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Today’s mission hero is Maryknoll Sister Mary Mercy Hirschboeck, the first physician to enter the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation.
Josephine Elizabeth Hirschboeck was born on March 10, 1903 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After high school, she entered Marquette University. While a student there, she was in a serious car accident from which she survived. Josephine interpreted this as a sign that God was calling her to the Religious life. So, she applied to the Maryknoll Sisters. She was told to first finish her medical education, and then she could apply. So, that is what she did.
After completing her internship, Josephine entered Maryknoll and received the name Sister Mary Mercy. Her first assignment, in 1931, was to Korea where she applied her medical skills. She became very popular with the people.
From 1940-1943, she worked in the Maryknoll Motherhouse in New York as infirmarian. Then, in 1943 Sr. Mercy went with three other Sisters to Riberalta, Bolivia, where she had a one-room clinic. Soon, the clinic became a hospital. When she left in 1950, the President of Bolivia said it was the best run hospital in the country.
Although civilians were not permitted to go to Korea in the early 1950’s, Sr. Mercy received permission from General Douglas MacArthur to take two other Maryknoll Sisters and herself to Korea. So, in 1951, the Sisters soon found themselves treating thousands of refugees fleeing from North Korea. In 1952, Marquette University gave her an honorary Doctor of Science degree.
When she returned to the United States in 1955, Sr. Mercy was the administrator of Queen of the World Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, the first fully-integrated general hospital in the city.
From 1958 to 1970, Sr. Mercy served as Vicaress General of the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation. Those were the years of the Second Vatican Council, and priests and Religious were faced with a wide variety of changes with which to deal.
When her time in administration was completed, Sr. Mercy served as a unit coordinator of the senior Sisters living at the Sisters’ Center. Then, in 1973, Sr. Mercy found herself on the Lower East Side of New York City with a couple other sisters to live with the poor and provide prayer.
Sr. Mercy died on September 20, 1986, feast of the Korean Martyrs, after giving 58 years of service to the Maryknoll Congregation.
What inspiring and magnificent dedication to her work Thank you for sharing this story. Imagine all those valiant years of service. Extraordinary indeed.