Jules-Marie Heymans
Leuven pays tribute to the woman who raised nursing to a professional level in Belgium: Maria Heymans, better known as Sister Jules-Marie Heymans, who helped found the school for nurses, popularly called 'Sister Jules-Marie's school'.
Maria Heymans was born in Ghent on 3 July 1897. Both her father, Jan Frans, and her older brothers, Corneel and Paul, taught at the State University of Ghent (RUG). Her father was even the first professor of pharmacology there, Corneel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1938, and that same year, Paul was briefly a Minister.
Mary graduated magna cum laude in 1917 as a nurse in the Sisters of Charity, a Ghent congregation that had been a leader in health care since the early 19th century. Father Jan Frans, however, envisioned an academic title for his daughter, just as he did for his sons. At that time, a rather progressive choice. With equal success and aplomb, Maria graduated from the University of Ghent in 1922 with degrees in natural sciences and then medicine. Meanwhile, she had entered the Sisters of Charity – taking her convent name, Jules-Marie, from her previously deceased brother Jules. She then did her three doctoral years in medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), which, unlike the pluralistic RUG, did find grace in the eyes of her congregation. She was one of the first three women and the first religious one to graduate from KUL as a physician in 1926.
Nursing and medical degree, but never practised either profession
Despite her academic title, Sister Jules-Marie made a career out of teaching and management duties. From 1926 to 1939, she was director of St Vincentius Hospital and the attached nursing school of the Sisters of Charity in Ghent. In October 1939, she was appointed headmistress of the newly opened Catholic university school for nurses on Kapucijnenvoer in Leuven. It was an initiative of the Belgian episcopate, which sought to knit together an additional, two-year higher education to the existing three-year course provided by the thirty or so Catholic nursing schools in Belgium. Thanks to Jules-Marie, students received general, scientific and pedagogical courses, among other things, in addition to profession-related courses.
Cherry on the cake
The students numbered about 400, mostly between the ages of 26 and 32, two-thirds of whom were sisters from 51 different monastic orders. Some 40 even came from abroad. Her life's work, 'Sister Jules-Marie's School', a model school at the academic level, came into being. In 1964, the school was integrated into KUL's Centre for Hospital Sciences, the cherry on the cake for her years of dedication. She was honoured with a commemorative plaque, a street name and a book about life and work.
Jules-Marie Heymans died on 31 March 1986 in Lovenjoel.
Photo: Erfgoedhuis Zusters van Liefde