Daughters of Charity order to leave Diocese of Little Rock

written by Katie Zakrzewski |

When it comes to decades of hard, pious work done by religious women in the Church, the work by the Daughters of Charity in Arkansas would be hard to beat. 

The order of religious women, founded by St. Vincent de Paul, arrived in Arkansas in 1973 and spread out all across the state, filling in the gaps in communities and going wherever help was needed, primarily in Fort Smith, Pine Bluff, Hamburg, Prescott, Hope, Gould, Dumas and Little Rock. 

Now, 52 years later, the Daughters of Charity are preparing to say goodbye — but their legacy of service remains. 

Sister Joan Pytlik spent 28 years serving in Arkansas. With a background in nursing, Sister Joan spent years serving the poor in hospitals in Missouri, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. 

At the same time, the Daughters of Charity were growing in Arkansas, helping vulnerable individuals and families in hospitals and schools and by starting nonprofits and charitable services, such as Neighbor to Neighbor and Helping Hand of Greater Little Rock, and health clinics in Gould and Dumas. 

In 1990, Sister Joan found herself in the small southeast Arkansas town of Gould, where the Daughters of Charity started a health clinic, the St. Elizabeth Health Center and Dental Clinic. A year later, she moved to Little Rock to become the director of Helping Hand, where she worked alongside the State Legislature to help vulnerable families. 

“In Gould, we had told the state senators, if we come here, we will have to have a bill passed so that nurse practitioners can write a prescription, because they wouldn’t always have a physician. It didn’t pass all the way through the first time, and then I moved to Little Rock. At Helping Hand, the first grocery bill had a sales tax of $500. I said, ‘Well, we don’t pay sales tax.’ They said, ‘You do in Arkansas.’ So with my little knowledge, I got some people together and we got a bill passed to exempt nonprofits that provide free food to the poor from the grocery tax.”

Eventually, Sister Joan also helped pass the bill allowing nurse practitioners to write prescriptions. Her work impressed then-Bishop Andrew McDonald, who hired her to be the social action director and lobbyist for the Diocese of Little Rock. She worked for the diocese for 23 years. 

Sister Joan continued her lobbying work, along with ministering to other religious communities and keeping up with health care legislation being passed. She retired in 2019 to Evansville, Ind., after 28 years of service in Arkansas. 

Like Sister Joan, Sister Teresa Daly was drawn to the Daughters of Charity and joined in 1968. She found herself in Arkansas in 1988, serving the Anglo and Latino communities in Hamburg, Crossett, Monticello, Warren and Glenwood. She also served as the parish administrator in southern Arkansas. 

“I worked with the people. I had the education committee, finance councils, parish councils. I had all of that set up, and I worked with all of the people. And thank God for the people, they did most of the work,” Sister Teresa said. 

One challenge the sisters often found themselves facing was the rural landscape. 

“We were not really physically, geographically close to each other. We tried to get together once a month for a weekend, but it was difficult sometimes, because the distances were great … and we had smaller churches,” she said.

Sister Servant Sister Mary Powers joined the Daughters of Charity in 1980 when she was 31. She had studied nursing and was called to chaplaincy. While ministering at a hospital in Washington, D.C., she realized that many patients were being discharged to homeless shelters. Sister Mary knew that she would soon be moving and wanted to work more with the homeless population. Shortly after, in February 2019, a position opened at Jericho Way Day Resource Center in Little Rock, and she found herself in Arkansas. Soon, she was volunteering and starting spirituality groups in the Diocese of Little Rock.

As the sister servant — the Daughters of Charity title for mother superior — of the Daughters of Charity in Arkansas, Powers had seen the sisters’ work change over the years. She said the declining number of the aging Daughters of Charity has forced many sisters to relocate to areas most in need, to be as effective as possible. 

“The main reason is that we’re getting older and smaller, and there’s just not enough sisters to put everywhere where we’re used to being, so the decision was made by our leadership, which for our province of the Province of St. Louise, is located in St. Louis. … 

“The three of us that remain in this house are in our 70s, and a couple of years ago, we realized how vulnerable we can be. One sister broke her hip, the other fractured her kneecap. And that left me to take care of them, which I can do, but you realize how vulnerable you are at this age. Something can happen at any time. I’m not naive — even though I’m in fairly decent health, it doesn’t mean I can’t fall and break my hip tomorrow if I step wrong. 

“And a lot of our houses are the same way, so the decision has been made to consolidate. We may be starting one or two houses in areas that we’ve determined are really in great need, but it’s not going to be like it was when there were 30 and 40 and 50 sisters coming at a time to active communities. … We’re shrinking in size and getting older.”

In June, the three remaining Daughters of Charity in Arkansas will be leaving. Sister Mary Ann Azar will be relocating to Baltimore, and Sister Nancy Cassidy will be moving to Philadelphia. Sister Mary will be moving to Albany, N.Y., to work with other Daughters of Charity who are in assisted living and nursing homes as the superior of that community. 

Daughters of Charity from around the country gather to honor Sister Mary Ann Azar, Sister Mary Powers and Sister Nancy Cassidy May 18 at the St. John Center in Little Rock. After 52 years of service, the Daughters of Charity are leaving the Diocese of Little Rock. (Katie Zakrzewski)

Sister Teresa said it is important for the laity to embrace Catholic Social Teachings as religious orders shrink. 

“It’s very important that we try to pass this on, because we’re not going to be there forever — as you know, we’re leaving Arkansas,” she said. “So hopefully, there are people to replace us. But what I basically tell people is that you have a vocation as a layperson. You have a call as a layperson, because at one point, you were baptized. It’s that simple… That’s something you can work with figuring out — what your call is. Everybody’s call is different because everybody is different. They have different skills, they have different abilities and everyone’s situation is different. But what is your situation — through your baptism — that you are being called to?”

A legacy of service

Daughters of Charity have served across Arkansas since they arrived in 1973, ministering to the poor.

  • Sister Mary Catherine Dunn, Neighbor to Neighbor in Pine Bluff
  • Sister Bonnie Hoffman, nursing instructor at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
  • Sister Jane Frances Bey, St. John Church in Fort Smith with the elderly and at Neighbor to Neighbor Outreach Center in Pine Bluff
  • Sister Stephanie Hudek, St. John Church in Fort Smith with the elderly and at Neighbor to Neighbor Outreach Center in Pine Bluff
  • Sister Karen Baustian, Neighbor to Neighbor in Pine Bluff and St. Bartholomew Parish in Little Rock.
  • Sisters Jane Frances Bey, Stephanie Hudek and Lawrence Grimsley served the people of Pine Bluff.
  • Sister Vincent Thomas was instrumental in developing St. John Center for the elderly in Fort Smith.
  • Sister Carol Kellinger, West Arkansas Community College in Fort Smith.
  • Sister Mary Guerra, Fort Smith
  • Sister Maria Kleinschmidt, St. Joseph Parish in Pine Bluff and Diocesan Office of Religious Education
  • Sister Patricia Bachman, Neighbor to Neighbor in Pine Bluff and St. Bartholomew Parish in Little Rock
  • Sister Nancy Sullivan, director of the Westside Free Medical Clinic in Little Rock
  • Sister Virginia Dunker, Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Little Rock, tutored at Catherine House, Helping Hand and also tutored at the Varner State Prison.
  • Sister Joan Pytlik, director of the diocesan Social Action Office and in the Hurricane Katrina recovery and as the diocese’s minister to religious
  • Sister Patricia Sullivan, Fort Chaffee with the immigrants and refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia.
  • Sister Maria Liebeck, Hamburg and at Helping Hand in Little Rock.
  • Sister Karen Flaherty, after-school learning clubs in Stamps and Prescott
  • Sister Paul Matushek ministered in the after-school learning clubs in Stamps and Prescott.
  • Sister Teresa Daly, pastoral minister at Holy Spirit Parish in Hamburg, and in Malvern and Arkadelphia.
  • Sister Hermana Hoelscher, pastoral associate at the Immaculate Conception Church in North Little Rock.
  • Sister Lucretia Burns, Learning Clubs in Hope
  • Sister Doris Moore, learning clubs in Prescott and Stamps as well as at Helping Hand in Little Rock and at St. Edward School.
  • Sister Rosella Molitor, learning clubs in Hope
  • Sister Ruth Ellen Dean, learning club in Hope
  • Sister Mary Walz, social worker at the health clinics in Gould and Dumas
  • Sister Janina Zilvinski, nurse midwife at UAMS in Little Rock as a nurse midwife and developed a prenatal clinic for undocumented women who were at St. Edward Church.
  • Sister Seraphine Ferraro, executive director of the health clinics in Gould and Dumas
  • Sister Kathleen Miles, parish administrator in Star City and Grady
  • Sister Elizabeth Greim, former director of Jericho Way Resource Center
  • Sister Irma Vargas, social services in Dumas
  • Sister Sharon Horace, social services in Gould
  • Sister Phyllis Nolan, Hispanic ministry in Hot Springs and Glenwood
  • Sister Judy Warmbold, counselor in Gould and Dumas
  • Sister Denise Duplesis, St. Peter School, Pine Bluff
  • Sister Constance Hummel lived in Lake Providence, La., which became a part of the Arkansas Daughters of Charity Community.
  • Sister Dorothea Moll, health clinics in Gould and Dumas
  • Sister Mary Lou Stubbs, director of Catholic Charities of Arkansas
  • Sister Cecillia Tsao, health clinics in Gould and Dumas
  • Sister Joan Kuester, Sister Marcella Ewers, Sister Janet Keim, DCS-ARK board.
  • Sister Marilyn Moore, DCS-ARK board and at Varner Prison Ministry
  • Sister Marilyn Perkins, mission integration director
  • Sister Patty Hoffman, board member
  • Sister Mary Ann Azar, immigration specialist for Catholic Charities Immigration Services
  • Sister Nancy Cassidy, Jericho Way Day Resource Center in Little Rock, Helping Hand of Little Rock and the Society of St. Vincent DePaul at St. Anne Parish, North Little Rock
  • Sister Mary Powers, Jericho Way Day Resource Center, Helping Hand of Little Rock and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in North Little Rock
  • Sister Iliana Aponte, St. Theresa Church and parish outreach liaison for Catholic Charities