Sister Marie Lenahan, 89, hospitals' president

In 1943, Sister Marie Lenahan at age 23 got her first experience of caring for the ill.

"Faced with a shortage of workers during World War II," an Inquirer 2003 story reported about what is now Mercy Philadelphia Hospital, "she was thrown into hospital work seven days a week.

"She even scrubbed the hospital's front steps in the middle of the night."

On Monday, Sister Lenahan, 89, president of both Mercy Hospital in West Philadelphia and Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby from 1972 to 1986, died of heart failure at Mercy Fitzgerald.

In 1981, Sister Lenahan was elected a trustee of the Catholic Health Association of the United States. In 1987, the Metropolitan Philadelphia Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association gave her its annual Achievement Award.

And across the street from the Darby hospital stands the Sister Marie Lenahan Mercy Wellness Center.

The journey wasn't easy.

In 1976, the West Philadelphia hospital was losing $2 million a year, but, with a management overhaul, The Inquirer reported, by 1986 it was showing a $6 million annual profit.

The neighborhood had lost three hospitals - Philadelphia General Hospital and Mercy Douglas having closed, and the Osteopathic Medical Center of Philadelphia having moved.

"We were the only one left," Sister Lenahan told a reporter. "We did not feel that we could abandon those people."

Born in West Philadelphia, Sister Lenahan was captain of the basketball team at West Catholic Girls High, earned her bachelor of science degree at Villanova University, professed her vows as a Sister of Mercy in 1942, and taught at the school of St. Margaret parish in Narberth in 1942 and 1943.

She worked from 1943 to 1946 in the offices at Mercy Hospital and from 1946 to 1956 in the offices of Mercy Fitzgerald.

Sister Lenahan earned a master's in administrative medicine from Columbia University and a doctorate in medical administration from Sussex College, England.

From 1956 to 1972, she was an administrator, a superintendent, and the assistant president of Mercy Fitzgerald. In 1965, she was president of the Philadelphia Conference of Catholic Hospitals. In 1966, she became a fellow of the American College of Hospital Administrators. The next year, she was a director of the Delaware Valley Hospital Council.

After her 1972-86 presidency, she was a corporate consultant to Mercy Fitzgerald from 1987 to 2003 and held the same position with Mercy Health System from 2003 to last year.

She is survived by two nieces, Dorothy Byrne and Rosemary Nuzzo.

A viewing was set from 6 to 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the chapel of the Convent of Mercy, 515 Montgomery Ave., Merion, followed by a 7:30 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial. Burial is to be at 10 a.m. Friday in the cemetery at the convent.