Hometown Hero - Sister Agnes Schweiger
This week’s Hometown Hero is Sister Agnes Schweiger of La Crosse.
This 92 year old Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration (FSPA) and former military flight nurse will be journeying to our nation’s capitol this Saturday as part of the 11th annual Freedom Honor Flight. This special program, run by a La Crosse-based nonprofit organization, flies veterans to Washington, DC along with guardians and a medical crew to visit the various war memorials.
Sister Agnes grew up on her family’s ranch in the tiny town of La Crosse, Washington. Maybe that is why she has felt so at home in La Crosse, Wisconsin. After graduating from the nursing program at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, she was sworn in as a second lieutenant in the US Army Air Force in 1943. As a military nurse, Sister Agnes worked at hospitals in the United States and Jamaica for two years before taking to the skies.
After the Japanese surrender in 1945, she worked as a flight nurse tending to wounded soldiers flying back to the US from Hawaii, Guam, Japan and the Philippines. The flights could last anywhere from seven to thirteen hours with Sister Agnes assisted only by one crewman as she worked to care for the soldiers on their way to Letterman Hospital in San Francisco. She says that the nighttime flights were an interesting and rewarding experience and quite an adventure too. One time, one of the engines on their plane caught fire and they were forced to return to Guam and land the plane.
After the war, she earned a degree in nursing education from Gonzaga University and then became a nursing instructor. This brought her to La Crosse, Wisconsin where she taught at St. Francis School of Nursing and Viterbo College’s nursing program. She returned to Spokane to work as a nurse until her retirement in 2000 and moved back to Wisconsin in 2004. She has been a FSPA member for 60 years and she is believed to be the only member who served in the military.
Sister Agnes will be joining 85 other veterans, 25 who also served in World War II and the rest in the Korean War. Her volunteer guardian for the trip is Sister Carrie Kirsch who works at Villa St. Joseph retirement home where Sister Agnes lives.
So if you are looking up in the sky this weekend and you see a passenger jet go by, be sure to give Sister Agnes a wave.
Congratulations to you, Sister Agnes! Enjoy your Freedom Honor Flight and continue to be a Hometown Hero.
Hometown Hero is a weekly feature put together by Rep. Steve Doyle (D-Onalaska). If you have any suggestions of a Hometown Hero, send a short description of why you think this person should be a Hometown Hero and contact information of both you and the nominee to rep.doyle@legis.wisconsin.gov.