[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 102 (Monday, July 11, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1286-E1287]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE WORLD WILL MISS KIP TIERNAN

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 11, 2011

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, an extraordinary woman died 
earlier this month and she is mourned by a vast number of her closest 
relatives--the poor, the people down on their luck, and the homeless. 
Kip Tiernan had a passion for helping those most in need of help that 
was coupled with an extraordinary understanding of how to get things 
done, even in the bleakest situations. She was inspired both by her own 
passion for battling the pain of her fellow human beings, and by 
Dorothy Day, another extraordinary woman who, like Kip Tiernan, 
translated her Catholic faith into a daily routine of charity to the 
best sense. Among those who worked closely with Kip on behalf of the 
homeless was my mother, Elsie, and I take great pride that these two 
women, both now passed away, admired each other strongly, and each 
often told of their great respect for each other.
  Mr. Speaker, on the Fourth of July the Boston Globe ran an article by 
Bryan Marquard that did a first-rate job of telling those who did not 
know Kip Tiernan about her, and giving those of us who did know her and 
benefitted from the warmth that she radiated for humanity, a chance to 
remember the best of times.
  Mr. Speaker, in the hopes that Kip Tiernan's life will inspire others 
the way she herself was inspired by Dorothy Day, I ask that Mr. 
Marquard's eloquent obituary of this great woman be printed here.

                 [From the Boston Globe, July 4, 2011]

                          (By Bryan Marquard)

       Kip Tiernan, who founded Rosie's Place, the nation's first 
     shelter for homeless women, and whose persistent, raspy voice 
     echoed from the streets to the State House as she advocated 
     for the poor, died of cancer Saturday in her South End 
     apartment.
       She was 85.
       Usually clad in a canvas hat and work pants, a cross and a 
     skate key dangling from a leather strap around her neck, Ms. 
     Tiernan helped create an A-to-Z of agencies that assist the 
     disadvantaged in Massachusetts. By example, she also inspired 
     so many people to try to ease suffering that, directly or 
     indirectly, she may have touched more lives of the poor in 
     the Commonwealth than anyone else in the past four decades.
       ``Every day of her life she lived for social justice, and 
     the lives she saved were untold,'' Mayor Thomas M. Menino 
     said. ``She always said that someday we will stamp out 
     homelessness, but until that day we have to make sure 
     everyone understands that a homeless person could be one of 
     us. She was a very special person, and there's a big hole in 
     our lives today because Kip's not here. This nation is going 
     to miss Kip Tiernan because of her fight for social 
     justice.''
       Along with Fran Froehlich, her partner in advocacy for more 
     than 35 years, Ms. Tiernan founded, helped found, or was a 
     founding member of a number of agencies and panels, including 
     Boston Health Care for the Homeless, Boston Food Bank, 
     Community Works, Aid to Incarcerated Mothers, Finex House, 
     Food for Free, John Leary House, My Sister's Place, 
     Transition House, the Greater Boston Union of the Homeless, 
     and Boston's Emergency Shelter Commission.
       The range of suffering was such that ``sometimes you think 
     there aren't any tears left,'' Ms. Tiernan told the Globe in 
     1988, ``and you find yourself sobbing.''
       Strong words were her response more often than tears, 
     however. Drawn by faith to her calling, she brought 
     unconditional love to each encounter with the homeless, and 
     she didn't hesitate to criticize the powerful if they backed 
     what she believed were unfair policies or tried to slide by 
     with words of pity.
       The cross she wore was more than a symbol.
       ``A rooted woman, Kip always wears that cross,'' Globe op-
     ed columnist James Carroll wrote in 1996, ``which marks her 
     not for piety or for a religion of easy answers, but for 
     being, in her words, 'an angry daughter of Christ. . . . I 
     find that the cross of Jesus is the radical condemnation of 
     an unjust world. You have to stay with the one crucified or 
     stand with the crucifiers.' ''
       Sue Marsh, executive director of Rosie's Place, said in a 
     statement the she was ``so sorry to be saying goodbye to a 
     good friend of mine. . . . She has been the fiery, feisty, 
     and beloved touchstone for the mission and vision of Rosie's 
     Place, a compassionate friend to every woman in need.''
       On behalf of housing, health care, and an array of social 
     justice issues, Ms. Tiernan lobbied, fasted, marched in 
     protest, and was arrested during sit-ins at government 
     offices. In November 1990, she began a fast in Arlington 
     Street Church and explained why in an op-ed essay for the 
     Globe.
       ``We should atone for what we have allowed to happen to all 
     poor people in this state, in the name of fiscal austerity or 
     plain mean-spiritedness. . . . We have, as citizens, much to 
     repent for, for what we have and have not done, to ease the 
     suffering of our sisters and brothers who have no lobby to 
     protect them.''
       Before founding Rosie's Place in 1974, Ms. Tiernan traveled 
     to meet with legendary Catholic activist Dorothy Day, from 
     whose life she drew inspiration and spiritual sustenance for 
     the decades that lay ahead.
       Beth Healy, a Globe reporter who is writing a biography of 
     Ms. Tiernan, said: ``She had this soft spot in her heart for 
     broken people, whether they were sick or mentally ill or 
     struggling with addiction. Kip would hug a person dying of 
     AIDS back in the 1980s when everyone else was running away. 
     She would talk to someone living on the streets that no one 
     else would talk to.''
       Ms. Tiernan, Froehlich said, combined compassion with ``a 
     pragmatic approach to solving issues, like: Hungry? Food. 
     Homeless? Housing. And she challenged people with that 
     clarity.''

[[Page E1287]]

       Though Ms. Tiernan asked ``hard questions, at the same 
     time, I was always impressed that she embraced people of all 
     persuasions because she wanted them to see what she saw,'' 
     Froehlich said. ``And I mean really embraced them. She would 
     hold somebody's hand while they were disagreeing with her. 
     She really wanted you to join her in this pursuit of justice 
     for people who have nothing.''
       Born in West Haven, Conn., Ms. Tiernan was 6 months old 
     when her father died and 11 when her mother died. Raised by 
     her maternal grandmother, she learned during the Great 
     Depression to help others.
       ``Her grandmother always had soup or stew on the stove,'' 
     Froehlich said, ``and when people came to the house who were 
     down on their luck, she always had bowls of soup or stew 
     ready for them.''
       By her teens, she was learning to fly a plane and play jazz 
     piano. She also was expelled from a Catholic boarding school, 
     telling the Globe she had failed math and asked too many 
     difficult moral questions.
       She worked as a newspaper reporter and moved to Boston in 
     1947 to attend the Boston Conservatory on a scholarship, only 
     to be expelled for drinking. ``I was raped once,'' she told 
     the Globe in 1988. ``I was 19. Drunk.''
       Speaking of the women she served at Rosie's Place, she 
     added: ``I'll tell you one thing. It helps me identify with 
     what some of these women have been through.''
       Ms. Tiernan joined Alcoholics Anonymous, learned from 
     recovering street drunks how to stay sober, and became a 
     successful advertising copywriter with her own agency. In 
     1968, she did some free work for priests who had invited 
     activist Daniel Berrigan to speak at a church.
       Listening to him, she later recalled, it was as if a voice 
     inside her head said, ``I have just passed through a door, 
     and there is no going back.''
       Leaving the affluence of her advertising life, she moved 
     into Warwick House, an urban ministry center in Roxbury. 
     Using her copywriter's facility. with language, she became 
     one of Boston's most quotable advocates for the poor, coining 
     phrases such as ``from the Great Society to the Grate 
     Society.''
       A service will be announced for Ms. Tiernan, whose longtime 
     companion of decades, Edith Nicholson, died in the 1990s.
       Ms. Tiernan helped raise Nicholson's three children and 
     leaves one of those children, Peg Wright of Saugerties, N.Y.; 
     seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. For the 
     past 15 years, Ms. Tiernan and Donna Pomponio have been a 
     couple. They married in 2004.
       ``The tragedies in the world continued to propel her to fix 
     things and make them better,'' Pomponio said of Ms. Tiernan. 
     ``She knew that as human beings, we could do better for each 
     other. There was a support and strength that came from that 
     woman, and having her by your side and in your life, you knew 
     that you could do it, too.''

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