The Hidden Life
The Story of the Sisters of St. Mary

In 2000 the Sisters were approached by long-time friend and CEO of St. Mary's Hospital for Children, Burt Grebin, about preserving the Community's history in a video documentary.  He introduced us to Suzy Shechtman, a videographer who specialized in helping families who had survived the Holocaust to consolidate family memories from surviving photographs and recorded oral history. If she could do this for families, could she not also do this for a community of nuns?  She agreed and we agreed, and the result was "The Hidden Life", a documentary-style video history of our community up to 2003.  Little did we know in 2000 that God would call us from our home of over 100 years to new foundations both in upstate New York and Malawi, Africa. 
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"The Hidden Life" is a powerful 54-minute documentary that tells the story of the Sisters of St. Mary at the close of the last century after nearly 150 years of history.  It combines archival photographs, contemporary video footage and interviews of the Sisters living at the time.  Completed in 2002, "The Hidden Life" was shown on PBS stations in the greater New York and Boston areas in 2003.  It was nominated for an Emmy® in 2004 in three categories and won for Outstanding Achievement in Writing .  It was also nominated for an International Emmy in 2005.  

The Sisters are grateful to the late Dr. Burton Grebin for his encouragement and support in this project and to Suzy Shechtman for the outstanding work she accomplished in producing this documentary history.  Very recently Suzy undertook the task of converting the original film to HD video format and publishing it to UTube, making it accessible to a new audience.