Broken leg ruse in Connellsville emergency room began 52-year relationship

Robert Broderick has no regrets over a ruse more than 50 years ago he and a Connellsville State General Hospital nurse pulled off in the hospital’s emergency room that introduced him to his future wife and “a lifetime of loving memories.”

In 1968, Broderick was a cub reporter at The Herald-Standard in Uniontown. He made the round of police telephone calls and the hospital was on the list. Broderick said a nurse supervisor wanted to introduce him to a new nurse at the hospital, Patricia “Patty” Zgorecki of Everson in Fayette County, who she thought was a personality match for him.

“When I got to the hospital … the nurse supervisor told me to sit in the wheelchair and pretend I had a broken leg. I sat down in the wheelchair, and she called Patty down to examine me,” Broderick recalled Sunday.

The ruse abruptly ended when the new nurse instructed Broderick he had to remove his pants. He couldn’t go through with it.

“When I told her there was nothing wrong with me, she said, ‘Well, what am I doing here then?,’ ” Broderick said. “She did accept my dinner invitation.”

“I’ll always be grateful to that nursing supervisor,” he said. “We were together 52 years and married for 49 years.”

Patricia “Patty” Zgorecki Broderick, R.N., 71, of Connellsville, died Friday, June 28, 2019, in Monarch Meadow Personal Care Home, Uniontown, of complications from cancer.

She was born March 12, 1948, in Mt. Pleasant, the daughter of the late Theodore J. Zgorecki and Irene M. Szwed Zgorecki Koballa, who died 1955 and 2008, respectively.

Broderick was a devout Catholic and member of Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Connellsville. She was past financial secretary of Catholic Daughters of Americas, Court Annunciata # 260 and a member of the Holy Trinity Conference, St. Vincent DePaul Society.

She was a 1965 graduate of Geibel Catholic High School and St. Joseph Hospital School of Nursing in Pittsburgh in 1968. She began her nursing career at the former Connellsville State General Hospital in 1968 and was employed by Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant from 1977 until 2000 when she retired after 32 years of service.

“She loved nursing and really loved to help people in general,” said her husband, Robert Broderick, a longtime Sunday editor at the Tribune-Review, who retired in 2009. “She was a great Catholic, and after retiring from nursing, she got me involved in the St. Vincent DePaul Society with her so she could continue helping people finding them assistance with shelter, food, clothing, paying utility bills and sometimes just talking to them.

“We had a great life together and she truly loved life, me, our two daughters and four grandkids. Patty may be gone, but she’ll always remain in the hearts of those who knew and loved her.”

In addition to her husband, she is survived by her two daughters, Jennifer Seidel of Mount Airy, Md., and Susan Takach of Uniontown; four grandchildren and her sister, Barbara Breen of Carlisle.

Family and friends will be received at the Frank Kapr Funeral Home Inc., Scottdale, 1 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday. Additional visitation will be 9 to 10:15 a.m. Wednesday when prayers of transfer will be held at the funeral home.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, Connellsville, with the Rev. Robert Lubic as celebrant. Committal services and interment will follow in St. Rita’s Cemetery, Connellsville.

The Catholic Daughters of Americas Court Annunciata #260 will recite the rosary at 3 p.m. Tuesday in the funeral home.

In lieu of customary remembrance, the Broderick family suggests memorial contributions be made to Holy Trinity Conference, St. Vincent De Paul Society, PO Box 375 Connellsville, PA. 15425 or Immaculate Conception R. C. Church Organ Fund, 116 S. Second St., Connellsville, PA 15425.