Joliet Franciscan dedicated her life to Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home

JOLIET – “Sister Peter had been the living cornerstone of Our Lady of Angels since the day the doors opened 55 years ago.”

So said George Block, administrator at Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home in Joliet. Certainly Sister Peter Didier, former director of nursing at OLA, set and enforced strict rules.

Patients had to be well-groomed and that included their hair. They had to wear shoes. Women had to wear makeup, earrings, and skirts or dresses. Didier respected people and always wanted them to be presentable, said Sister Albert Marie Papesh, OLA administrator from 1972 to 1989.

For Didier – who earned her nursing degree in 1952 from the St. Joseph School of Nursing in Joliet and always wore a full habit – this emphasis on clothing wasn’t about externals.

“When you’re dressed up, you feel better about yourself,” said Sister Yvonne Weidner, OLA administrator from 2001 to 2003.

Didier’s regard for the human person went beyond appearance. Sister Phyllis Pitz, OLA administrator from 1989 to 2001, said Didier cared for patients as individuals and respected them as people.

“She believed quality of care equaled quality of dignity,” Pitz said.

Didier’s rules protected that dignity. For instance, Weidner said, wheelchairs weren’t allowed in the dining room. If patients couldn’t walk alone, someone assisted them, all the way to the table, if necessary. During meals, everyone sat in regular chairs.

Each afternoon, patients engaged in exercise and “ball tosses,” Papesh said, to give patients energy and opportunities to socialize. Didier, who was one of 14 children, also acquainted herself with family members; she prayed for her patients’ needs.

Many times Papesh caught Didier in prayer, “asking the Lord for help and bringing her joys and sorrows to the Lord.”

Didier had a certification in geriatric rehabilitation, Weidner said, which meant patients at OLA had physical and occupational therapy long before those therapies were known by those names.

“Sister Peter had her own care plan,” Weidner said, “and she followed it.”

Papesh said Didier’s ability to pinpoint certain medication situations in patients earned her the respect of the area medical professionals.

“If licensing for nurse practitioners was part of the medical scene in the 1970s, she would have passed the exam hands down,” Papesh said.

Girls attending the former St. Francis Academy – where Didier taught math and science from 1945 to 1950 – often came to OLA after school during the afternoon shift, Papesh said, with many of them actually becoming nurses and returning to thank Didier for her mentoring.

“They always said she was the best teacher,” Papesh said.

Didier retired from director of nursing in 1998, but she did not retire from OLA.

She lived at the retirement home until her death June 27, making her OLA’s longest resident. She served its community by distributing newspapers and mail, and sitting with the dying.

Pitz said Didier had a statue of St. Peter that she’d set near the bed of a dying person, along with this message: “St. Peter is waiting for you when you are ready.”

“So we did the same thing for her,” Pitz said. “We put St. Peter at her bedside Sunday afternoon and she passed away early Monday evening.”

Friends may pay their respects to Didier from 2 to 6:45 p.m. July 5 at Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home, 1201 Wyoming Ave., Joliet. A prayer service will begin at 4:45 p.m. and a Mass of Christian Burial will be at 7 p.m.

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