50 years of service

Sister M. Charitona, S.H.R., translated aloud from a Chinese book yesterday. This was rather remarkable inasmuch as she doesn't know Chinese.

It really didn't natter, though. When Sister Charitona delivers her make-believe translations to Jack Goon, it makes for a happy time.

Sister Charitona is a member of the staff of the Drueding Infirmary, a nursing home for the aged at 413 W. Master St., Kensington. Every day she drops in on Goon, 84, one of the residents, and with poker-faced good humor pretends to translate. Goon, who was born and reared in Canton thinks it's great.

"Sister is very good friend to me," he said. "Very nice. All other sisters here are very nice, too."

They have been nice to people at this location for quite some time, these sisters. Fifty years.

On June 27, 1931, the Drueding Infirmary -- a hospital then, built by two brothers who had made it big as manufacturers -- opened its doors. Among the members of the nursing order of the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer assigned to the institution were not only Sister Charitona but Sister M. Hiltrudis and Sister M. Treuhildis. And yesterday these three sat and spoke of commitment and caring and serving.

From left, Sisters Treuhildis, Charitona and Hiltrudis in
Drueding Infirmary garden; former factory is behind them.

"It certainly does not seem like 50 years." said Sister Charitona, 76, the only one of the original staff still doing daily duty at the nursing home. "But then time always passes rapidly when one is doing what one likes."

Sister Hiltrudis, 81, and Sister Treuhildis, 72, who now are at the order's mother house in Huntingdon Valley, assigned to Holy Redeemer Hospital, Meadowbrook, nodded in agreement.

"I came here right off the boat from Germany," Sister Hiltrudis said. "I spoke almost no English, but it was such a privilege to be here and everyone was so kind in helping me to learn the language."

"All of us had language problems," Sister Treuhildis said. "But there was so much to be done that we had to learn quickly. I worked in the operating room and it was necessary to know English well."

The Drueding Infirmary came into being because Henry and Charles Drueding, German immigrant twins who had struck it rich after discovering a way of tanning sheepskin into chamois, felt a long-term responsibility to the employees of their manufacturing plant in Kensington.

Devout Roman Catholics, the brothers called it a "Christian responsibility." What they felt was an obligation to provide lifetime care for ailing and/or aging employees. So they spent approximately $1 million -- a whopping outlay in the opening months of the Depression -- to build their infirmary, or hospital, on Master Street, adjacent to their factory

Through Cardinal Dennis Dougherty, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, it was arranged tha the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer, a congregation founded in Wurzburg, Bavaria in what now is West Germany, be given charge of the infirmary.

Today, Drueding Bros., once the world's largest producer of chamois, with more than 600 employees, is gone. Henry and Charles Drueding have long since died. But the infirmary, converted into a well-kept, 50-bed nursing home, is still going strong, and the Holy Redeemer Sisters, with younger personnel filling out the ranks, are still in charge.

There remain three former Drueding employees among the residents: Elizabeth Tighe, 93, Gressie Goetz, 85 and Michael Slavek, 72. "I bless the names of the Drueding brothers," Cressie Goetz said. "They always thought of the people who worked for them."

The infirmary, which operates at capacity, has a board of trustees made up oif, with one exception, relatives of the founders. The Holy Redeemer Sisters accept about 10 private residents (persons able to pay their own way) at a modest (for these times) $500 a month each, with the balance being people on public assistance.

"We have seen many changes in our 50 years," Sister Charitona was saying, "but what hasn't changed is the spirit of caring."