Norfolk City Virginia USGenWeb Archives Obituaries.....Kelly, Sister Bernard March 24, 1926
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Robert Woolfitt http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00034.html#0008401 May 29, 2023, 2:55 pm

Virginian-Pilot  March 25, 1926
Sister Bernard Kelly, the “night angel of St. Vincent’s,” died yesterday morning 
at 5:30 o’clock at the hospital where she had devoted the last 30 years of her 
life in administering to the sick and cheering the suffering. Gentle and 
compassionate, she was beloved by all connected with the hospital and by 
thousands of others who at one time or another were patients in the institution.
Sister Bernard was born in Ireland 68 years ago and her quaint speech never 
failed to reflect her native land. Her voice was a delight to all ears on which 
it fell. She came to America when quite young, and 45 years ago became a Sister 
of Charity.
Many years ago she lost an arm to an accident in the hospital, and her suffering 
gave her a deep understanding of her mission of mercy and inspired in her an 
undying zeal like that of the saints of old for relieving those in grief or 
pain.
Love for Sister Bernard was not confined to those of her religious faith. None 
could know her but to love her - this sweet-faced, soft-voiced little woman who 
had borne her own cross so submissively and yet who always was so deeply 
concerned over the trials of others. Her mere presence inspired a sort of 
subdued awe and admiration, such as one feels in holy places.
For many years, Sister Bernard was on night duty at St. Vincent’s. Her slight, 
almost emaciated figure, in flowing robes, flitting along the silent dim-lit 
halls on errands of mercy, or hovering in the operating room, or at the lever of 
the elevator, carrying a patient from the operating room to a ward on an upper 
floor - an amazingly capably little woman in spite of her lost arm when occasion 
demanded - is a series of pictures that all night visitors to the hospital 
associate with the institution. And others, who have spent nights of pain on the 
hospital cots, always will cherish the memory of this same gentle little angel 
of the night, her voice a crooning Irish melody, at their bedside in the still 
watches before the dawn, whispering words of comfort or giving instructions to a 
nurse.
Sister Bernard had been in declining health for several years, but her devotion 
to duty kept her active until a few days ago when she went to bed never to get 
up again.
Funeral services will be conducted tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock in St. 
Vincent’s Chapel. Burial will be in St. Mary’s Cemetery.


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