Staff photo / Marly Kosinski Sister Patricia McNicholas, former executive director of the Beatitude House, stands outside the Ursuline Sisters Motherhouse in Canfield on Thursday next to a sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus. McNicholas, 77, grew up on Youngstown’s South Side and graduated from Mooney High School in 1961.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of a series of Saturday profiles of area residents and their stories. To suggest a profile, contact features editor Burton Cole at bcole@tribtoday.com.

CANFIELD — When Ursuline Sister Patricia McNicholas was 2 years old, a tragedy befell her family that shaped her life — and her calling to religious life.

“A train derailed near the Center Street bridge in Youngstown and there was a box car upside down with fresh beef on hooks that was supposed to go on a refrigerated truck owned by McNicholas Transfer, my grandfather’s company,” McNicholas, now 77, said. “While my father and another employee were transferring the beef, the box car collapsed, crushing him. The other worker was outside taking a break, so he was not hurt.”

Although her father, Paul, survived, he spent one year in the hospital and was paralyzed from the waist down. Her mother, Mary Frances Dignan McNicholas, was pregnant with McNicholas’ youngest brother at the time. “Sister Patricia,” as she is known to many, was the fourth of six children. Her mother went to work as a receptionist for McNicholas Transfer when her father no longer was able to drive truck.

McNicholas was born in Youngstown and grew up on the South Side, attending St. Dominic School and then Cardinal Mooney High School, from where she graduated in 1961. Her father died 14 years after his accident, when McNicholas was just 16.

“My dad was home with us, so he was a big influence. After he died, I became very reflective and was looking for meaning in my life. I think I turned to God for comfort,” McNicholas said.

She said she actually started contemplating religious life in grade school, when she was 10 or 11, but the calling intensified after her father’s death.

She entered the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown community in the fall of 1961, just three months after graduating high school.

“I was familiar with the Ursulines from St. Dom’s because some of them taught there, in addition to nuns from other orders. Plus, my mom was friends with some Ursuline nuns and it just felt like a warm, welcoming community,” McNicholas said.

The Ursuline convent was located on Logan Avenue at the time. The current Ursuline motherhouse on Shields Road in Canfield was built in 1963.

She said her mother was supportive of her decision to become a nun, but her grandmother was not.

“She told me ‘only poor girls join the convent,'” McNicholas recalled.

She spent one year at the convent before becoming a novice, and spent two years as a novice before taking her temporary vows. She professed her final vows in 1969 and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education — summa cum laude — from Youngstown State University in 1965.

“The YSU professors came to the convent to teach us,” McNicholas said. “Everybody was in elementary education at the beginning, and chose their major later. I chose religious education.”

McNicholas earned a Master of Arts from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. in 1976, with a focus on theology and religious education. She taught one year at Ursuline and several years at Mooney before earning a Master of Science degree in administration from the University of Notre Dame in 1988 with a program focus on administration of not-for-profit organizations.

In 1992, she earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton. Her doctoral project was entitled “Involving the Laity in Service to the Poor in Cooperation with the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown.”

McNicholas said that is where the groundwork was laid for her work with the Beatitude House, a nonprofit organization based in Youngstown focused on women, mostly single mothers, and children, founded in 1991.

However, her involvement with the Beatitude House was preceded by a 13-year stint as Director of Religious Education for the Youngstown Diocese from 1976 to 1989, followed by six years as General Superior of the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown, from 1990 to 1996.

In 1996, McNicholas became director of the Potter’s Wheel — a program of the Beatitude House created to provide education and career preparation for low-income women — where she managed a budget of $250,000. In 2001, she became executive director of the Beatitude House, supervising a program to provide housing for 63 homeless families in Mahoning, Trumbull and Ashtabula counties, as well as continuing to oversee the Potter’s Wheel. As executive director, she supervised a staff of more than 25 and had a budget of $1.5 million.

She lived at the Beatitude House on Youngstown’s North Side (close to Wick Park) for 17 years.

“I have a million stories from the children who lived in the neighborhood as well as the children in our program,” McNicholas said. “One of the neighbor kids would knock on my door looking for candy. I told him I didn’t have any candy but I gave him some grapes instead. When he came the next day looking for candy, I asked him if he liked the grapes and he said he tried one but gave the rest to the squirrels.”

She said she knew it was time to retire when she grew tired of being woken up in the middle of the night by alarms at the agency’s residential properties and phone calls from clients.

“I couldn’t do the day and night thing anymore,” McNicholas said.

But her passion for the agency’s mission remained and after retiring, she became senior development officer for the Beatitude House, where she was responsible for media relations and oversaw fundraising efforts. In 2017, she became donor relations director of the Beatitude House, where she remains today. She is responsible for planning and executing a three-year campaign to raise $3.4 million.

“We have raised $3.1 million with six months to go,” McNicholas said proudly, noting the community support has been solid.

She said she believes in the mission of the Beatitude House because it is “trying to make a difference in the life of others.” She also said the position gave her opportunities to travel, in education and gave her meaningful work to do.

“I really felt a call to the Beatitude House because I have a real passion for serving women and the poor,” McNicholas said. “We have reached over 7,000 women and children in almost 30 years and seen their lives transformed. Our mission of providing homes, creating educational opportunities and enriching families has an impact now and on future generations. It is definitely the most satisfying part of my career by far.”

In addition to her work there, she also is on the leadership team at the Ursuline Motherhouse and is on the board of the Mahoning Valley Association of Churches.