Determined women celebrate “70+1”

WORCESTER – Neither personal ailments nor a worldwide pandemic have stopped a determined group of women.
Some of those women celebrated the “70+1” of the Guild of Our Lady of Providence Oct. 17 at Blessed Sacrament Parish with a Mass and a dinner with a brief talk by the new president, Donna Wrenn. Their organization’s 70th anniversary was in 2020, but the celebration was postponed due to the pandemic.
“It would have been nice to do it last year,” said Jo Luikey, former president and now vice president. “This organization does so much. Every now and then they have to stop and reflect on where we’re going.”
“For 70 years, you all have abounded in works of mercy,” Bishop McManus told them at the Mass. “Today in the name of the diocese, I thank you all very much.” “I received a very lovely floral arrangement which said, ‘We honor you as being the longest-serving member of the Guild,’” she said from her residence at Notre Dame Long Term Care Center.
Though unable to attend the celebration, the 94-year-old stressed that she’s still a dues-payer, and, as a past president, also a board member.
“The only reason I stopped volunteering – I had eye surgery (at age 90) … and I couldn’t drive anymore,” she said.
Longevity seems to be a trait for Guild members.
In 2015 the Guild celebrated the 100th birthday of Susan E. Brosnan, who Ms. Wrenn said is unable to be involved anymore. At the time of her 100th birthday, Mrs. Brosnan had just stopped visiting cancer patients – because her doctor told her to.
“I’ve been in the Guild since it began,” she’d said. “I’ve done everything. … It was a way to give some of myself to God.”
The Guild’s name uses the title of the Blessed Mother for which St. Vincent Hospital’s chapel is named. The hospital started as a mission of the Sisters of Providence.
During a reorganization in 1996 the name, “Guild of Our Lady of Providence Aid Society to St. Vincent Hospital Inc. of Worcester, Massachusetts,” was changed to “Guild of Our Lady of Providence Aid Society to the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts, a Corporation Sole,” the Guild recalled at its 60th anniversary celebration in 2010. In 1996 St. Vincent’s was sold to a for-profit hospital chain, so the Guild, a non-profit organization, could no longer raise money or provide services to the hospital. Bishop Daniel P. Reilly, now retired, invited the Guild to work for the diocese as a whole, and members voted to do so.
Their mission is education, health, and charities, and they’ve been raising money through fairs, raffles and fashion shows. They support scholarships for students in Catholic schools and St. Peter’s Free Medical Program, as their own 10-year health care program at St. Bernard Church closed in 2011. They’ve also donated baby items to Problem Pregnancy, Visitation House and Pernet Family Health Service.
Unlike other organizations that disappeared after Vatican Council II, “in all of that time you were there (responding) whenever we needed anything,” Bishop George E. Rueger, then retired auxiliary bishop of the diocese and now deceased, told Guild members at the 60th anniversary celebration.
Speaking of Bishop Rueger’s support for the Guild Mrs. Conlin said, “We had a lot of fun with him.”
She gave a history of the Guild – from memory and personal experience.
Originally Guild members were doctors’ wives, she said, but then women like her joined. Most didn’t have paying jobs, their children were old enough that they could volunteer part time, and they wanted to do something constructive.
“I wasn’t interested in clubs; I was interested in service,” she said.
She lived on Vernon Street near the hospital so she volunteered there in the coffee shop, she said. When a new hospital was built nearby, she worked at the coffee shop and reception desk, and did reception work at the present St. Vincent’s on Summer Street. Encountering sad people whose problems she couldn’t solve, she tried to help with “a happy word or a sense of direction.”
“Every Thursday you’d head out the door with your turquois or melon-colored jacket,” a smock which identified volunteers, her daughter, Kathryn Maguire, reminded her. “It was like a holy day” – nothing interfered with it.
“We had a director of volunteers,” paid by the hospital, Mrs. Conlin said. “She would fit the person to the job. … When I retired from the reception desk … the president of the hospital took myself and the director of volunteers out for dinner at the Worcester Club.”
Mrs. Conlin said she considers herself “a professional volunteer.”
“I volunteered at my children’s schools … my church (Blessed Sacrament),” she said. “It was a labor of love for me.” Volunteering with the Guild, “I met a lot of lovely people I wouldn’t have met. … We always worked together as a team.” While the Guild was tied to the Catholic Church, members did not have to be Catholic, she said. They even had a Lutheran president.
“It was just a happy time of my life,” Mrs. Conlin said. “The hospital administrators were very cordial. They were very supportive of anything we had.”
One service the Guild provided was arranging for a photographer to take pictures of newborns, she said. Mothers bought the photos from the photographer.
For fundraising ideas, St. Vincent’s sent Guild members to trade fairs at other hospitals, she said. Fundraisers included fashion shows, bake sales and Christmas bazaars.
The biggest fundraiser was the Fall Assembly, which drew more than 2,000 people to Worcester Memorial Auditorium to see and hear popular artists, including Pearl Bailey, Arthur Fiedler and the Obernkirchen Children’s Choir from Germany, Mrs. Conlin said.  
“We were big time,” she said. “The year I was president we had Yo-Yo Ma. … When I was president, we had over 600 members,” and the Guild raised $95,000 that whole year (1989-1990).
Now there are 106 members, including eight new ones and those who can’t attend gatherings anymore, Ms. Wrenn said. And they’d like more women to join them.

Editor’s note: Those wanting more information can contact Donna Wrenn at dwrenn25@gmail.com or 508-826-4256.