My first Magazine St Joseph's Home_40th Anniversary magazine.compres | Page 27

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From Left: Sister Elizabeth Law, Sister Mary Wong, the late former Archbishop Gregory Yong,
Sister Geraldine, Sister Mary Tay (in grey) and Sister Elizabeth Yeo
SINGAPORE’S FIRST LOCAL ARCHBISHOP SPENT HIS
FINAL YEARS HERE
In 2004, four years after his term as Archbishop ended, Gregory Yong moved into St
Joseph’s Home and spent the next four years here until his death in 2008. Apart from
helping out in the various activities around the home, the late former Archbishop
also prayed with and for other residents. Yong was the first local-born Archbishop
and only the country’s second to assume this title after taking over from Frenchman
Michael Olcomendy. Yong died unexpectedly of heart failure.
THE LATE FORMER PRESIDENT WEE
KIM WEE WAS A REGULAR VISITOR
TO THE HOME
When the late former President Wee Kim Wee
discovered that a former teacher Ms Ruth Mosbergen
was a resident at St Joseph’s Home, he became a
regular visitor. She was his first school teacher and he
regarded her as “akin to his second mother” whose
“golden qualities….as a human being...was too tedious
to list.” Since then, he would visit her every year without
fail to celebrate her birthday. When he had to travel
overseas, he would send a family member on his behalf.
As a regular visitor, the care showered by the Sisters did
not escape him, “I had the opportunity to see first hand
how the matron, sisters and all the others in this home
provide such tender care and love to keep her company
that all the money in the world could not have got”,
the late Mr Wee said at the home’s 25th anniversary
celebration in 2003.
The late former President Wee Kim Wee with
his former teacher Ms Ruth Mosbergen who
was a resident at St Joseph’s Home
St Joseph’s Home | 25