Mary Hannick, Local Social Activist Hero

Does the name ring a bell? She’s my newest and oldest friend at 102 years old! Ms. Hannick still lives in her own apartment with the support of friends and aides. I’d say there are about 50 awards hanging on the walls throughout her apartment.

Ms. Hannick worked for Kodak and then for the Red Cross in France and Germany in World War II and came home to direct the Genesee Settlement House. She’s been on the board of Catholic Family Center, Mary Cariola and Volunteers of America. She helped Catholic Family Center develop Hannick Hall (named in her honor) and its counterpart, Liberty Manor, in Rochester. Both of these places offer intense, long-term, in-patient programs for women with addiction. We do groups at Liberty Manor.

We shared precious moments together one recent afternoon and discovered our common love and philosophy about people. “Never label anyone! Don’t say someone lives in the inner city, say they live on Scio Street!”  We found that neither of us liked to call people drug addicts, reducing individuals to a disease they have and dismissing their dignity, beauty, power and gifts.

We held hands and prayed together. She sang to me and asked me not to forget her, to hold her in my heart and to pray for her—all easy requests to fulfill!

What an honor to meet the woman who helped shape the place we love to do our work! Ms. Hannick was intent on learning my last name, a not very euphonious one, originating in the 1780’s when one of my grandmothers refused to give up her last name and combined it with her husband’s. “Good for her!” she exclaimed, still spunky after all these years.

Thank God for women with the wisdom, intelligence, drive and compassion of Mary Hannick—may we all strive to be so.