Green Bay native has returned to serve her community in Springfield
By Jeff Kurowski | On Mission
GREEN BAY — When Sr. Annice McClure moved to Springfield, Ill., on June 22, it marked the end of the era when she became the last of the Hospital Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis to serve at a Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) hospital in Wisconsin.
It was time to “pass the torch,” she said.
“We always have to leave things behind, but our legacy is here,” said Sr. Annice. “When I helped with orientation (for new hospital employees), I would say, ‘You are living the sisters’ legacy. You are bringing the care, the dedication, the commitment, the compassion to the patients as the sisters did for many, many years.’”
Sr. Annice, 92, returned to the motherhouse to help other sisters.
“I’m going back to where I entered the community in 1951,” she said in an interview with On Mission before her departure. “I told Sr. Maureen (O’Connor), the leader down there, that ‘I’m not going to be sitting around.’ She said, ‘I know you’re not.’ I still drive. I can get them around a little bit. It’s just time. I came back to Green Bay in 2001 and worked at both St. Vincent and St. Mary (HSHS hospitals). I appreciated that because my family is in Green Bay.”
Sr. Annice was born Gladys McClure on Chicago Street and grew up on Chestnut Avenue, both on Green Bay’s west side. She was the fifth oldest of 15 children in her family, members of St. Patrick Parish.
As a teenager, she worked after school and on weekends at St. Vincent Hospital.
“I went to St. Joseph Academy and four of us needed to earn money to help with our tuition,” she said. “That’s how I got to know the sisters. We emptied bed pans, delivered the meal trays, did dusting and dry mopping, anything they thought we could handle.
“That’s when I saw the sisters’ work and their mission,” she said. “That inspired me. They were encouraging me to think about (joining the order), but I wanted to finish high school in a normal situation. We had a high school down there (in Springfield) at the time, but I said, ‘Nope, I’m going to finish high school here.’ At some point, I knew that (joining the order) was what God wanted me to do and what I wanted to do.”
Sr. Annice spent three years of formation as a novice and postulate before attending St. John School of Nursing in Springfield. Her first assignment after graduation from nursing school was disappointing, she said.
“I got this little envelope. The letter read, ‘You will go to St. Louis to become a dietician.’ I wanted to be a nurse,” she said. “In a community, you do what you need to do for the good of the group. I worked in dietetics for four years and then got into nursing.”
Sr. Annice was well-traveled as a nurse, serving at medical facilities in Chicago, Eau Claire and Haiti, to name a few.
“I was in Haiti from 1996 to 1997,” she said. “That was a very powerful experience. Now, what I see going on there (with the gang violence) breaks your heart. It’s so sad. Our clinic is still going there.”
Four years later, in 2001, Sr. Annice’s position as a parish nurse in a small town near Springfield ended. It was then she decided she wanted to get back to Wisconsin and was invited to serve in the St. Vincent Hospital Cancer Center library.
“That was a sign that I’m supposed to come to Green Bay,” she said. “I worked at the St. Vincent Cancer Center for several years. Then, they asked me if I was interested in helping with the orientation of new staff.”
Sr. Annice said that her favorite part of nursing was the 15 years she worked in home health and hospice care. Some colleagues questioned her passion for serving hospice patients because of the gravity of their situations.
“You’re serving them in their home, so you feel like you’re a guest there,” she said. “If you can give them a small sense of hope or positiveness in their life, that’s a big thing. Hospice care was very rewarding.”
For the last three years, Sr. Annice has served as a volunteer, including each Thursday at HSHS St. Vincent Hospital. She also volunteered at Paul’s Pantry as well as the Micah Center in Green Bay, a daytime resource center for homeless and at-risk adults, and with the meal programs for the men’s and women’s homeless shelters operated by St. John’s Ministries.
In the weeks before her return to the motherhouse, Sr. Annice made sure to spend time with friends and family in the Green Bay area.
“It’s a little tearjerking,” she said, “but we can certainly keep in touch with texting and (social media). I will be back periodically for things with family.”
She also made a retreat in preparation for her move, traveling to Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey in Dubuque, Iowa, a Trappistine community.
“They were so welcoming, just a joyful fun-loving group,” she said. “They pray five times a day. I joined them a couple times a day. These sisters support themselves by making chocolates and caramels. I brought back a bag.”
The Hospital Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis currently has 32 sisters. In addition to St. Vincent Hospital the remaining HSHS hospitals in Wisconsin are St. Vincent and St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center in Green Bay, St. Clare Memorial in Oconto Falls and St. Nicholas in Sheboygan.
Earlier in 2024, HSHS, in coordination with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, completed its wind-down of operations and permanently closed HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls.
“When I was a kid here (St. Vincent), there were 50 sisters stationed here. They were in charge in every department. We kids couldn’t get away with anything. They were always on top of you,” said Sr. Annice with a laugh.
“Our legacy is still the 13 hospitals (in Wisconsin and Illinois), most started in a home. That was pretty much the pattern,” she said. “The Lord blessed their work, their mission. Each of our hospitals has become a wonderful place of care and compassion, and very important in the community.”