Sister Mary Stanislaus Andrews; Tended the Ill for 61 Years

Sister Mary Stanislaus Andrews, 82, supervisor of the infirmary for the Visitation Sisters of Georgetown who devoted 61 years to the care of any ill person who crossed her path, died of pneumonia March 16 at her home in the Washington monastery.

Sister Stanislaus, known as Stannie or Sister Stannie, was fiercely devoted to cleanliness -- which, as all devotees of aphorisms know, is next to godliness. It's also handy for registered nurses, as Sister Stanislaus was.

"By worldly standards, [her life] doesn't look like much, but by real standards, real love, it did," said Sister Mada-anne Gell, archivist for the religious order.

In 1947, when Sister Stanislaus joined the order, nuns did not leave the monastery, even for major surgery, which was performed at their home at 1500 35th St. NW. When Visitation was a boarding school, Sister Stanislaus was in charge of the students' infirmary.

One day 10 or 15 years ago, as she and other nuns stood outside the school, a man ran up P Street, pursued by police. He collapsed in front of the monastery, and Sister Stanislaus immediately produced towels to wipe blood from his face before he was taken away.

A letter from a former student, Susan Hannan, described coming under Sister Stanislaus's care in 1957 when Hannan was almost 15.

"She knew her business, and she knew she knew her business," Hannan wrote. "The room was spotless, the linens were monogrammed with a red stitch, the [sheets] were glaringly white, a little rough and changed frequently -- how important that is when a person has to stay in bed.

"With each of Sister's visits to the sickroom, her calmness and the soft lilt of her speech suggested the patient's personal responsibility for moving sooner rather than later, but never rushing toward recovery. The student had a job to do, to get better, and Sister, never indulgent, was there as a witness to progress."

She also supervised a small staff, Gell said, "and to those, she was like a mother, helping them through any problem, creating opportunities for them and greeting them with joy when they returned to show off children, and then grandchildren."

Those relationships are key to the order. Once a nun joins the Visitation monastery, she lives there so people know where to find her to ask for prayers, help or celebration. Although the order is not strictly cloistered, its members live communally, pray together and sing vespers together five times a day. They don't go out to movies or to dinner, although they do go to a retreat house near Berkeley Springs, W.Va., which Sister Stanislaus loved. All money and property are held in common, and the women follow monastic rules in trying to keep silent, as far as their work in prayer and education allows.

Sister Stanislaus was working until shortly before she died, filing medical insurance forms by computer and serving as a go-between for patients and physicians. She was known for never missing prayers.

Born Madeline Theresa Andrews in Eunice, La., Sister Stanislaus was the youngest of five children. She wanted to be a physician, but when she completed high school in 1942, demand was high for nurses, so she entered a three-year program at the Santa Rosa School of Nursing in San Antonio. Between bouts of tuberculosis, she finished her studies in 1945 with a degree as a registered nurse.

She moved to Philadelphia to enter the then-new Medical Mission Sisters, but the nuns there thought her weak lungs and frail health would not hold up in the primitive conditions of their overseas missions.

"She just had the breath knocked out of her, but she felt God wanted her to help the sick," Gell said. The Medical Mission suggested she try the Visitation Sisters of Georgetown, known to accept women with health problems.

Still wearing her Medical Mission habit, she arrived in Georgetown on April 9, 1947. High school boarding students, spying from the porch, spread the word: "They've got a new one, and she's really pretty."

Expecting to simply talk over the idea of joining the order, she took no personal items with her. At the end of the interview, the mother superior asked, "Is there any reason why you can't stay now?" She stayed for 61 years and never lost her Southern accent or taste for Cajun cooking.

She was given the name Mary Stanislaus, which has been in use at the Georgetown monastery since it was founded in 1799.

Nuns typically do not have survivors, unless siblings or parents are alive. Sister Stanislaus had two nephews and a niece who lived in the South, and, Gell said, "a houseful of 20 nuns, who are her family."