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SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY Sister Rosemary Connelly and Mark Marchini, one of Misericordia's residents, in the 1970s. BELOW: Misericordia Heartzingers perform for the White Sox under the direction of Bob Erlenbaugh this past summer. where they belong, and it's wonderful because they bond. At Misericordia South, there was no child older than 6; after the age of 6 the families had to place them in the state institution. I went out to visit the institution, and at that time it was really not good. So I decided to just ignore the law and keep the children as long as we could. I was trained as a social worker and a teacher, and the first thing I wanted to do was get the children all out of bed and start programs. I wasn't a special education teacher, but I had common sense. I surrounded myself with a group of young girls who weren't educated to do this either, but we started different programs, and the kids ate them up. We had swimming; we had exercises; we had art—all kinds of programs that we knew they would enjoy and grow from. We even had a few children that we thought could read; we started educational programs, too, and they responded beautifully. Sisterly Love AS MISERICORDIA CELEBRATES ITS ANNUAL HEART OF MERCY BALL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SISTER ROSEMARY CONNELLY REFLECTS ON THE JOYS AND CHALLENGES OF HER 44 YEARS OF CARING FOR THE DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED. AS TOLD TO J.P. ANDERSON I am a Sister of Mercy, and in 1969 the Sisters invited me to be the administrator of Misericordia South at 2916 West 47th Street, which was the only home we had at the time. We had 132 children under the age of six; 69 of them had Down syndrome. It's not the same world for those with Down syndrome today as it was in '69—there were no programs, and schools had 68 no responsibility to provide education for people with profound disabilities. It wasn't until the mid-'70s that a law was passed giving every child the right to a free and appropriate education— that changed the tide. Today we don't house any children with Down syndrome; we have an outreach program where we help the parents—the children stay at home, I knew that children with Down syndrome didn't belong in a skilled nursing home, which Misericordia was at the time, so I went looking to see where they could go. We went to all different places, but there was no place appropriate for them that would continue their education. I was talking to the administrator of Catholic Charities about my concern, and he said, "You think you have problems?" They had just closed Angel Guardian orphanage, at Devon and Ridge—someone at the state bureau had said that orphanages were bad so they stopped all funding, and the 700 children there were dispersed. It was abandoned, continued on page 70 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 068-073_MA_SP_Spirit_Nov13.indd 68 10/21/13 10:54 AM