Sister Gloria Olguín retires after 66 years of service

Intermountain Catholic

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Franciscan Sister Gloria Olguín (left) and Benedictine Sister Virgene Marx share tears of joy and sadness as they say good-bye to one another at the reception. IC photo Christine Young

OGDEN — "All I ask is for you to say a prayer for me. The Lord understands," said Franciscan Sister Gloria Olguín at her retirement reception at Ogden Regional Medical Center March 5.

Sr. Gloria will leave April 5, to return to Saint Francis Convent, the Franciscan Motherhouse in Garrison, N.Y.

Guests lined up for three hours to say good-bye to Sr. Gloria. The reception was scheduled for two hours, but friends and co-workers kept coming by to tell Sr. Gloria the thought of her leaving made them miss her already. Many said they would miss her smiling face, her friendship, and her pastoral care.

Sr. Gloria came to Utah in July, 1990 to work as a hospital chaplain at St. Benedict’s Hospital. The hospital was sold in 1994, and became Ogden Regional Medical Center.

"Sr. Gloria visited pre-operative patients. She was fluent in Spanish and that was a blessing for our Latino patients," said Kathy Mulder," ICU nurse. "She would bring communion to the sick. We are really going to miss her."

Sr. Gloria said she owes her opportunity to come to Utah to Benedictine Sister Virgene Marx, because she is the one who hired her 18 years ago.

"Sr. Virgene was my director," said Sr. Gloria," who worked with the Benedictine sisters at the hospital.

"We worked together in pastoral ministry and she was very good for the patients," said Sr. Virgene. "Sr. Gloria taught me a lot. We were very good friends, and I am going to miss her."

"My experience here has been wonderful," said Sr. Gloria. "The nursing staff is phenomenal. Without them we could not go on. Everybody in the hospital has been wonderful to me. Those in the office, the physicians, and the priests, have all been so good to me. Msgr. Lawrence Sweeney (then Father) was the pastor of Holy Family Parish when I came in 1990. Now the pastor is Father Patrick Elliott. Father John B. Hart was pastor there as well. Fr. Hart is a wonderful man.

"I have very mixed emotions about retiring," said Sr. Gloria. "I am retiring more because I have to than because I want to. I am 82 years old, and it is time."

Sr. Gloria was 17 years old when she entered Saint Francis Convent. She entered Sept. 7, 1942.

"I grew up in Albuquerque, N.M.," said Sr. Gloria. "I knew I wanted to become a sister when I was in the fourth grade. The feeling kind of went away until high school and then it came back. I wanted to go and my mother said no, I had to finish high school. I graduated and left for New York."

Sr. Gloria said she chose the Franciscan sisters as a result of an Ave Maria hour the Friars of the Atonement had. She wrote to the director, who told her about the Graymoor Friars of the Atonement in New York.

"When I went to get my pastor’s permission, he asked why I was going to that Protestant community. I told him it was not Protestant," said Sr. Gloria. "So he gave me his permission. I think he was a little angry I did not ask him first. I asked my mother."

Sr. Gloria learned to speak Spanish from her mother who was born in New Mexico. Her mother would speak to her in Spanish and Sr. Gloria would answer her in English. Her mother already knew English, as Sr. Gloria was the eighth child of 10 children. English was Sr. Gloria’s first language, although she studied Spanish in high school.

Sr. Gloria’s first mission was in Ticonderoga, N.Y. There she taught religion and catechism. She and other Franciscan sisters would go into poor, small parishes and build them up to where they could start a Catholic school, and then leave and go on to the next poor, small parish and start all over again.

Sr. Gloria spent two missions in Canada, doing the same thing.

"Franciscan Sister Fabian Uriot is the only Sister of the Atonement left in Utah," said Sr. Gloria. "She has been in West Jordan for more than 20 years. She is the director of religious education at Saint Joseph the Worker Parish.

"I also taught kindergarten in Greenwood, British Columbia, to the Japanese who were interned during the war," said Sr. Gloria. "We ordinarily do not teach school, but in cases of emergency we will teach grade school. There were eight sisters who opened the school in 1942, we taught kindergarten through eighth grade. For those students in high school, we taught business classes such as typing. I was there from 1946 until 1950, but the school did not close until 1953."

From Canada, Sr. Gloria was transferred back to the states. She taught kindergarten for 10 years at Saint Cecelia’s in East Harlem, kindergarten in Boston for 10 years, and back to Saint Cecelia’s in East Harlem. She also taught religion and did catechetical work in Philadelphia and other states before coming to Utah.

"I went into chaplaincy in 1982," said Sr. Gloria. "I have been a chaplain since then. My first hospital was Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, N.Y. for nine years, which was a hospital for advanced cancer patients. From there I went to California to Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital for a year, and from there I came to Utah."