Current Ministry Location: Maryknoll Sisters Center-Maryknoll, NY
Sister Carol was born in Columbus, OH, June 30th, 1930 to Mary Theresa (Worch) Hassey and William Edward Hassey,she had 4 sisters. Sister Carol graduated from Holy Rosary High School in 1948. Having studied at Mt. Carmel Hospital in Columbus until 1951 and at St. Mary of the Springs in Ohio, Sister Carol was already an RN with a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing when she entered the Congregation in 1956. With nearly six years of nursing experience under her belt, soon after entering she began serving in the Maryknoll Sisters Center, Maryknoll, NY infirmary, caring for the health needs of other Sisters in the Congregation. Sister Carol pronounced First Vows on August 22nd, 1959 at the Sisters Center and Final Vows August 22nd, 1965 in Bolivia.
Then, in 1960, Sister Carol received an appointment to care for the sick and injured at Queen of the World Hospital, Kansas City, MO. Queen of the World was one of the first interracial hospitals in the United States, and Sister Carol took to the work with the passion and enthusiasm, as well as excellence, that would mark her work in all the years ahead. Sister Carol was a Nursing Supervisor at Queen of the World, as well as a member of the nursing staff and clinical instructor, from 1960-1966, through the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. They were challenging days and the work never ceased to stir Sister Carol with its importance.
Later in 1966, Sister Carol received her first overseas assignment to Bolivia, where, after completing Spanish Language studies, she taught nursing at the Maryknoll Sisters’ Hospital in Riberalta, while also serving as chairperson of the congregation’s Bolivia Regional Governing Board from 1969 – 1971. She then moved to Santa Cruz where she continued to provide nursing services, this time to underdeveloped rural people in the region, until 1976. During the latter half of this period, Sister Carol also supervised a clinic and taught health and nursing classes. The health care’s and concern’s of the Bolivian people, particularly those in remote regions of the country, have been at the heart of Sister Carol’s work as a nurse missioner with Maryknoll Sisters.
Then, in 1981, Sister Carol returned to the U.S. in order to earn a Master’s Degree in Psychology at Notre Dame College of Loyola University in Baltimore, MD. She returned to Bolivia three years later, serving as the House Administrator for Sisters in the area. Then, in 1987, Sister Carol was appointed Director of the Orientation Program at the Language Institute in Cochabamba, where she herself had studied twenty-five years earlier. Sister Carol continued in this role until 1999, when she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center in NY. At first she served as the Renewal Coordinator and then as the Rogers’ Coordinator as well as the Records Clerk in the Sisters’ Out Patient Care unit.
In 2006, Sister Carol retired to the Maryknoll Sisters Center, Maryknoll, NY.