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| In this 1950s photo, Allegany Sister Loretto Mary Ballou prepares a slide at St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach. Photo caption and photo credit: Allegany Franciscans website: https://www.alleganyfranciscans.org/our-history |
The first Catholic hospital in South Florida almost wasn't. The building almost became a casino.
In 1927, Bishop Patrick Barry of St. Augustine asked the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, New York, to assume management of a financially ailing private hospital in Miami Beach. Almost all Florida was under the umbrella of the St. Augustine Diocese in those missionary days.
The sisters agreed. Six sisters moved to Florida and undertook the job with classic Roman Catholic women-religious efficiency.
They quickly pared expenses by doing away with the hospital's fancy hotel-like amenities. I mean, it had opened on Jan. 1,1926 with a chef from the famed Waldorf-Astoria hotel, according to Fr. Michael J. McNally's book, Catholicism in South Florida, 1868-1968.
The real estate developer who'd co-founded the upscale hospital was so annoyed with the sisters' economies he refused to renew their contract. Then he died, and his heirs wanted to turn the building into a casino.
Miami Beach residents would have been able to gamble away their money but not have an operation locally. Luckily, deed restrictions prevented the casino idea from becoming reality.
In 1928, the sisters managed to pull together $250,000 to buy the hospital. The original facility had cost $3.65 million to build in 1925. Less than a year later, in 1926, the Florida Boom collapsed. By 1928, Florida was already deep into the Great Depression that soon became a nationwide crisis.
Adjusted for inflation, those dollar figures equate to roughly $5 million and $72 million in 2026. It gives an idea of just how much Florida real estate had deflated.
The sisters renamed the facility St. Francis Hospital and it became the first Catholic hospital in all of South Florida. A decade later, in 1938, the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany opened a nursing home for the indigent in West Palm Beach.
A year later, in 1939, the sisters opened another Catholic healthcare facility, St. Mary's Hospital, in the West Palm area. They again faced opposition, this time from leaders of the area's existing private hospital. But the sisters saw a need for a separate facility that would serve lower-income and middle-class people.
The sisters were correct, of course. St. Mary's took root and grew. Depending on the source, by 1942, the hospital had grown into 110-bed facility (per Fr. McNally's book) or a 250-bed facility (AI, possibily hallucinating.) No AI was used in the actual writing of this post!
They didn't stop. From the east coast of Florida, the sisters headed across the state. The order's website notes they took on St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg and St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa. All their facilities were devoted to helping the poor and disenfranchised. Remember, Florida was a segregated state until the mid-1960s.
Did I mention the sisters also taught school in Florida? Wasting no time after arrival, they accepted the bishop's request to teach in St. Petersburg. The 1930 inaugural class at St. Paul's had more than 100 students, according to an article in Gulf Coast Catholic.
It's bittersweet to note the Allegany sisters no longer minister in healthcare in Miami. But they are still active in both education and healthcare on Florida's west coast.
Over the years up to 90 of the sisters have ministered in Florida.
If there's one takeaway from today's post, it's this: Don't mess with Roman Catholic women religious when they're on a mission.
Thank you, sisters, all of you.
