With 125 years of Holy Family Memorial Hospital serving people, there are a lot of people working there.
Kathy Endries and Ellie Meinnert are part of three generations of nurses and medical workers at Holy Family.
Endries explained to Seehafer News that it started back in 1953 with her mother Eleanor Weina going to the Holy Family School of Nursing.
Eleanor worked for Holy Family Memorial until 1998 when she retired.
Since then, eight members of her family have, in some way, worked at Holy Family Memorial, with some still working there to this day.
Endries explained that her mom taught her an important lesson: be committed to the job you do.
Eleanor didn’t force anyone to go into nursing, but Endries says, “I think we just saw it all and we just all decide that that’s where we wanted to go with our life. I mean out of my mom, three of us became RN’s, Ellie became a CNA. And, it’s just the caring that we saw instilled in us to do this as a career.”
Endries says that they are very proud of their family’s history working at HFM.
“Besides the nursing part, we have a brother who went into being a doctor,” she noted. “So, we got so much from my mom being a nurse. I mean she instilled medical on all of us.”
Endries’ daughters now work at HFM while Ellie Meinnert’s daughter is going to medical school.
Endries and Meinnert also said it’s special being a part of a family of nurses and medical workers because it bonds them together.
“You grow up different in a nursing family because my mom had to work most holidays, so holidays were not on holidays,” she stated. “We did everything whenever. As we all became nurse we could discuss all that stuff.”
The public is invited to attend a ceremony in the hospital atrium to recognize the 125th anniversary of Holy Family Memorial tomorrow (September 28th). .
A ceremony will be held at 2:00 pm followed by a mass with Bishiop David Ricken.
