Ghana RPCV Sister Madeline Chorman dies in New York
SISTER MADELINE CHORMAN, PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER ; NOV. 28, 1911 -- MAY 27, 2005
May 29, 2005 - Buffalo News
Like many teachers, Sister Madeline Chorman decided to retire from decades of instruction at 60.
But she promptly joined the Peace Corps and worked in Ghana, teaching cooking and feeding the poor for more than a decade -- services that earned her a Peace Corps Volunteer Award from President Ronald Reagan in 1983.
Sister Madeline died Friday in St. Francis Health Center in Stella Niagara. She was 93.
A native of Staten Island, she entered the Sisters of St. Francis at Stella Niagara in 1930 and professed her vows in 1932. She had a bachelor's degree from St. Mary of the Springs in Columbus, Ohio, and a master's degree from University of the Americas.
She began her teaching career at St. Francis Indian Mission in South Dakota and also taught at St. Ann, Bishop McMahon High School and Sacred Heart Academy in the Diocese of Buffalo.
From 1953 to 1959, she was secretary to the president of Rosary Hill College, the forerunner to Daemen College. Sister Madeline also taught at schools in Ohio and West Virginia.
She was accepted into the Peace Corps in 1970 and assigned to Ghana in West Africa, where she taught business for two years in Accra.
While going to Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for an eye problem, she discovered that patients and their families had no place to eat or drink while waiting hours for treatment.
Sister Madeline appealed to her former students in the United States for donations and opened a "canteen," where she trained native Ghanians to cook, bake and serve food for as many as 300 people a day.
She returned to Buffalo in 1978, but decided to go back to the canteen, at her own expense, in 1982 after the manager she had trained died.
Reagan recognized her work during a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden in 1983, at which Sister Madeline asked the president if he could have flour delivered to her canteen in Ghana. Thirty 100- pound bags were delivered within a few weeks.
Upon her return to Western New York in the late 1980s, Sister Madeline worked in the in-home support corps, family care and home health service. She later served at St. Joseph High School in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, and also served in Guam and Jamaica.
She entered the health center at Stella Niagara in 1998.
Survivors include a sister, Margaret Reilly of New York City.
A memorial Mass will be offered at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the Stella Niagara Chapel on Lower River Road.
