By Peter Grabow, Mayo Clinic Health System
The dedication of Mayo Clinic Health System’s La Crosse, Wisconsin hospital on Aug. 1 marked the beginning of a new chapter in a story that dates back more than 140 years. In 1883 the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration opened St. Francis Hospital in La Crosse. The modest, 35-bed facility was just the fifth hospital in Wisconsin, and the first to be located outside the southeast corner of the state.
Patients were few at first. Hospitals were considered suspect outside of metropolitan areas, and the viability of such a venture was uncertain in this river town of 15,000 citizens. Yet those who availed themselves of the services at 10th and Market Streets found the sisters wholly committed to the challenge and fully dedicated to providing quality, comfortable and compassionate care. While many early hospitals failed, the sisters demonstrated remarkable agility in responding to the changing needs of a growing community and region and also an impressive business acumen to be able to achieve mission-sustaining financial viability.
Indeed, the hospital was soon deemed too small to meet local needs, and plans for additional space were quickly drawn up. In the years that followed, the sisters guided the hospital through turbulent times including two world wars, the Great Depression and the polio epidemic. A school of nursing was established, as well as St. Ann’s Maternity Hospital and St. Camillus Annex, which provides care for those with contagious illnesses.
Through the founding and operation of their medical facilities in La Crosse, the sisters illuminated a unique and impressive ability to succeed, not only as compassionate servant leaders but also as exemplary leaders in medicine, business, education and innovation. These attributes — this rich heritage and shared values — created a natural alignment that led to the affiliation involving Franciscan Health System with Mayo Clinic in the 1990s.
As we enter this new chapter, the vision of our FSPA founders lives on. It is as vibrant and relevant as ever. While much has changed, the essence remains the same: We are committed to putting the needs of patients first and providing them with excellence in their medical care. The frontier hospital has paved the way for a new hospital that reimagines the patient-centered experience. The latest medical therapies and the sophistication of innovative technologies is offered in a peaceful, secure environment through the dedication, compassion and clinical expertise of a staff wholly committed to those they serve.
We were honored to have four FSPA directly involved in the dedication of the new hospital. Sister Georgia Christensen, FSPA vice president, who sits on the board of directors for Mayo Clinic Health System in Southwest Wisconsin; Sister Sue Ernster, FSPA president, who assisted with the ribbon cutting for the new facility; Sister Celesta Day, who served as St. Francis Hospital Administrator in the 1980s and who wrote the blessing for the new hospital; and Sister Marlene Weisenbeck, formerly a MCHS board member and FSPA president, who delivered the blessing at the dedication ceremony.
Like the original St. Francis Hospital in 1883, the new La Crosse hospital offers a tremendous asset to this region — an innovative, responsive source of hope and
healing for all who are served. While the new hospital offers advanced technology and capabilities, the care is compassionately delivered in a manner nurtured by a long and rich heritage rooted in the commitment of the founding sisters and the many FSPA who followed.
