#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 47 Good Deeds: Sr. Mary Augustine Gwynn, Mercy Hospital Pioneer

Ann Eliza Gwynn, my 3X-great aunt and older sister of my 2X-great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Gwynn, was born in the Piscataway District of Prince George's County MD in 1826. (You can see two of the Gwynn family properties on the attached 1861 map of the district, as well as St. Mary's Catholic Church which they would have attended.)

Ann Eliza Gwynn

Ann was the daughter of John Hilleary Gwynn and Ann Eliza Dyer. Besides running his own farm, John H. Gwynn was a tobacco inspector at the Piscataway Warehouse. His home, Pleasant Springs, was described as "a large two-story and attic house with piazzas latticed at the ends and covered with running roses." (Effie Gwynn Bowie) John H. Gwynn died in 1857 and left his home plantation to his youngest son, Andrew Jackson Gwynn, with the stipulation that his unmarried/widowed daughters, including Ann, would always have a home there. However, they had little chance to enjoy that home as it was burned to the ground, allegedly by Union soldiers, during the Civil War.  With little left of their home, John's sons, including AJ, moved out of the county after the War. His widowed daughter Susan Heiskell lived in a small house on the property for the remainder of her life.  His widowed daughter Margaret Edelen moved to Baltimore.

This loss of home also proved to be a turning point for Ann. At the age of 38 and unmarried, she decided to enter the religious order of the Sisters of Mercy, located at Poppleton Street in Baltimore early in 1864. On the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, 29 June 1866, she was professed as Sr. Mary Augustine R.S.M in the chapel of St. Peter's Convent. In 1867, even though she was still a novice at the time, Sr. M. Augustine was sent to Cumberland with a group of six other sisters to start a school there. Because of her age and experience, she was appointed the first superior at the new convent.

Meanwhile, back in Baltimore, the Washington University School of Medicine had opened a

dispensary at Calvert and Saratoga Streets to care for poor patients in the city. Young doctors would receive clinical experience there to supplement their classroom education.  By 1874, however, the doctors realized that their dispensary needed effective nursing care and so they invited the Sisters of Mercy to take over the facility. So, on a chilly November day in 1874, Sr. Mary Augustine arrived with six sisters to take charge of the clinic.  In 1909, the hospital's name changed from Baltimore City Hospital to Mercy Hospital and since then 16 Sisters of Mercy have served as president of what is now Mercy Medical Center (where, incidentally, my siblings and I were born, lo these many years ago). .But Sr. Mary Augustine Gwynn was the pioneer.


In 1877, Sr. M. Augustine was elected as Mother Superior of the Maryland Province of the Sisters of Mercy.  When the Sisters assumed charge of the Lombard Street Infirmary in 1880, Sr. Augustine was again in charge of the task. In her role as superior, she "gave satisfaction to the medical faculty.  The patients loved her, the physicians respected her and the sisters had great confidence in her wisdom and prudence. " (The Sisters of Mercy in Maryland)

From 1892 to 1895, Sr. Augustine served as bursar of the community and in the early days of Mount St. Agnes, she was mistress of Novices, housed in the iconic Octagon Building on the campus.

After thirty-six years of generous service to God, Sister M. Augustine Gwynn was called to her reward on December 1, 1900.  She was buried in the Cemetery at Mount St. Agnes Convent in Mt. Washington.