Staff photos / R. Michael Semple Maryann DiCenso of Warren, retired after 45 years at St. Joseph Warren Hospital, left, and Paula Muir of Mineral Ridge, who retired after 26 years at St. Joe’s, bow their heads during the closing prayer at the hospital’s 100th anniversary celebration Tuesday.

From left, Valarie Burton of Howland, St. Joseph Warren Hospital RN manager; Angela Massacci of Vienna, director of Perioperative Services; Tami Fortune of McDonald, lead RN; and Michelle Crawford of Canfield, an administrator at St. Joe’s, view a ledger that was in the old time capsule, which was buried in the 1980s. St. Joseph Warren Hospital is marking its 100th anniversary this year.

Sister Stella Schmid, H.M., left, and Sister Margaret Mary Siegfried, H.M., share a moment together during the 100th anniversary celebration for St. Joseph Warren Hospital in its healing garden on Tuesday. The Sisters of the Humility of Mary is marking its own milestone this year — 170 years since the order settled in the area.

WARREN — Sister Maryann Golonka recalled when the hospital for which she worked in the 1970s was largely overshadowed by a larger facility in Youngstown.

“We used to say back then, ‘St. Joseph’s Hospital on Tod Avenue is the best kept secret in Northeast Ohio,'” said Golonka, who lives at the Villa Maria Community Center in Villa Maria, Pa.

Today, however, the Warren hospital is anything but esoteric, and no longer takes a backseat to its counterpart, St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, she added.

Golonka was among more than a dozen Sisters of the Humility of Mary who attended a celebration Tuesday to recognize the 100th anniversary of St. Joseph Warren Hospital and the Sisters of the Humility of Mary’s 170th anniversary at the hospital’s healing garden on Eastland Avenue SE.

The gathering also included the burying of a 2024 time capsule filled with numerous 100-year anniversary items such as an ink pen, a laminated logo sticker, a golf outing registration form and golf ball, and a centennial name badge clip.

Other items include a copy of the hospital’s newsletters, a pill box, an April 13, 1924, laminated copy of a Warren Tribune headline, a letter opener and a paperweight.

A capsule containing hospital-related memorabilia from 1953 to 1982 recently was unearthed after having been buried 42 years ago.

Golonka, a longtime nurse, worked about six years for St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital before coming to St. Joseph Hospital in 1977, when it was on Tod Avenue — a situation she called “a big change to a small building.” She also spent 20 years in Lorain at what is now Mercy Lorain Hospital, where she was a staff nurse, a diabetes educator and a home care professional.

“This is absolutely wonderful and a great, great celebration,” Golonka said about Tuesday’s program.

Angie Massacci, St. Joseph Hospital’s perioperative director, read from Colossians 1:9-12 in which the Apostle Paul prays for the Christian to whom he’s writing for God to fill them with the knowledge of his will and wisdom, allow their good work to bear ripe fruit, be strengthened so they may have great endurance and patience, and give thanks to God for allowing them to share in the inheritance of his holy people.

In 1864, several Sisters from France were invited to settle on farmland near New Bedford, Pa., and they took a train to Cleveland to meet with Bishop Louis Rappe, who instructed them to return to the farm “on divine providence” after they had faced a variety of hard times, Deanna Ford, St. Joseph Hospital’s mission director, noted. The fact that they were able to settle on about 756 acres in Villa Maria was a testament to their endurance and faith, Ford said.

“We’re all interrelated and interdependent,” Char Gardiner, the hospital’s president said, referring to the sisterhood’s long lineage. “They inspire us today like they did decades ago.”

The healing garden was the ideal site for Tuesday’s celebration largely because it is therapeutic for hospital patients and staff alike, she added.

“They provide a priceless service to our community,” said Mayor Doug Franklin, who also gave the Sisters a proclamation that was among the items buried in the 2024 time capsule.

The 100 years marks the anniversary of when, in 1924, Dr. Chester Waller, who founded Riverside Hospital, expressed a desire to entrust it to the Sisters of Humility of Mary’s care.

In 1996, the Sisters bought the facility and named it St. Joseph Riverside Hospital before it was relocated to Eastland Avenue and given its current name.