‘His memory still resonates’: Franciscan sister recalls MLK’s deathbed

MISHAWAKA, Ind. (OSV News) — “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life — longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. But I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the promised land.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke these words in Memphis, Tenn., the night before his assassination on April 4, 1968. On that fateful day, following his last, famous speech, Franciscan Sisters Jane Marie Klein and Anna Marie Hofmeyer were both in Memphis and ministering at St. Joseph’s Catholic hospital where King was brought after he was shot. They were also at his deathbed after he passed away.

As the U.S. observes King’s historic Jan. 15 birthday the following Monday, Sister Jane Marie, 84, looks back on that tragic night and how it stayed with her. A Franciscan for 65 years, she also reflected on her lifelong devotion to Catholic health care and the Franciscan Alliance.

A former president of the Alliance from 1993 to 1996, the sister ministered in business office and social work in hospitals sponsored by the Sisters of Saint Francis of Perpetual Adoration — a ministry that took her to Cleveland; Memphis; Louisville, Ky.; Evanston, Ill.; and several cities in Indiana.

OSV News: Over the years, have you looked back on that sad night often?

Sister Jane Marie Klein: Yes, certainly I have, and it has been brought up to me by many people, including African-Americans, and during my work with the Franciscan Alliance, board members. People are so surprised, amazed, and they just can’t believe it — because it is not something that you forget.

OSV News: What can you tell us about that April 4 and your impressions of Dr. King?

Sister Jane Marie: I see him as such a wonderful, wonderful man of peace, because he fit so well into our Franciscan beliefs, and it was his God that gave him the strength to do what he did. He was such a man of faith, one whose whole focus was on peace and people.

OSV News: Can you confirm — as I understand it — that Dr. King, although he was a Baptist minister, had asked to be taken to a Catholic hospital if the worst happened?

Sister Jane Marie: Yes, he had asked to be taken to a Catholic hospital — and Saint Joseph’s was the only Catholic one in Memphis in 1968. We will never know why he requested that, and it really doesn’t matter. The important thing is that we pray for him and remember him, especially on his birthday and the anniversary of his death, because his memory still resonates with us.

OSV News: You are now 84 years old. What do you experience as Jan. 15 approaches every year?

Sister Jane Marie: As we approach the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King again, my thoughts take me back each year to that evening he was brought to our emergency room after being shot. I will certainly be remembering him and his family in prayer. I am sure our sisters’ ministry in education will be discussing him and his great work for peace that cost him his life.

I feel privileged to have been able to have spent those last moments with him. Our brief “journey” together began just before he arrived at the hospital, when Sister Anna Marie and I were taking a walk.

I answered the third of several pages on my beeper, and spoke to someone from California wanting to know about (the condition) of Martin Luther King. I was told that he had been shot and was in the emergency room, and we headed back to the hospital.

Inside the facility the sisters — and everyone else — were under lockdown, watched by the Memphis police, the National Guard and the FBI.

We were not allowed to go into the ER, where they were working on him, but after Dr. King was pronounced dead we were admitted to it. They (the authorities) gave us the time we needed to pray with him.

OSV News: Did you meet Dr. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, following the events of that night?

Sister Jane Marie: No, we did not because she had canceled her trip to Memphis upon hearing that her husband had been killed, and knowing that she could not be of any help to him, had returned to Atlanta to care for their children.

We did meet her in 1999 however, when she was the keynote speaker at our Catholic Health Care Assembly that year. We sent her a note about our having been here with him, and she met with us for just 30 minutes, but I am so grateful for that time and the one meeting.

OSV News: How do you think he would feel about the state of our country today, and what would he have accomplished had he lived?

Sister Jane Marie: Answering the last part of your question first, that’s hard to say. Certainly he might have run for political office, because anything is possible with one’s future, but again we will never know.

I do believe however, that he would be extremely disappointed with the state of our country today, and the total lack of respect for anyone plaguing it.

I also believe that all of his good works recall for us that beautiful sentiment from our
St. Francis’ Peace Prayer, where he intones, “Come Lord, and make me an instrument of your peace.”

This being the case, it is important to remember that we are all made in the image of God for the greater glory of God, even if that other person agrees or disagrees with us.

Robert Alan Glover is an OSV News correspondent living in Kentucky. He is a former Catholic News Service correspondent and writes for Cross Roads magazine, West Tennessee Catholic, and the Global Sisters Report.

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