Page 24 - BusinessWest October 31, 2022

applications, it was just that the Department of Public Health deemed it was not needed,” she said. “But I thought otherwise.”
So she kept on filing applications until finally, in 1993, after she had given notice to the board at Mercy that she would be retiring, the state said ‘yes.’
There are many examples of such determination and perseverance from her lengthy career. Before getting to some, for those who don’t know the
“I was in the secretarial program, learning shorthand and all that ... and I was flunking; I hated it every single minute of it.”
Sister Caritas story — and most do — we’ll recap quickly.
Mary Geary was born in Springfield and attended schools in the city. Her parents thought it would be good for her to pursue a career as
a secretary, and for a short while, she did, at Commerce High School.
“I was in the secretarial program, learning shorthand and all that ... and I was flunking; I hated it every single minute of it,” she recalled, noting that her life changed when she met a girl training to become a nurse at Providence Hospital in Holyoke.
“That absolutely turned my life around,” she
told BusinessWest. “I knew ... I was so incredibly inspired that I went from Commerce over to Tech [Technical High School], took all my sciences, and eventually went to nursing school.” Fast-forwarding through the next half-century or so, Geary joined the Sisters of Providence and was sent to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Worcester as a nurse. But upon making her final vows after her fifth year, in 1949, she was sent to Mercy Hospital in Springfield, a move she was thrilled with until she found out that, instead of nursing, she would focus on dietary services, a decision made by the reverend mother.
After receiving a master’s degree in nutrition education at Tufts University and undertaking a dietetic internship at the Francis Stern Food Clinic at the New England Medical Center in Boston,
she was assigned to be administrative dietitian at Providence Hospital in Holyoke, an assignment she enjoyed for seven years.
She then got another call from the Mother House, this one to inform her that she was being named administrator at St. Luke’s Hospital.
When she replied that she didn’t know anything about hospital administration, her superior responded with a simple ‘you’ll learn,’ which she did.
After St. Luke’s and Pittsfield General merged
in 1969 to become Berkshire Medical Center, Sister Caritas served briefly as associate director of that facility — briefly because she was chosen to lead the Sisters of Providence and take the title superior general, a title that intimidated her about as much as the long list of responsibilities that came with it.
“I was totally unprepared for this,” she said, adding that, as she did with other stops during her
Photo by Leah Martin Photography
24 OCTOBER 31, 2022
A PROGRAM OF BUSINESSWEST Women of Women of IMPACT IMPACT A PROGRAM OF BUSINESSWEST WOMEN
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Sister Mary Caritas says “every day is a present, and if I haven’t learned something new in a day, then it wasn’t a good day.”
career, she learned by doing.
And that ‘doing’ included work to create a
new Mercy Hospital, a facility that would replace
a structure built by the Sisters of Providence in 1896; it opened its doors in 1974. Sister Caritas would be named
president of the
Sister Caritas hospital three
Continued on page 45
The Impact You Make Matters
On behalf of all of us at the firm, congratulations to this year’s 8 honorees. We applaud your accomplishments and the way each of you continue to make a difference in our communities.
As a group, you collectively inspire many of us to reach out with our better selves.
Nicely done!
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