Age 97
Sister Mary Howard Cowan, a nurse with a heart for caring for the elderly, was a Sister of Mercy for 74 years. She was a nurse at the Mercy Center Infirmary, Our Lady of Mercy High School and Flower City Nursing Home, all in Rochester, New York. Returning to her birthplace, Auburn, New York, to care for her parents until their deaths, she was also a nurse at Mercy Hospital there. In late 1984, Sister Mary Howard and Sister Rose Schum went to Elmira, New York, and started Mercy Care Center, an adult social day Ccre, which they operated for 23 years. In an interview for her 70th jubilee, Sister Howard called the ministry her “most rewarding.”