By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
(Editor’s note: 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Holy Cross Sisters in Salt Lake City. Their kindness, hard work, and devotion changed Utah history forever and touched countless Utah lives. Over the next year, I will tell some of those stories here in the blog.)
Perhaps the most poignant proof of Utah’s deep affection and sincere admiration for the Holy Cross Sisters is found in the words Utahns used to describe and eulogize them.
The Holy Cross Sisters first arrived in Utah from their convent in Notre Dame, Indiana on June 6, 1875. Sister Raymond (Mary) Sullivan and Sister Augusta (Amanda) Anderson traveled to Salt Lake City via train and stagecoach at the invitation of Father Lawrence Scanlan (soon to be Utah’s bishop).
Scanlan hoped the good order of sisters—originally from France but soon full of hardworking and devoted Irish Catholic nuns—would help him build schools and meet other local human and spiritual needs.
That’s exactly what happened.
With their trademark energy and industriousness, in just a few months the Holy Cross Sisters had started both a school and a hospital in Salt Lake. The medical facility—Holy Cross Hospital—grew into one of the most beloved and important institutions in Utah history.
In October 1876, Scanlan described the Sisters’ work in a letter: “[These] devoted creatures in the Catholic Church [could be seen] leaning over the bed of the suffering, wiping away the sweat of death from the pale forehead of the dying man, soothing his declining moments…alleviating his suffering in life…all these acts performed for no earthly reward, but through love of humanity…”
The first Hospital leader— Sister Holy Cross—shared a name with the place she co-founded. Born as Susan Walsh in County Cork, Ireland in 1826, Sister Holy Cross took her final religious vows in 1858.
Almost immediately, the Sisters put her to work as a Civil War nurse. Those battlefield skills helped immeasurably when Sister Holy Cross got to Utah, a story I tell here.
When Sister Holy Cross died in January 1898, Utah’s newspapers published the tributes. Admirers said, “She was patient beyond endurance,” and “Her simple guileless nature won for her the good will of all, whilst her love for suffering humanity and peace to mankind, softened the hearts of many a wayward child.”
The second Hospital leader—Sister Lidwina Butler—was born in Ireland too. Among other things, she was known for completing the new hospital building on the square block campus at First South and Tenth East Streets that we know today.
Sister Lidwina constructed the lovely and historic Holy Cross Chapel. She also helped down-and-out folks rebuild their lives and self-esteem.
Local newspapers ran banner headlines filled with grief and sadness in February 1913 when Sister Lidwina died of pneumonia at age 69. Tributes hailed her “life of loving devotion” and noted that her “good deeds” made her “widely known throughout the West.”
Sister Beniti (Margaret) O’Connor succeeded her mentor Sister Lidwina as Holy Cross Hospital’s next leader. Like her two predecessors Sister Beniti was born in Ireland—in 1864 in County Limerick.
Sister Beniti worked as a U.S. Army nurse during the Spanish American War and arrived in Salt Lake City to train and work at Holy Cross Hospital a few years later. She took charge of the whole place in 1914, and left a decade later, but only to start a new hospital in New Mexico for tuberculosis patients.
In addition to her exemplary nursing work, Sister Beniti witnessed some of the most historic and poignant moments in the life of the Utah Catholic Church.
She made candy for—and celebrated Christmas with—the children at St. Ann’s Orphanage along with the philanthropists Thomas Kearns and Jennie Judge Kearns. Sister Beniti also offered prayers and succor at the 1915 Holy Cross Hospital deathbed of renowned Utah Bishop Lawrence Scanlan.
The Holy Cross order was family for Sister Beniti, but not just as a religious sisterhood. Her older sibling/sister Margaret (Sister Brendan) joined too as did two of their cousins, one of whom (Sister Ignatia) eventually led Holy Cross Hospital too.
The name “Beniti” means “blessed” or “favored by God.” Sister Beniti probably felt that way about the unique and interesting ministries her order entrusted to her. Yet, it really was we Utahns who were blessed and favored by the grace of the Holy Cross Sisters.
Just like with her two predecessors at Holy Cross Hospital, when Sister Beniti died there was an outpouring of grief and love in Utah.
A May 1936 editorial in The Salt Lake Tribune said it best, “Admired for her native intelligence and acquired wisdom, revered for her piety and devotion to duty, beloved by members of the medical and nursing professions, [Sister Beniti] was recognized wherever known as one of those ministering angels who are now and then permitted to visit the earth.”
(Photo courtesy of Holy Cross Ministries of Utah.)
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
