Sister Mary Madonna Ashton
The state of Minnesota’s first woman and non-physician commissioner of health, president and CEO of a major hospital, and delegate for religious in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis — Sister Mary Madonna Ashton was all those things and more, colleagues, fellow religious and a family member recall.
Sister Mary Madonna died Oct. 16. She was 99. Funeral arrangements were pending.
“She ran a good ship. She stood tall,” said fellow Sister Carolyn Puccio, who succeeded Sister Mary Madonna as delegate for religious in 2014. Trained as a medical social worker, Sister Mary Madonna once told Sister Carolyn she had to learn to be an administrator even while accepting those positions. “It wasn’t easy, but she did it,” Sister Carolyn said.
Michael Osterholm, regents professor, McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health and director of the Center for Infectious Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said Sister Mary Madonna “could be a very, very strong leader. But at the same time, caring and compassionate.”
Highly respected in her field, she also “was the type of person who is hard not love,” said Osterholm, who as state epidemiologist served under Sister Mary Madonna during her term as commissioner of health, from 1983 to 1991.
Sister Mary Madonna served as commissioner of health for Gov. Rudy Perpich. She began her career as a social worker in 1946, the year she joined her religious order, at then-St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul. She later moved to then-St. Mary’s Hospital in Minneapolis, where she served for two decades, ultimately serving as president and CEO. After her term as health commissioner, Sister Mary Madonna was CEO of Carondelet LifeCare Corp., which in 1992 led to her founding St. Mary’s Health Clinics to serve the uninsured and those ineligible for government programs. Today, SMHC includes seven Twin Cities clinics with 150 volunteer doctors, nurses and support personnel.
As health commissioner, she took on the tobacco industry, which led to banning smoking in public spaces. She was also at the forefront of meeting the challenge of the emerging HIV/AIDS epidemic and was a strong advocate for the health needs of the gay community, Osterholm said.
She led detailed surveillance of the epidemic in Minnesota in a system that led the nation and helped discover that HIV/AIDS also spread through the use of infected, intravenous needles in the illegal drug trade, Osterholm said.
“Under her leadership, we emerged as the premiere health department in the country for infectious disease,” Osterholm said. “Our health department is one of the most respected in the country, and it’s roots go back to Sister Mary Madonna Ashton.”
A native of St. Paul and a convert to Catholicism from the Episcopal faith, Sister Mary Madonna in a 2014 interview with The Catholic Spirit recalled telling her family at Easter dinner she was ready to enter the religious life.
“Everybody left the table except my young sister who sat there,” Sister Mary Madonna said. “They were just so upset. It was a real crisis. Anyway, be that as it may, I entered the convent.”
Sister Mary Madonna’s closest living relative, Ruth Cocker of Rock Hill, South Carolina, a niece, recalled Oct. 17 growing up in the Methodist faith in North Carolina and enjoying Sister Mary Madonna’s visits.
“She was a nun. She wore a big habit. We were fascinated,” Cocker said. Her aunt was kind, business-like and a strong role model for her, said Cocker, who about 10 years ago began visiting her aunt annually and most recently visited Oct. 1 at Carondelet Village in St. Paul, where the religious sister was living and passed away. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, they visited via the internet.
“There was a religious side to her, but I knew she was a businesswoman,” said Cocker, who went on to a career at IBM and later was finance manager of a financial planning group. “She was always such a role model for me.”
Osterholm summed up his memories of Sister Mary Madonna with these words: “She was a servant leader before there was the concept of servant leadership.”
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