Sister was born on January 1, 1893 in Newport, Ky. She was the youngest of seven children born to Joseph and Mary Staubach. She entered religious life in 1911 and after completing her training as a Novice, she made vows on December 8, 1912.
She taught in various schools until 1930 when she was assigned to work in Hospital administration. Sister became the Administrator of Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC in 1943. She had a great gift for organization and administration. She was inducted into the America College of Hospitals Administrators in 1953 and served on the Council of Hospital Planning and Plant Operations of the American Medical Association. She was unanimously elected the second Vice Presidents of the Board of Regents of the College of Hospital Administrators in August 1963.
She used to entertain the sisters with her stories of her time in Washington, D.C. Whenever Bishop Sheen got exhausted from
his heavy schedules, the hospital had a private suite, not on the hospital
listing, where he could rest without disturbance, offer his daily Mass and have
meals sent to his suite. Robert Kennedy often worked late and would stop at the
chapel and kneel in the back with his two large guard dogs laying down on
either side of him.
In spite of her advanced age, 80, she never wavered in her
support of Mother. Ellen in the founding of the Sisters of St. Joseph the Worker. When the community was founded, she could not participate in the active work of teaching, nursing or administration, but she was faithful in the most important work in religious life, prayer. In 1973, she wrote and published a Novena to Saint Joseph and did much to spread promote of her novena.
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| Sister Mary Antonella praying in the Chapel at Taylor Manor |
When she realized that her health and mental facilities were failing she wrote, “This means there is no remedy for lapse of memory and when the attacks
come I just try to be calm, stop trying to solve the problem at hand and ask
for trust and more trust and more trust in God. I have had a long life span and
God has been so very, very good to me so now I have just a little time left in
which to trust and to love and to do for Him what I can.”
This remarkable woman of faith and devotion to Saint Joseph retired to Taylor
Manor Nursing Home in 1977 and remained there until her death on March 27, 1985
at 92 years of age.
