Women working for the dying
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were a number of important developments in the care of dying people, several of which were led by women including Jeanne Garnier in France, Mary Aikenhead in Ireland and Rose Hawthorne in the US.
In 1842 a young widow and bereaved mother, Jeanne Garnier, formed L'Association des Dames du Calvaire in Lyon. The following year the organisation opened a home for the dying.
Garnier's influence led to the founding of six other establishments for the care of the dying between 1874, in Paris, and 1899, in New York. In both of these cities modern, palliative care services now exist which originate directly from their work.
Mary Aikenhead
As Superior of the Irish Sisters of Charity, Mary Aikenhead was instrumental in the opening of St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin in 1834.
After many years of chronic illness, Mary died at nearby Harold's Cross in 1858. Fulfilling a long-held ambition, the convent where she spent her final years became Our Lady's Hospice for the Dying in 1879. The Sisters of Charity followed it with others in Australia, England and Scotland, all of which still exist today and are run by the Order as modern, palliative care units.
Rose Hawthorne
In the US, Rose Hawthorne had experienced the death of a child and watched her friend, the poet Emma Lazarus, dying of cancer. During the late 1890s she organised a group of women known as the Servants of Relief of Incurable Cancer and when her husband died she took religious orders.
In 1900, under the title Mother Alphonsa, she formed the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. They established St Rose's Hospice in Lower Manhattan and then another in New York. These were followed by others in Philadelphia, Fall River, Atlanta, St Paul and Cleveland.
A common purpose
Although unknown to each other, Jeanne Garnier, Mary Aikenhead and Rose Hawthorne shared a common purpose in their concern for the care of the dying, and in particular the dying poor. Although the places they founded did not offer sophisticated medical or nursing care, they created some of the conditions for the development of modern hospices.
The early homes for the dying were rooted in religious and philanthropic concerns, which would diminish during the twentieth century. Yet they set the foundations for a period of development which gathered momentum after the Second World War.
More hospice history
Read about other chapters in hospice history including:
