Sister Joan Marie McCann, GNSH

Written on: December 26, 2025

Sister Joan Marie McCann, GNSH, formerly Sister Madeline Marie, 87, died Monday, December 22, 2025 in the 65th year of her religious life. Born in Philadelphia to James and Marie Thelma (Cobbin) McCann, she entered the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart in 1960.

Sister was employed as a registered x-ray technician at Holy Redeemer Hospital before entering the Grey Nuns. After seven years as an elementary school teacher at St. Joan of Arc and St. Leo’s in Queens, New York, St Jude the Apostle, Atlanta, and our Lady of the Assumption, Strafford, PA, she studied for the ministry of nursing, her first love. From LaSalle University, she received her BSN. She studied at Ogdensburg School of Practical Nursing earned her LPN, and later became an RN after studying at Sacred Heart School of Nursing, in Allentown, PA.

Sister Joan ministered as a nurse at St. Joseph’s Home in Ogdensburg, NY and the Grey Nuns Motherhouse Infirmary. She also served for more than fifteen years at St Mary’s Hospital, first as a staff nurse and then as Nurse Manager of their Rehab Unit.

Her care and concern for the elderly and home bound led her to serve for a decade in home care nursing at Keystone Home Care and Hospice, Temple Lower Bucks Home Care and Lower Bucks Hospice Home Care.

Her own medical condition forced her to retire in 2008, but she continued to engage in Intracommunity service.  A recipient of a kidney transplant, she volunteered for several years as a driver for Philadelphia’s Gift of Life, and their Howie’s House, where she met and supported families of transplant patients.

Sister Joan Marie was the sixth child of fourteen in the family of eight girls and six boys. She is predeceased by her parents and siblings Claire O’Malley, Connie McCann, Doris “Pidgie” McCann, James, John, Roy, Gerald, Rev Dennis, Joseph, Grace Drach, and Maria Thelma “Mickey” Sorensen.   She is survived, in addition to her religious congregation, by her sisters, Annette Ryan and Diane Andrews as well as many nieces and nephews.

Visitation at 9:00 am, sharing of memories at 9:30 am and Funeral Mass to follow at 10:00 am on Saturday, January 3, 2025 in the Redeemer Sisters’ Chapel, 521 Moredon Rd., Huntingdon Valley, PA. Burial in Resurrection Cemetery, Bensalem, PA. Donations in her memory may be made to the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, 928 Jaymor Rd, Suite C-120, Southampton, PA 18966 or at www.greynun.org Arrangements by Beck-Givnish Funeral Homes.

This entry was posted in In Loving Memory and tagged: LaSalle University, Sister Joan Marie McCann, St. Joan of Arc Jackson Heights, St. Joseph's Home, St. Jude the Apostle, St. Leo School