The Rev. Anthony Cauvin really needed a vacation.

Within a span of just a few years, he had developed a Roman Catholic parish in Hoboken, gathering congregants and opening buildings for worship and the education of youngsters. But he was concerned about his town.

It was 1862 and the Civil War was raging in America. Hoboken was the port soldiers shipped out of and wounded men returned to. Left on shore were women and children without shelter, food or means of support . Along with Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine, they’d created a tent city along the waterfront rife with petty crime and disease.

So the priest was relieved to leave for a while, hoping as he sailed to Europe to visit family, he’d think of a way to help.

Help came via a casual conversation with another traveler. His ship’s captain had grouped priests and sisters together at a single table, so Father Cauvin was seated next to a young nun returning to Germany after visiting a hospital in Ohio. As they dined, Frances Schervier told the priest about growing up in Aachen, Germany, with a calling to begin a religious order to provide health care to the poor. She talked about the hospitals she’d set up in Germany and the one she’d established the year before in an Ohio town.

Cauvin described Hoboken and its needs and said he was certain his congregation would support a hospital. For the five days of their journey, they prayed and planned. When Frances reached Aachen, she began recruiting young women who shared her mission and raised funds to pay their one-way passage. When Cauvin returned to Hoboken, he excitedly told his parishioners help was on its way.

In January 1863, four Franciscan Sisters of the Poor and a novice arrived in Hoboken. They spoke no English, had no formal training and had not a penny among them.

But they had faith God would provide and the parishioners of Our Lady of Grace would welcome them. The parish had rented a small 12-room house at 134 Meadow Street (now 324 Park Ave.), built 28 beds, stocked the pantry and presented the leftover money to the nuns to buy medical supplies.

It was Saturday when the Franciscans arrived and unpacked. They spent Sunday morning in church and Sunday afternoon greeting their new neighbors.

Monday they welcomed their first patients.

The downstairs rooms were reserved for the sick and the nuns slept in the attic, a room too small to stand up in but good enough for the exhausted women to rest after tending patients and begging door to door soliciting goods and funds from whoever could spare them. After only three years, they’d set aside enough money to build a hospital at Fourth and Willow and named it St. Mary.

You know the rest of the story. The population of Hoboken kept growing and the health needs grew as well. St. Mary Hospital (now Hoboken University Medical Center) continued to be a leader in community health care till the 1990s when, like so many other hospitals, it fell on hard times. It was rescued by Carepoint Health, which began making investments in its structure and services and partnering with other healthcare providers to ensure Hoboken’s hospital is positioned to provide quality health care today and for years to come.

Tomorrow, the hospital -- the oldest in New Jersey -- is celebrating 150 years of service. Happy anniversary, Hospital – and thanks for all you've done.

Editor's note: Joan Quigley, the former vice president for external affairs at St. Mary Hospital/Hoboken University Medical Center, writes in this space every Tuesday.