality of St. Mary's care in the community's mind, she said.

This week the hospital has held a variety of events to celebrate 130 years serving Decatur. Looking back on its rich history and working to connect with the sisters' mission helps the hospital administration to look forward, Rutherford said.

But the recent emphasis on history is not a one-time focus. Nor is it done in a vacuum, Kelley pointed out. The hospital must remain aware of the good being done in the present and the potential to serve in the future, she said.

Schullian said the sisters have expressed concern over the "passing the torch" slogan used around the anniversary celebration.

"We're not leaving, is what my thing is," she said. "We're not leaving."

The sisters are not handing off their spirit and mission, they said. Rather they are sharing the heart of what they believe and practice in a constantly changing healthcare setting.

"Passing it on to other people doesn't mean we're giving it up ourselves," Kelley said.

agetsinger@herald-review.com|421-6968