Misericordia Sisters Visit Rosalie Hall

Sister Huguette Beauchamp and Sister Jacqueline St. Yves of the Congregation of the Sisters of Misericorde of Montreal, Quebec recently visited the Rosalie Hall Maternity & Mother-Child Residence and the Parenting Resource Center, two vital programs operated by Catholic Guardian Services.

The synergistic missions of Catholic Guardian Services and the Misericordia Sisters have enabled us to serve thousands of expectant mothers and their children. The Sisters of Misericorde was founded in 1848 by Venerable Marie-Rosalie Cadron-Jetté. Her legacy of care and service, especially to mothers, is memorialized by the maternity shelter Rosalie Hall as well as the Rosalie Cadron-Jetté Award for Courage and Compassion, bestowed annually at Catholic Guardian’s Child of Peace Awards Celebration.

The history of the Misericordia Sisters in New York dates to 1887 when Archbishop Michael Corrigan of the Archdiocese of New York summoned the Misericordia Sisters to provide care for the growing number of unmarried, pregnant women in New York City. The first Rosalie Hall maternity shelter was on Staten Island. In the early twentieth century, a better facility was acquired on 86th Street in Yorkville. Responding to economic depression, widespread illness, and disease, as well as an ever-growing immigrant population living in squalor, the Misericordia Sisters expand their charter beyond obstetrics to care for anyone seeking medical attention, and the New York Mothers' Home was renamed Misericordia Hospital.

In 1958, Misericordia Hospital moved to the Bronx. In 2011, Catholic Guardian Services and Rosalie Hall, by then a separately incorporated entity, integrated services for pregnant and parenting adolescents in foster care and pregnant and parenting women in need from the community. By 2013, 125 years after its founding, Rosalie Hall Inc. permanently merged into Catholic Guardian Services to become the Rosalie Hall Maternity Services Division.

The staff hosting the recent visit included: Chief Executive Officer, Craig Longley; Chief Program Officer, Caryn Ashare; Facilities Coordinator, Andrew Cahill; Director of Congregate Care, Sunday Odua; Residence Supervisor, Tamika Tolbert; Senior Director of Family Support Services, Rebecca Ramos; Parenting Resource Center Program Director, Soraya Lithgow; Program Supervisor, Edwina Webster, and fellow staff/coaches Jada Billet, Tracy Lee, and Luana Patterson.

To learn more about the Parenting Resource Center, please click here.