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Sister Jeanne Marie Meurer, F.S.M.: 1930-2020

by Maggie Rotermund on 09/18/2020
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09/18/2020

Sister Jeanne Marie Meurer, F.S.M., a Saint Louis University alumni and former professor in the Trudy Busch Valentine School of Nursing, died Friday, Sept. 11, 2020. She was 90 and had been a Franciscan Sister of Mary for 72 years.

Flowers

Sister Jeanne taught at Saint Louis University from 1970-82. She initiated the graduate program of nurse-midwifery at SLU in 1972 and was the first nurse-midwife to practice in the state of Missouri.

“It was a great privilege to have known and worked with Sr. Jeanne Meurer in providing perinatal care to impoverished women,” said Lee Smith, Ph.D., a professor of nursing at SLU. “Always a feisty advocate for maternal-child, Sr. Jeanne initiated the master’s program in nurse midwifery at Saint Louis University School of Nursing and Nurse Midwifery Services at City Hospital #1 where she and students delivered many babies.”

Jeanne Marie Meurer was born Feb. 2, 1930, the oldest of five daughters born to Raymond Meurer and Mary (Paquette) Meurer Hoehn. She entered the Sisters of St. Mary on Aug. 6, 1948. She pronounced final vows Feb. 11, 1954.

She received her nursing degree from SLU in 1955 and in 1962 received her master’s degree in nursing service administration, also from SLU. She also received a master’s in maternity nursing with a certificate in midwifery through Columbia University in 1970. In 1998, she earned a master’s in pastoral studies through Aquinas Institute of Theology.

She was certified in nurse-midwifery through the American College of Nurse Midwives in 1971 and became a fellow in 1994. In 2006, Sister Jeanne was made an honorary member of the SLU chapter of Alpha Sigma Nu, the Jesuit honor fraternity.

She served as head nurse of St. Mary’s Health Center’s Labor and Delivery from 1955 to 1956. She helped set up Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in 1956 and served as pediatrics supervisor until 1961. Both facilities are now a part of SSM Health.

“She was a key player in developing and providing safe perinatal care for uninsured women in Jefferson county in a partnership between Jefferson County Health Department and the St. Louis Regional Maternal and Child Health Council,” Smith said. “Sr. Jeanne’s legacy survives in the midwifery graduates she trained and the many babies she welcomed into the world.”

Under a World Health Organization (WHO) fellowship, she studied maternal nursing and midwifery in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

After leaving SLU, Sister Jeanne began Ruskin Migrant and Community Health Service, a nurse-midwifery program for migrants in Tampa, Florida. She also served in leadership for the reunited F.S.M. from 1991-95. The Sisters of St. Mary reunited with the Sisters of St. Francis of Maryville in 1987.

From 1993-96, she served on the Missouri State Board of Nursing in Jefferson City. In 1998 she co-founded Woman’s Place, a safe drop-in haven for women suffering from domestic abuse, co-directing until 2006. She also taught at Aquinas Institute of Theology.

She was honored in 2012 as an Ageless—Remarkable Saint Louisan and in 2014 she received the Legend in Nursing Award from the March of Dimes.

She is survived by three sisters, Kathryn Foreman of Panama City Beach, Florida; Colette Hinkle of Tampa, Florida; and Mary Lou Pentico of Blairsville, Georgia. Her sister Ramona preceded her in death earlier this year; she was also a Franciscan Sister of Mary.

Sister Jeanne donated her body to the School of Medicine. A memorial Mass will be held at a future date.