Saint Vincent Hospital traces its roots back to a day in the early 1870s when an elderly gentleman fell and broke his ankle while walking along East Fourth Street in front of St. Joseph’s Orphan Asylum.
The Sisters of St. Joseph, who opened the orphanage in 1872, took Joseph Mozinska inside and cared for him, according to an article from the Erie Dispatch.
“There wasn’t a hospital in town at the time, so the sisters treated the man for a couple of weeks,” said Steve Osborn, Saint Vincent’s director of quality and chairman of its 150th anniversary campaign.
Other injured and sick people soon sought treatment at the orphanage. It spurred the religious order’s superior, Mother Agnes Spencer, to obtain permission from Erie Catholic Bishop Tobias Mullen to open Erie’s first hospital.
After raising $7,000, the Sisters of St. Joseph built a 12-bed hospital on West 24th Street between Sassafras and Myrtle streets. They named it “St. Vincent’s Hospital” and opened its doors on Sept. 5, 1875 following a celebratory parade.
“Since then, Saint Vincent has been able to continuously serve the people of Erie and the surrounding region for 150 years,” said Sister Carol Morehouse, secretary of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Northwestern Pennsylvania and former Saint Vincent board member. “It’s a century and a half of compassion and caring.”
Saint Vincent has been celebrating its 150th anniversary throughout 2025 with a series of public and private events. They included nursing class reunions, a community celebration called “150Fest”, and a public exhibit about the hospital’s history that will open at the Hagen History Center, 356 W. Sixth St., on Sept. 5.
Saint Vincent employee has worked at hospital since before its 100th anniversary
Paul Matters, Saint Vincent’s vice president of plant operations, has worked at the hospital long enough to have been an employee when the hospital turned 100 years old in 1975.
“I started Saint Vincent’s second-shift engineering, meaning I would go and fix any plumbing, electrical or other kinds of problems patients might have in their rooms,” said Matters, who still works full time at 72. “At first, I sat in an office and waited for phone calls. But people eventually realized we had someone working second shift and then I started getting busy.”
Erie hospital included on-site nursing school for 98 years
For nearly 100 years (1901-1999), Saint Vincent included a nursing school where students originally lived in the hospital during their three-year education.
Some of the rules in the school’s early years included expelling any female student who got married or became pregnant, Osborn said. There was one male in the first class, then none until 1974.
“Our offices are the rooms where the nursing students used to live,” Osborn said. “I have had nurses come back for reunions walk in and say, ‘This is where I lived for three years.'”
How Saint Vincent grew over the years
Saint Vincent has undergone massive expansion and construction projects since the original hospital was built in 1875. They include:
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A four-story, 70-bed facility known as “Old Main” was constructed in 1900;
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An annex that connected the original hospital to Old Main in 1911 and was known as the E Building. It is the oldest part of Saint Vincent Hosptial that remains standing;
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The original South Building was constructed in 1939 and would later become the hospital’s main entrance;
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A four-story patient tower was constructed in 1956. It would later be expanded to nine stories;
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Saint Vincent’s new main lobby and South Building opened in 1995;
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A three-story addition was constructed in 2019 for the hospital’s emergency department and additional operating rooms.
Working at Saint Vincent is a family tradition for Dr. Clark
Dr. Christoper Clark oversaw the most recent hospital expansion, having served as Saint Vincent’s president since 2017. But his history with the Erie hospital goes back much further.
He was born at Saint Vincent, had his tonsils and adenoids removed at Saint Vincent, and began working there as a family physician in 2001.
“All of my brothers and sisters worked here at one time or another,” Clark said. “My sister, Mary Beth Kroemer, was a nurse at Saint Vincent for years and my brothers, Gerald and Greg, both worked here for a while. My mom even was a volunteer.”
Saint Vincent’s biggest change? Joining AHN
Clark was on Saint Vincent’s medical staff in 2013 when the hospital underwent its most significant change: Becoming the third hospital to join Highmark’s Allegheny Health Network and ending 138 years of oversight by the Sisters of St. Joseph.
“The biggest change? Clearly it’s joining AHN,” Clark said. “It has been 12-plus years, and it has enabled us to undergo so many significant (construction) projects. There have been a lot of ribbon cuttings.”
Both Clark and Morehouse said that although the Sisters of St. Joseph no longer run Saint Vincent, their impact continues to be felt.
They both cited, repeatedly, the hospital’s legacy of compassionate care.
“It still exists because of the people working there who pass those values on to the new workers coming on board,” Morehouse said.
Contact David Bruce at dbruce@gannett.com. Follow him on X @ETNBruce.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Broken ankle led to Saint Vincent Hospital’s creation 150 years ago
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