A Long Night

Published in Salt 1980
by Mary A. Healey, BVM

Not every anniversary is happy. The one that BVMs commemorate as they look back twenty-five years this summer is not entirely sad. Mother Mary Josita summed up their feelings when she said, “Hard as the loss of material things is, they can be replaced, but human life never can be replaced.” At that time, Thursday night, July 28, 1955, she was standing on the lawn at Mount Carmel watching the old infirmary burn.

The “old infirmary” of 1908 was a gracious red brick building with a big shady porch looking toward the river. Its second floor was attached by a covered bridge across the road to the second floor of the Motherhouse. At the other end of the infirmary, a large addition built on in 1936 was separated from the old part by fire wall and doors. Still another and larger addition beyond that was in progress.

It was in the oldest section that Sister Mary St. Pius, a night nurse, spotted flames from the attic on that hot July night in a long spell of dry weather. The first alarm was called in at 9:43 P.M. All the fire equipment in Dubuque came and the police came with it. All off-duty firemen and police were called to help. Hundreds of other people followed, some to watch but many to join in the rescue.

Sisters from the Motherhouse were the first ones in across the bridge to move the sick and aged sisters out. Some they placed in chairs and pulled out backwards, some they carried in blankets, two were pushed out the door in their beds, but most walked with their arms around the necks of the younger sisters. People walked that night who had not walked in years.

Within twenty minutes, the ninety patients had been evacuated with no bodily injuries though the loss in glasses, false teeth, and hearing aids was immense. Help seemed to materialize outside. Patients set down on the lawn were moved three or four times farther away from the spreading blaze. Cars came from all over the city to take them to hospitals and other convents. The many other religious communities in Dubuque made up every available bed for them.

Seven firemen were hurt that night. The old building could not be saved at all. All through the fire, they kept hoses trained on the bridge to the Motherhouse lest the fire spread to that even older structure. The fire barriers to the newer section of the infirmary kept it safe. BVMs all over the country were alerted by phone and arose to pray through the night. The Blessed Sacrament was removed from the chapel to the grotto beyond the Motherhouse where the novices were gathered to say the rosary.

The infirmary chapel had been the unique feature of the building. It was round and surrounded by glass doors opening onto a curved corridor beyond which were the rooms of the sickest sisters. Their doors and the chapel doors were opened during Mass. After the fire, the statue of the Blessed Virgin was found unharmed among the chapel ruins. It now stands in the newest infirmary building, a reminder for twenty-five years of that night when so many things but no lives were lost.

At the time of this article, Sister Mary A. Healey, BVM was a business officer at Clarke College, Dubuque, lowa.