Sis. Edna Lonergan
Sis. Edna Lonergan, founder and president of St. Ann Center, is one of those icons that don’t need to use a last name. Everybody—especially in Milwaukee—knows or has heard of Sis. Edna—and for good reason. Sis. Edna is a true visionary. She’s one of those people who sees a problem and sets out to find or create a solution. That’s exactly how St. Ann Center came to be—Sis. Edna saw a need and created St. Ann to fill the void.
Through her vision and guidance, St. Ann Center became the first dementia-specific day care in Milwaukee and one of the first fully integrated intergenerational day cares in the United States—serving children, the frail elderly and adults with disabilities, and their caregivers in one home-like setting. Since opening St. Ann Center’s Stein Campus on Milwaukee’s south side in 1999, she has replicated the center at the Bucyrus Campus, which opened in 2015 on the city’s near north side—in one of the poorest and most underserved neighborhoods.
Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, Sis. Edna moved to Milwaukee in 1960 to become a member of the Sisters of St. Francis. A trained occupational therapist, licensed practical nurse, and massage therapist, Sis. Edna has a master’s degree in aging from Northern Texas State University. While she was caring for the older sisters in the convent’s infirmary, she realized that the care the sisters were receiving could benefit others.
“The sisters weren’t relocated to places that were unfamiliar to them. They received beautiful and loving care in their own familiar surroundings. As a result, they lived happier. I wanted to offer that same care to the general public. One day I noticed some old physical therapy equipment in the convent’s basement and even though it was dark and gloomy down there, I spruced the room up, and started inviting others in for physical therapy and massages.
“I also sought funding to care for other elderly individuals through a block grant approved by the Milwaukee County Supervisors and ended up receiving a $23,000 grant. It enabled me to bring four elderly people in for care. Three sisters who were in their 80s that had just retired, offered to help. We gave them baths and occupational therapy, and engaged them in exercise and socialization activities,” said Sis. Edna.
Word got out about the therapy, and more and more people wanted to come to the Center. So Sr. Edna needed to hire more staff, several of whom were mothers of young children. However, when their children were on vacation or off from school, she lost most of her staff.
“Some of these young mothers had children and no one to watch them, so I said just bring your children with you. When they did, I watched the children interacting with the older people and I saw how their faces lit up. They had ‘tea parties’ with the children, read books to them and played with them. Suddenly, the lives of these elderly people had meaning and purpose,” said Sis. Edna.
What really clinched the idea of intergenerational care was the actions of a little girl named Kathy. One of our residents was about to have a Grand Mal seizure, and usually we had someone stand near him to protect him when they occurred. This little girl named Kathy was so unafraid of him, that she jumped on his lap and gave him a big hug, and his seizure stopped. That’s when I knew that I was onto something.
“We had no money, no concept of how to design this type of center and no experience with childcare. I traveled around the country trying to determine if there were other intergenerational facilities in the early 90s that we could replicate. Finally, I said, ‘we are going to have to design this thing and build it, based on what we’ve experienced’,” she said.
For four years, Sis. Edna and a small team worked with an Irish architect, who had studied Frank Lloyd Wright in Ireland. By this time, Sis. Edna had developed a board of directors and they gave her permission to move forward with a capital campaign to build the facility.
“I had never raised any considerable amount of money prior to this, but a board member gave me enough money to hire a consultant to conduct a feasibility study to determine if we could raise $10 million. We gave them a few names and the first person the consultant contacted said he would give one million dollars to the project. Then Marty Stein got involved, helped us find more friends and we built St. Ann Center for Intergenerational Care. Since then, we’ve added onto the building three times,” said Sis. Edna.
Money was just one of many barriers Sis. Edna faced and overcame, but she was never deterred.
“When we got ready to apply for state licenses to open the facility, we were told that we could not have children and adults in the same space during the day. That’s how we came up with the concept of having adults on one side of the building and children on the other, with an open, park like setting in the middle,” she said. So when the children left this locked area, it was called an outing, which was required.
It would be an understatement to call St. Ann and Sis. Edna’s intergenerational concept a success. Currently, there is a two year waiting list for children to enter the daycare center and moms ‘who thinkthey may be pregnant,’ come in to get on the waiting list.
“At St. Ann’s we embrace diversity and inclusivity. Diversity is a good thing. We demonstrate that through different cultures, ages, people with disabilities—our children grow up accustomed to this. They are comfortable interacting with older adults. For example, there was an elderly couple at McDonald’s who wondered why a child that attended St. Ann’s was so comfortable approaching the husband who had severe tremors. The child walked over to the elderly gentleman and shook his hand, prompting his wife to inquire about why the little girl was unafraid to approach him. Our children are not afraid because they are exposed to so many differences. A child will sit on the lap of an elderly woman who has no legs. A little girl lost her grandmother and when she came to the Center, she crawled up into the lap of this elderly lady, seeking a surrogate for her grandmother. We have so many stories like this,” said Sis. Edna.
Sis. Edna said that she knew they had to build another center to demonstrate that St. Ann’s was replicable, so that’s what they did—right in the heart of one of Milwaukee’s most disenfranchised neighborhoods.
“We built the Bucyrus-Erie Campus in the poorest area of the city. It’s a beautiful neighborhood but very poor and they don’t have what other neighborhoods have.
This area has the highest need for employment as well, so we made a commitment to hire people from the neighborhood. Today, 95 percent of the people who work there, live in that neighborhood—we made certain of that. We held a huge job fair; about 1,000 people came looking for jobs, and when we opened, we had a neighborhood picnic. It’s a warm and friendly neighborhood. I would love to build another center near Northridge,” she said.
Sis. Edna’s notion of an intergenerational center is so innovative and successful that she’s been asked to give presentations about it all over the world—from Singapore, to Beijing. This November she’ll be traveling to Taiwan to give a presentation.
These are just some of the reasons why Sis. Edna’s name is so familiar. Not only is she a visionary, but she gets things done. She cares, and she never stops giving or serving the community she calls home. Milwaukee residents and its children and, certainly those blessed to have received the benefits of the St. Ann’s community, are all the better for it.
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