In the summer of 1939, an Irish nun in charge of admissions at St Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio, found herself in an awkward position.
Sr Ignatia had agreed to find a bed for an alcoholic who had been turned away from another hospital, but she knew many of her colleagues would object to the move. Even in the medical field, addiction was still often seen as a reflection of moral character rather than a treatable illness.
Undeterred, Sr Ignatia took in the patient under a diagnosis of “acute gastritis”.
The only private space she could find for him, though, was a small storage room used to arrange flowers for the wards. Here he was visited by members of the fledgling support group that became known as Alcoholics Anonymous. Sr Ignatia later remarked that she could hardly believe “such respectable, dignified-appearing men” had struggled with addiction.
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The patient had been brought to her by Dr Bob Smith, a co-founder of AA who was then working at St Thomas. Together, the two colleagues went on to establish one of the world’s first hospital-based programmes for alcoholism – an eight-bed ward where thousands of people took their first steps towards recovery.
The unit was run according to AA principles, with patients engaging in five days of reflection and rehabilitation under a sponsor’s guidance.
One of the principles of the programme was that it should be peer-led from the outset. New arrivals were welcomed and briefed by other patients. Visiting AA members were usually on hand in an adjoining lounge. The intention was to help newer patients to feel understood and to see that sobriety was achievable. Conversely, people at a more advanced stage of recovery could be reminded of how far they had come.
Sr Ignatia was ahead of her time in recognising that alcoholism was not something to be cured.
Her exposure to AA gave her an understanding of the efforts required far beyond those initial few weeks and months of sobriety. She encouraged departing patients to attend AA meetings and would offer them a Sacred Heart medal as a symbol of their commitment to avoid drink – a precursor to the sobriety coins still used to mark AA members’ milestones.
St Thomas Hospital pioneered a humane approach to addiction treatment at a time when there was virtually no medical support available for alcoholics.
In a 1951 essay, Sr Ignatia observed that patients came to Akron from as far away as Alabama, South Carolina and Texas. “They would not have had to travel so far if their local hospitals made it possible for them to receive the programme,” she wrote.
The treatment model developed in Akron also appears to have helped drive the early growth of AA. Sr Ignatia’s biographer, Mary C Darrah, has noted that AA membership grew from about 400 in 1939 to more than 2,000 in 1941. The largest increase by far was recorded in Ohio, the only state where AA-aligned hospital treatment was available.
Sr Ignatia herself had no personal experience of alcoholism. Born Bridget Della Mary Gavin in Mayo in 1889, she emigrated to the US with her family as a child and joined the Sisters of Charity of St Augustine aged 25.
She taught music for several years, but after a nervous breakdown took up the more routine position of registrar at St Thomas Hospital. It was her work here that earned her the nickname “Angel of AA”.
Later she moved to St Vincent Charity Hospital in Cleveland, where she headed up Rosary Hall, a new ward for alcoholics.
By then Sr Ignatia was a recognised authority on addiction, but some religious superiors resented her public profile. Shortly after she arrived in Cleveland, Boston church leaders asked the local archbishop if she could be invited to address the National Clergy Conference on Alcoholism. The prospect of a woman lecturing priests seems not to have excited the archbishop, and the request was denied.
Others were more appreciative of her efforts.
She received a letter of thanks from President Kennedy in 1961. He said she had “added strength to [her] community and nation”.
[ The good nuns are in danger of being erased from Irish historyOpens in new window ]
When she died in 1966, some 3,000 people reportedly attended her funeral at St John’s Cathedral in Cleveland. There was little public recognition in Ireland of her achievements, but a plaque was unveiled in her honour in Castlebar, Co Mayo, in 2017, and a memorial now marks the remnants of her childhood home in Shanvally.
Sr Ignatia’s legacy is also carried on in the places where she worked. Rosary Hall is still open today as an addiction treatment centre, as is the programme she established in Akron.
It had all begun with that decision to admit a patient in 1939, providing a safe space when others had turned him away.
- This Extraordinary Emigrants article was written by Dr Catherine Healy, DFA historian-in-residence at Epic, the Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin’s Docklands, an interactive museum that tells the story of how the Irish shaped and influenced the world
