(This story was updated to accurately reflect the most current information.)
Before Sister Margaret Ann Hardner taught Catholic schoolchildren and led an Erie hospital, she was a girl who loved swimming at the peninsula.
She loved the water so much that long after she left the classroom and boardroom, she was still going to the YMCA. She loved traveling and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, boated down the Amazon, rode the canals of Venice and walked along the Great Wall of China. Hardner also loved recognizing people who had overcome adversity and helping people in India and the members of her religious community here.
Hardner, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Northwestern Pennsylvania and the former CEO of Erie’s Saint Vincent Health Center, died Oct. 3 at the age of 95.
“While she cared greatly for the hospital, she also had a great concern for the sisters who worked at Saint Vincent and lived with her at St. Agnes Convent,” Sister Mary Drexler, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Northwestern Pennsylvania, said in a news release. “She instilled a spirit of being a community who could witness the people at Saint Vincent. While the stress of hospital life could be great on the sisters, Sister Margaret Ann always took care to enrich the lives of the sisters with ways to lower their stress. Even after retiring, she continued to suggest gatherings that would promote community, fun and a relaxing time.”
Sister Margaret Ann Hardner, a longtime member of the Sisters of St. Joseph and former CEO of Saint Vincent Health Center, died Oct. 3, 2026, at the age of 95.
Early life
Hardner was born in Erie on April 9, 1931, entered the Sisters of St. Joseph from Erie’s St. Patrick Parish in 1949, and professed her final vows in 1955.
Her love of swimming began at the Chestnut Street pool close to her childhood home and she’d later spend days with friends swimming at Presque Isle State Park. Before the coronavirus pandemic, she swam daily at the Glenwood YMCA and competed in the Masters Competitive Swimming Program, according to her obituary information from the local Sisters of St. Joseph.
A 1949 Villa Maria Academy graduate, she received a Bachelor of Science degree in business education from Villa Maria College in 1961 and an MBA in hospital administration from Xavier University in 1969.
Teaching career
Hardner taught at Erie’s Blessed Sacrament and St. John grade schools and Clearfield’s St. Francis High School from 1949 to 1958 and then taught at Villa Maria Academy until 1962.
Hospital work
After Villa, Hardner was assigned to the business office at Saint Vincent Hospital, where she worked for five years before studying at Xavier in Cincinnati. Upon returning to Erie, she served as assistant administrator at Saint Vincent, then as president and chief executive officer for 22 years until her retirement in 1996.
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She oversaw a dramatic expansion at Saint Vincent during her time as CEO, said Dr. Chris Clark, president of what is now AHN Saint Vincent.
“Saint Vincent opened its surgery center in 1987 and its South Tower, which was called Project 2000 at the time, in 1995,” Clark said. “Sister Margaret Ann also played an important role in so many joint ventures, including bringing in Westfield Memorial Hospital into the Saint Vincent family and (the former) Union City Memorial Hospital, too. She also was involved in joint ventures with other hospitals, some of which still survive, including EmergyCare, Associated Clinical Laboratories and Vantage.”
In 2007, Saint Vincent’s newly built medical office building was named the Hardner Building in her honor.
Clark called Hardner “an engaging and approachable” leader who also had a keen eye for business details. He recalled when Hardner visited Saint Vincent in 2019 to see the new emergency department before it opened.
Dr. Chris Clark, left, AHN Saint Vincent president, shows Sister Margaret Ann Hardner around the hospital’s new emergency department just before it opened in 2019.
“She drove here by herself before getting into a wheelchair so I could take her around the ED,” Clark said. “As I showed her all the details of the ED, I could tell how much this hospital meant to her.”
Continuing contributions
After retiring from Saint Vincent, Hardner helped establish the Courage to Come Back program in Erie, which later became the SSJ Spirit of Courage ministry honoring individuals who overcame tremendous adversity.
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Two police officers stand near “Old Main,” a 70-bed addition built in 1900 that was later connected to the original Saint Vincent Hospital building. (PROVIDED BY SAINT VINCENT HOSPITAL)
Hardner also was involved with the Erie-based Shankar Service Foundation, serving on its board, and made mission trips to India to assist with a school and a hospital it established. The foundation’s Ravi Shruti accompanied her on several of the trips.
“She is generous, kind, curious about the world and has tremendous empathy for the less fortunate,” Shruti said in the news release. “I will miss her greatly.”
This is a contributed photo of Sister Margaret Ann Hardner from July 30, 2009. Hardner is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph celebrating their 60th anniversary as religious women.
Funeral details
Calling hours will be held Oct. 12 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Villa Maria Community Living Center, 5031 West Ridge Road, and Oct. 13 from 10:30 a.m. until a Mass of Christian burial at 1 p.m. at Holy Cross Church, 7100 West Ridge Road, Fairview Township. The Mass will be livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/user/SSJErie/live. Burial will be at Trinity Cemetery.
The Francis V. Kloecker Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
Dana Massing can be reached at dmassing@usatodayco.com.
David Bruce can be reached at dbruce@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Sister Margaret Ann Hardner, former Saint Vincent CEO, dies