Hanrahan

Sister Virginia Hanrahan, O.P.

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Sister Virginia Hanrahan, O.P., who dedicated her life to community healthcare ministry, died March 21 at Wartburg in Mount Vernon. She was 78.

Sister Virginia, a member of the Dominican Sisters of Hope, was president and chief executive officer of the Dominican Sisters Home Health Service, a community-based, multi-county home health agency with a staff of 350, from 1994 until her retirement in 2009. She served as the agency’s executive director from 1973 to 1994.

She initially served as a community health nurse with the Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor in the Bronx, 1961-1963. She was assistant supervisor of the Home Health Agency, 1965-1967. In 1967 she joined the Martin Luther King Jr. Neighborhood Health Center in the Bronx as a team nurse. She then served as director of nursing at the King Center from 1968 to 1973. She served on many boards and committees pertaining to community health.

She also served as vicar general and assistant president of the Dominican Sisters of the Poor, 1972-1980. In 1999 she received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for “exceptional humanitarian efforts and outstanding contributions to our country.” In 1998 she had received the Home Healthcare Association of New York’s highest award.

Born in Woodside, Queens, she entered the Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor in 1953, taking the name Sister Catherine Joseph. She professed final vows in 1958. She held a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Hunter College and a master’s in nursing from The Catholic University of America where she was inducted into Sigma Theta Tau, international Nursing Honor Society. She also received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from the College of New Rochelle.

Three sisters, Madeleine Butler, Helen Rohrberg and Kay Walsh, and one brother, Joseph, survive her.

A Funeral Mass was offered March 27 in the chapel at the Mariandale Center in Ossining. Burial was in the sisters’ cemetery at Mariandale.

Sister Virginia Hanrahan, O.P.