SALEM -- Sister of St. Chretienne Pauline Fortin went to the hospital for the first time in her life this year.

The 89-year-old sister missed the Easter Triduum at St. Anne Parish in Salem, where she has worshiped and volunteered for nearly five decades, to have three bones surgically removed from her spine. Everyone was wondering where she was. Parish administrator Father Joseph Ogazie especially missed her because she is constantly assisting him and his fellow priests.

"That really impacted most of our liturgies, because she's always around to help fix things for us," Father Ogazie said.

Lifelong parishioner Judy Ware, who has known Sister Pauline since she was a young girl, helped her during her recovery. Sister Pauline was purifying the vessels after a recent Mass when Ware offered to do it for her. She refused, saying, "Duty first."

"She puts her duty before herself," Ware said. "That's how she lives. She helps others."

Ware cut and served the cake during Sister Pauline's 70th jubilee celebration at St. Anne's on Aug. 17. Sister Pauline isn't much of a dessert person, but she obliged out of gratitude for the parish that has become her family.

"I can't believe how people tell me that I've touched their lives in such and such a way without really doing anything, but it's just my whole output," she said.

One cake came from Spinelli's Italian bakery in Lynnfield. The other came from Market Basket, where Sister Pauline has worked part-time as a cashier for the last 15 years.

"That's my retirement," she said. "Because when you do nothing, you get old too quick."

Sister Pauline is treated no differently than anyone else while on the job. When she sees customers in need of prayer, she will approach them and try to help. One of those customers is the head of the Marblehead Food Pantry, whom Sister Pauline has asked her 59 fellow sisters in Massachusetts to pray for. Most of them live in a retirement home in Marlborough. She has no intention of joining them anytime soon.

"I feel what I'm doing is helping other people," she said. "It's part of our rule."

Sister Pauline is the last Sister of St. Chretienne in Salem. The order, founded in France in 1807, once operated an all-girls high school in the city. That was where Sister Pauline had her first training. She professed her vows at age 19 on Aug. 15, 1955.

"You don't forget that day," she said, adding: "You feel that you're giving your life. This is your promise to Christ, to God, that you're giving your life to him."

She was far from her loved ones, but she wasn't scared.

"I was always the strong one of the family," she said.

She grew up in Kingston, Rhode Island, the seventh of eight children born to a carpenter and a homemaker.

"We all did our own thing," she remembered.

Her eldest sister died of leukemia when she was five months old. She and her siblings attended public school because there was no Catholic school in their neighborhood. They never missed Mass, even if they had to walk a mile uphill to church. She felt called to religious life when she was in sixth grade. Her sister and two of her aunts were Sisters of St. Chretienne, and she wanted to emulate them.

"I wanted to give my life to God," she said. "That was my choice."

After professing her vows, she taught in Amesbury and at her alma mater in Salem. In 1963, she was asked to go to French Somaliland, now the East African nation of Djibouti. When she made her vows, she had promised to go on missions when needed, so she went. She was there until 1974. French Somaliland was largely free of war and famine when Sister Pauline ministered there. The people lived in huts with no electricity or running water. She learned some Afar, the local language, but has forgotten it over the last half-century.

"I was teaching them home economics, how to take care of their kids, how to cook, and how to sew," she said.

She was in French Somaliland when the time came that the Sisters of St. Chretienne were no longer required to wear a habit.

"To get off the big dress and to put something lighter on was a happy occasion," she said. "We don't try to stand out."

On the day of her jubilee party, Sister Pauline wore a baby blue suit. Next to her cake was a doll dressed in a nun's habit.

"We dressed her up like Sister Pauline," Father Ogazie joked.

When she returned to the U.S., she got a degree in accounting and worked at Salem State University for 25 years. She then spent 10 years at Flowers by Darlene in Salem before going to work at Market Basket. For almost all of that time, she has helped out at St. Anne's as a eucharistic minister, sacristan, "you name it."

"Whatever has to be done," she said.

That work was only interrupted by her surgery. Sister Pauline said that Ware was "like a pillar" to her during recovery, driving her places and constantly checking in to make sure she was okay.

"It was like a guardian angel," she said.

Ware called Sister Pauline "an inspiration to us all."

"She's an extremely supportive friend," she said. "She prays for us all, and we've all benefited from her prayers, and she's always there if you need her."

Sister Pauline attributed her long life to "doing everything I'm supposed to do" and taking life day by day.

"You always have to move with the times," she said. "You can't stay put when everything else is changing. You have to keep up with the changes."