A Nun With a Gun

The story of Sister Stanislaus, nurse, sent to New Orleans Charity Hospital, bringing relief and consolation to thousands who passed in and out of this great hospital.

This is the story of Sister Stanislaus, a rare human being, a dynamo of a woman, a nurse who devoted her life, joyfully, humorously, expertly, uniquely, to others.

Orphaned at 3, brought up by the Sisters of Charity in Nevada, a nun herself at 20, Sister Stanislaus, after several months of nurses' training in Baltimore, was sent to work in New Orleans. She never really left.

She spent over fifty years there. When she arrived, Charity Hospital comprised one antiquated building; modern medicine was in its swaddling clothes; nursing was an even more hit-or-miss affair. When she left, Charity Hospital was one of the finest in the land and nursing had become a highly professional career.

Sister Stanislaus played a large part in the development of both. She brought to nursing a great and joyful zeal, an originality, and a love which affected everyone she came in contact with. Constantly perfecting herself as a nurse, she became one of the best known nursing-sisters in the country.

But she did not stop there. Her practical achievements in hospital administration and nursing education were phenomenal.

Yet her fame and her influence were not a result of her public achievement; they were based upon something more immediate, more spiritual. They grew from her all-embracing charity, her lifetime of devotion to the sick and the troubled. She was beloved as a person.

An extraordinary personality emerges from this brisk, expertly written biography, a lively and highly original nun, nurse, and human being, full of surprises but tirelessly on the job, bringing relief and consolation to thousands who passed in and out of a great hospital.