Sister M. Rebecca Bean, IHM

Sister M. Rebecca Bean, IHM, of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary died on Friday, October 15, 1915, at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Dunmore, Pennsylvania.

Born on May 10, 1867 in Fair Haven, Vermont, and given the name Hattie Marie, she was the daughter of the late Joseph and Mary Martin Bean. By 1880, the family moved to Pennsylvania, settling in Moosic. She entered the IHM Congregation on June 25, 1897, received the relgious habit on April 16, 1900, and made profession of her vows on April 1, 1902. During her postulancy, she was sent to the Columbia Training School for Nurses in Washington, D.C., where she spent two years, graduating from there in January, 1900.

Sister Rebecca was an exemplary religious and a devoted infirmarian. She loved her work and her leisure time was spent in endeavoring to add to her knowledge of all that pertained to her profession. After a severe course of study, she obtained a diploma from the National Institute of Pharmacy, of Chicago. In 1908, she was registered by the State Pharmaceutical Association of Pennsylvania as an assistant pharmacist.

She had been ailing for some time, and her death was not unexpected.

The funeral will be on Monday, October 18 at 9:00 a.m. at Mt. St. Mary’s, followed by interment is at the Marywood College Cemetery, on the grounds of Marywood College in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Note: Her parents were both Canadians of French descent. Sister was the youngest of four children born. Joseph, Hedwige, and Cordelia were her siblings.

“While the community was still suffering from the shock of Sister M. Visitation’s tragic end, death again visited us and left us mourning the loss of dear Sister Rebecca, whose loving and self-sacrificing services had endeared her to all the Sisters. Now she who had taken care of so many, was in turn tenderly cared for. She who had assisted at so many deathbeds, helped so many to die well, was now to experience the peace and joy with which the merciful Heart of Jesus rewards all who show mercy. Nothing troubled her, she quietly and calmly awaited the supreme moment when He whom she had served in the prison of the sick room would come with His promised reward. She died on the Feast of Saint Teresa. The funeral sermon preached by the Right Reverend Bishop was highly eulogistic of the deceased Sister. “I feel very happy to think that I sat at the bedside of the good Sister a short time before her death. She reminded me that it was the eighteenth anniversary of her taking up of her work of mercy. Eighteen years before, on the Feast of Saint Teresa, she began her training in the hospital at Washington. On the Feast of Saint Teresa eighteen years after, she was called to give an account of her stewardship and to meet those to whom she had ministered. During all these years she lived a good religious life. I knew her as a student nurse in Washington and there, as in after life, she was the same gentle, active, accommodating, kind-hearted, generous woman.”

Excerpted from The Sisters of the I.H.M.: The Story of The Founding of The Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Their Work In The Scranton Diocese by Sister M. Immaculata Gillespie, IHM, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, NY, 1921, p. 456