Sister Ann Patrick Deegan
1922-2009
At her death, Sister Ann Patrick Deegan was eighty-six years of age. She had been a Dominican Sister for fifty-nine years: fifty-three years in the Edmonds, Washington, Dominican Sisters and six years as an Adrian Dominican Sister. The two congregations merged in June 2003.
Sister Ann Patrick died at St. Joseph Residence in Seattle, Washington, on January 27, 2009. On Sunday, February 1, 2009, a vigil service was held at Assumption Convent. The funeral liturgy took place at St. Joseph Residence on Monday, February 2, and she was buried in Seattle’s Calvary Cemetery.
She was born in Ireland on May 27, 1922, the daughter of Sara Ann (Higgins) and Patrick Deegan, and baptized Margaret. The Deegans lived in the small town of Mountrath Laois. Two months before Margaret’s birth they had lost their first child, a two-year-old boy, to pneumonia. Sister Ann Patrick believed that this child’s death influenced her life greatly, although she did not give in her autobiography any particulars as to why and how. She remembered seeing a lock of his hair that her mother kept. Twins Conleth and Brendan, Dennis, and Joan were her younger brothers and sister.
About her parents, she wrote in her autobiography:
My parents were very much devoted to each other, and our home was the kind where people “dropped in” at the end of the day. My mother was a devout woman, with great faith in the Providence of God. She was a joyful woman with zest for living. . . . Perhaps I could say that my father’s faith was more radical, because more simple. I believe that as far as religion was concerned, he and my mother complemented each other.
Margaret was educated in Mountrath Laois at Brigidine Convent National Grade School, where she completed eight years in 1935. She then finished four years later at Brigidine Convent Secondary School, where she also took a year of business training in Pitman shorthand, typewriting, elementary bookkeeping; and earned a shorthand certificate showing that she could take 120 words per minute. She wrote that her religious vocation came to her in her early years; but during her high school years, and even for some time after, she underwent a long period of indecision. She wrote:
The time of adolescence, and especially the later teens and early twenties, saw some struggles in our family when the desire for independence, especially (but not exclusively) with the boys, became evident.
In 1946, at the age of twenty-four, she left Ireland for America. On February 20, 1949, now almost twenty-seven years of age, she entered the Washington Dominicans whose Motherhouse was at that time in Everett. She wrote:
I entered a Dominican congregation due, in part, to the influence of one of my sister teachers in Ireland, herself an American.
Initially, I found the emphasis on obedience (particularly permissions for rather trivial things) disorienting and mystifying. . . . Fortunately, early in religious life, the Bible became central for me. I was also very much aware of trying to hold my own in a different culture. Still, the grace of Christ was not wanting, and I was led through the “Red Sea” in safety!
On August 28, 1949, she received the habit and her religious name, and professed her first vows on August 8, 1950. She then studied for a year at St. Theresa College in Winona, Minnesota. In February 1951, her father died, but she was not able to get to Ireland for his funeral.
In 1951 she was assigned to St. Joseph Hospital in Aberdeen, Washington, for eight years, in charge of payroll, materials management, and purchasing, and where she introduced hospital budgeting. She underwent what she referred to as a “crisis period” around 1956. “For about six months I experienced what seemed like utter emptiness, meaninglessness, in my faith and life itself.” The years from 1959 to 1962 were spent at Gonzaga University in Spokane, where she majored in accounting and earned a bachelor’s degree cum laude. On April 7, 1958, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
She was appointed controller at St. Helen Hospital in Chehalis in 1962, where she again introduced hospital budgeting and served on the Hospital Governing Board. This assignment lasted for six years. She became General Treasurer and Director of Finance for the Congregation in 1968, introduced budgeting for the congregational convents, and also served as a member of both St. Joseph and St. Helen Governing Boards. When her mother was ill in 1975 she was allowed to go to Ireland, and was with her when she died in March of that year.
She ministered for two five-year terms as General Treasurer and Director of Finance, and then requested that she not be appointed for a third term.
In the post Vatican II years money suddenly became a particular focus in religious communities. It was a time of apostolates outside the congregation, of new lifestyles, of budgets and paychecks and so on and on. It was one crazy time. It was also a threatening time with the almost daily departures of our sisters, each one seeming like a death knell. Still, I see Vatican II as the watershed in religious life, and for me it was also a source of new life, a challenge to see myself as part of—not apart from—the world, to share a little more closely the life of other Christians, and to become leaven to bring about the Kingdom.
Twenty-seven years of her life had been spent helping to conduct the business life of her congregation. “I felt that I had become a functionary, and my inner life was drying up.”
Seeking a new ministry, again in 1978 she attended Gonzaga University, studying in the CREDO Program, which also included a month’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Rome, and Assissi. Following completion of the CREDO Program, “I began to look more closely at a possible ministry, and of the two final choices—spiritual direction/retreat ministry or clinical pastoral ministry—I decided on the former.”
She went to the Institute for Spiritual Leadership in Chicago, affiliated with Loyola University, where she enrolled in a nine-month training program in spiritual direction that culminated in a certificate and eighteen semester hours towards a master’s degree that she did not finish. In 1980 she completed a spiritual direction internship at the Jesuit Renewal Center in Milford, Ohio, for which she received a certificate.
In 1981 she began a ministry in retreat work and spiritual direction at El Pomar Renewal Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, serving with four sisters of other congregations, which was a “rewarding experience.” This position was publicized in the religion area of the Colorado Springs Sun.
As a five-member team, they are responsible for providing contemporary, sensitive, and theologically-sound programs on a continuous basis to meet the needs of the people in surrounding areas in one of the most picturesque settings at the base of the Rocky Mountains.
In December 1982, however, she left this ministry.
The next year was at Kairos House of Prayer in Spokane as a spiritual director, but also helping with housekeeping and cooking. She then spent six months at St. Joseph Hospital in Aberdeen as a “temporary chaplain.” She wrote in her autobiography, “Journeying with people as they faced suffering and death was a challenging and very worthwhile experience.”
Her next mission was at Assumption Parish in Bellingham, Washington, where she served as a pastoral associate, preached, gave retreats, did parish visiting, and helped with grief ministry. She wrote:
Almost from the start it was evident that the pastor did not buy the team concept. At the end of two years, a decision was suddenly announced to eliminate two positions, including mine. The “politics” of the decision and the process of termination were devastating for me.
In January 1987, she began working at Kenosha Health Care Center, affiliated with Mercy Hospital, in Merced, California, as an employee of Catholic Health Care, based in Omaha, Nebraska, where she coordinated sponsorship for two hospitals and a nursing home in California, and a hospital in Oregon. This was a new position, and again she was “stunned” when after eighteen months it was eliminated. “It seems I was, unknowingly, part of an experiment.”
In 1988 she studied in the CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) Program at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, and was certified by NACC (National Association of Catholic Chaplains) as a chaplain. She then in January 1989 became a part-time chaplain at St. Joseph Medical Center and served in this ministry for six-and-a half years.
In 1994 she attended a two-week program on theology and preaching at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkley, California.
NACC recertified her as a chaplain in 1995, and she moved into Dominican House in Seattle. She gave retreats, served for one or two days at Sojourner Place Transitional Housing for Women and the Jubilee Women’s Center Transitional Housing for Women, gave some classes at Seattle University, and was a member of the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) team at St. Matthew Parish. She served in this ministry for five years.
During these years, she was visited by sorrow. Her brother Conleth died of a heart attack in August 1995. She wrote, “I had seen him when I was in Ireland in July 1995.” His twin brother Brendan also died of a heart attack in 1997. “He was found dead on a Sunday morning when someone went to his home to pick him up for Mass.”
Death came to Sister Ann Patrick twelve years later.
At the funeral, Sister Catherine Olds, Prioress of Dominican West Mission Chapter, summarized Sister Ann Patrick’s life and added:
When I first met Sister Ann Patrick six years ago she was pondering and questioning all of life. . . . She was searching for a contemplative life and meaning to all that was happening to her.
When I last saw her she had a gentle, joyful, peaceful demeanor and was smiling with a twinkle in her eye. I am not sure if she knew me because of her memory loss, but she greeted me as a friend and we had a cup of tea. God gifted her with peace and calm the last years of her life.
Her last years found her at Dominican House, Assumption, and then here at St. Joseph Residence. Her health slowly deteriorated and she found it very difficult to be losing her eyesight and to suffer one infection after another. In 2005 she spent several months in Adrian at the Dominican Life Center for knee surgery.
Only Sister Ann Patrick herself knows the rest of the story of her life. It seems natural to picture her in heaven having a cup of tea with her God, asking a million questions.
For over a quarter of a century Sister Ann Patrick served her congregation well as a leader in its business formation. All of these years, as well as the years that followed, were filled with searching and questions. As Sister Catherine said, “Sister Ann Patrick has now found her answer—eternal life with God.