GOULD — The Daughters of Charity in Arkansas got a rare opportunity to meet their order’s superior general from Paris and give her a tour of their ministries in Little Rock and southeast Arkansas.
Superior Sister Evelyne Franc and Sister Margaret Barrett, a native of Scotland who is the order’s English-speaking representative in France, stopped in Arkansas Friday, Nov. 17 for the first time during a 10-day visit to New York, Missouri, Louisiana and Texas.
“They are just down home people and easy to relate to,” said Sister Judy Warmbold, a mental health counselor at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Gould and DePaul Health Center in Dumas, who hosted the duo for a catfish luncheon.
The Daughters of Charity were founded in Paris in 1633 by St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac. Today 22,000 sisters serve worldwide. The order came to Arkansas in 1973 to work at St. John Senior Center in Fort Smith. Over the years they have served in Pine Bluff, Prescott, Hope, Hamburg, Malvern, Arkadelphia, Hot Springs and Little Rock.
The fast-paced, 18-hour visit included Mass and breakfast with the three sisters who work in Little Rock. They were able to share about their jobs working with the poor. Sister Joan Pytlik is the director of Catholic Charities’ Hurricane Recovery Office. Sister Maria Liebeck is a local artist and Sister Doris Moore is the community development coordinator at Helping Hand.
The two international visitors were joined by Sister Marie Therese Sedgwick, the provincial in St. Louis, and Sister Mary Walz, a member of the regional leadership team in St. Louis who previously worked at the two health centers.
Because the sisters toured New Orleans the day before, “they were very interested in the (hurricane) evacuees who are present and what we are doing for them,” Sister Joan said.
While Sister Joan had met the two sisters in France last summer, she was once again impressed with the order’s leaders.
“They are just wonderful, humble women,” she said. “They are very sharp. For us (in Arkansas) it gives us a sense of our internationality. We are 22,000 women around the world. They were very affirming to us that we are living out the Vincentian charism.”
On their way to Gould (Lincoln County) to tour St. Elizabeth Health Center, Sister Evelyne and Sister Margaret visited St. Peter School in Pine Bluff where Sister Denise Duplessis is a teacher and drove by the state prison in Varner where Sister Virginia Dunker is a tutor. Sister Kathleen Miles is the pastoral administrator of missions in Star City and Grady.
The health center tour was the primary reason for the visit. Jeanne Richards, CEO/president of the health centers in Gould and Dumas, and the staff gave the visitors the royal treatment. Their first stop was the Wellness Center, an inexpensive place for people all over southeast Arkansas to walk and work out.
“This is a vast array of beautiful machines,” Sister Margaret told Richards and interim Wellness Center director Jennifer Fisher.
Their tour was complete with trying out the equipment. For a couple of minutes, Fisher showed Sister Evelyne how to use an elliptical machine while Sister Margaret walked on the treadmill.
“I burned two calories,” Sister Margaret said as she observed the treadmill’s readout.
Meeting in a conference room named after the late Sister Seraphine Ferrero, the doctors, nurses and staff gathered to discuss their work at the health center, the health improvements they have made with their patients and their financial challenges.
“We have such a debt here to the Daughters of Charity,” Richards said.
The order established the Gould health center in 1990. In 2002 a new building was dedicated to serve the surrounding community with their medical and dental needs. This fall mental health was added to their services.
In the 2006 fiscal year the Daughters of Charity Foundation gave the clinics $951,896, but the subsidy has been gradually decreasing over the past four years.
The dental practice was established to serve Lincoln and Desha counties, but patients are traveling longer distances because there are few dentists who accept low-income patients.
“It is more than we can take care of,” Dr. Joe Woodyard told Sister Evelyne and Sister Margaret. Because of neglect and drug abuse, dental hygiene is greatly needed in the area. “It reminds me of a third-world country,” he said.
Sister Evelyne spends about half of her time traveling the world to visit members of the order. She said her visits are important “to show the sisters how much the company (community) is proud of them, is with them and wants to help them.”
“It is really important to go and see and meet people like yourself,” Sister Margaret told the St. Elizabeth staff. “The Daughters couldn’t do this with the collaboration of the people like yourself. That is God’s blessing.”
In an interview with Arkansas Catholic, Sister Evelyne said her visit to Arkansas confirmed for her “the importance of working together. We have to fight for those who are deprived.”
