History Timeline - horizontal version
17th-century France. We first came to the Erie Diocese in 1860 to teach children, and soon after, we began responding to other needs, including ministering to the sick. Our Sisters staffed many schools, including Harborcreek School for Boys, and we established Spencer Hospital, Saint Vincent Hospital, Villa Maria Elementary School, Villa Maria Academy, Villa Maria College, Saint Mary’s Home of Erie, St. Patrick’s Haven and many other ministries.
Eventually, our presence moved beyond hospitals and classrooms and included pastoral, social, and liturgical ministries in Catholic parishes, global mission projects, outreach to the elderly, campus ministry, and youth ministry, to name a few. Today, along with our Agrégées and Associates, we continue to carry out our mission of unity of neighbor with neighbor and neighbor with God.
Sisters of St. Joseph Historic Timeline
The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph began around 1650 in small communities in the area of Le Puy, France by six women and a Jesuit priest, Jean-Pierre Medaille.
Father Medaille had a unique idea about religious communities of women, different from others at that time. In the 17th century, Sisters were usually in cloistered convents, not out among the people. Father Medaille had a vision to go out into the city, divide up the neighborhoods, find out the…
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They began by helping the poor and sick in their homes, providing refuge for widows and orphans, teaching religious education and a trade to girls and young women, and shouldering the burden of social work in villages where there was often no one else to do it. As the Congregation spread…
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The French Revolution of 1789 radically affected the visible structures of religious congregations. Church property was confiscated, and Sisters were forbidden to live in convents. The Sisters of St. Joseph were dispersed; some were imprisoned, some were guillotined, and others went into hiding.
When order was restored, Cardinal Joseph Fesch called Jeanne Fontbonne, one of the Sisters who had been imprisoned and scheduled for execution, to re-establish and lead the new Congregation. In 1806, the Congregation was refounded in Lyon, France, not far from the original foundation in Le Puy. Encouraged by Napoleon,…
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Mother St. John sent six Sisters to the United States in 1836 to meet the needs of the people as they made their way westward. They arrived at Carondelet, near St. Louis, Missouri in 1836.
Establishing independent congregations as they moved to new areas became a pattern. The Sisters in the U.S. became an independent congregation in 1847, and 25 independent groups were eventually established in the United States and Canada from the original Carondelet foundation. Each added a spirit unique to its foundation while…
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Within the space of a few years, Sister Agnes Spencer, one of the first to arrive in the U.S., moved from Carondelet to Philadelphia, PA, to assist at an orphanage; to Wheeling, WV, to direct a hospital; to Canandaigua, NY, to establish a new foundation, and then to Buffalo where…
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On May 24, 1860, at the invitation of Bishop Joshua Young, Mother Agnes came to the Erie Diocese where she assumed the direction of St. Ann’s Academy for Girls in Corsica, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania. She was accompanied by Sisters Protais Duboille, Cesarine Mulvey, and Augustine Spencer (her sister).
