PITTSTON – Mary Clare Leonard has been chosen the recipient of the Greater Pittston Friendly Sons of St. Patrick’s 2024 Irish Woman of the Year Award. She will be honored at the Friendly Sons Annual Women’s Breakfast on Saturday, March 16, at The Woodlands Resort, Rt. 315, Wilkes-Barre, at 10 a.m.
Leonard, the daughter of the late Edward and Clare Gunning Quinnan, a proud lifelong resident of Pittston and is a devote Catholic.
She is a lifetime active member of Our Lady of the Eucharist Church, Pittston, where she honorably served as a CCD teacher, lector and Parish Veritas for several years.
Leonard graduated from St. Mary’s Assumption, Pittston Central Catholic High School, (St. John the Evangelist High School), the Pittston Hospital School of Nursing and Marywood College.
After graduation, Leonard served her entire career as an RN serving at Pittston Hospital, Pittston, St. Clare’s Hospital, Denville, N.J., Christ Hospital and St. Francis Hospital, Jersey City, N.J.
She also served as a Private Duty Nurse in the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Healthcare System as well as a Hospice Nurse at VNA of Lackawanna County.
Leonard is proud of her Irish Heritage. Her husband Paul Leonard, who passed away in 2013, was a sustaining member and Past President of the Greater Pittston Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in 1967.
Her son Paul F. Leonard also proudly served as Friendly Sons President in 2013.
Community minded service and volunteerism is an important part of Leonard’s mindset. She gave of her time volunteering within the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Healthcare Facilities and leveraging her skills to help others at the Care and Concern Clinic at St. John the Evangelist Church, Pittston.
Leonard and her late husband are the proud parents of eight adult children, four sons and four daughters; along with four grandchildren, which she enjoys sharing time together as often as possible.