Aunt Evelyn’s
Enduring Energy

Sister FRANCES marie DUNCAN
remembers her GODMOTHER

My Godmother and aunt, Evelyn, was an amazing woman. Growing up in the great depression, her childhood was most difficult. She worked hard her entire life as a seamstress and, later, at Met Life doing office work. Although married, her husband died young, leaving her a widow at 54. They never had any children.

When she retired, she began more than 30 years of volunteering. She took buses and subways to get to her volunteer sites or later Access-a-Ride when she needed to take her walker. She volunteered mostly at Goldwater Rehabilitation Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York City, a city-run long-term acute care hospital (known originally as a welfare hospital). Most of the patients had severe mobility issues. One could only move his fingers on one hand and used it to guide a gurney around the hospital with a special device. Another lost both legs and most of his arms in a failed suicide attempt by throwing himself in front of a moving train. There were many stories like these.

Well into her 80s, Aunt Evelyn volunteered every day and stayed all day, visiting the patients, bringing them Communion and serving as the hospital sacristan. On varied occasions, I would bring my students to help her with getting presents ready for the patients, decorating the chapel for Christmas, and just visiting the patients.

When my aunt started using a walker, she switched to only a few days each week, and the hospital had a scooter for her so she could make the rounds. She ran flea markets and other fundraisers well into her 80s to raise additional funding for the patients and their needs. In her early 90s, she still volunteered when possible until the hospital was closed in 2013 and demolished.

She died in 2019 at the age of 99. Her life for me is an inspiration, especially when I feel like I cannot go on. I think of all she did for others well into her 90s and muster the strength to keep going.