A Heart to Serve: Sister Rose McKeown Leaves Taylorville Memorial Hospital for Next Call

When Sister Rose McKeown got the call she was being sent to St. Vincent Memorial Hospital in 2004, she thought she would serve five years in the Taylorville community.

Twenty years later, the lead staff chaplain at TMH prepares to say goodbye to friends, neighbors and colleagues as she is being sent again – this time to serve as a spiritual presence for the sisters who live at St. Anne’s Retirement Community in Columbia, Pennsylvania, where she worked previously.

“As I prepare to move, I feel like God is saying: take only what is essential,” she said. “What is essential is my relationship with God, with creation, with all of God’s people. All those who have touched my life and whose lives I have touched.”

Her departure is notable for the legacy of love, care and compassion she leaves, but it also signals the end of a physical presence of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ at the hospital and in Taylorville. The Adorers also staffed St. Mary’s Catholic School for 60 years, from 1909 to 1969.

Sister Rose is confident the Adorers’ heart for others and mission of care will remain.

“Our spirit will always be here,” Sister Rose said. “We may not be physically present here, but our spirit lives on in the people whose lives we have touched. That value of caring is universal; each person is important.”

The Adorers founded the original institution, St. Vincent Hospital, in 1906. In 1995, the hospital affiliated with Memorial Health, and in 2006, Memorial Health became the sole sponsor of the hospital, which then became Taylorville Memorial Hospital. A strong community focus based on caring for the whole person – body, mind and spirit – united the two organizations.

Sister Rose prays for growth for the hospital and continued support from Taylorville, surrounding communities and Memorial Health.

“We are a nondenominational hospital, but it is faith that guides, and the mission, which is always to care for one another,” she said. “There are many names for the one God. We are all on the same road home to God. My hope is that we will always see the need for the spiritual care as well as physical and emotional care.”

She trusts in the motto: begin, beget, be gone.

“We began our mission more than 100 years ago here in Taylorville,” she said. “We have seen it flourish and grow. We leave it in good hands, all due to God’s providence.”

Farewell Reception

The public is invited to attend a retirement reception honoring Sister Rose McKeown, ASC, and the 118-year legacy of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, on Sunday, Jan. 5, from 2 – 4 p.m. at The Pillars Event Center, 303 E. Market St., in Taylorville.