The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati originated in Emmitsburg, Md., where Elizabeth Seton founded the first community of women religious native to the United States in July 1809. These women devoted themselves to the education of children, care of orphans, the poor and the sick.

Shortly after its foundation, the community began receiving requests from bishops around the country for Sisters to serve in their dioceses. Such a request led to four Sisters of Charity opening St. Peter's school and orphanage for girls in Cincinnati in October 1829. This foundation was the first permanent establishment of a women's community in the Diocese of Cincinnati, which then encompassed the entire Northwest Territory.

By the late 1840s the number of Sisters increased to eight, and the school and orphanage grew to a population of several hundred. In addition, the Sisters visited the sick, performed other charitable works, and supervised lay women who worked for the relief of the sick and indigent.

It was at this time that the Sisters in Cincinnati learned that their superiors in Emmitsburg had made arrangements to affiliate with the French Daughters of Charity. Seven Sisters, under the leadership of the local superior, Sister Margaret George, and convinced that Elizabeth Seton had intended her community to retain its American roots, refused to participate in this change. With the encouragement and assistance of Archbishop John Purcell, they formed the diocesan community of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati March 25, 1852.

Within a few months their work expanded to include a boys' orphanage and the first Catholic hospital in Cincinnati. They opened a novitiate and, as their numbers grew, they expanded geographically. Their first mission outside Cincinnati was established in Dayton, Ohio, in 1857.

When the Civil War broke out, the Sisters volunteered as nurses. Over one-third of the community, by then numbering over 100 members, saw active service both on the eastern front in Ohio, Maryland and Virginia and on the western front in Mississippi, Kentucky and Tennessee. Sister Anthony O'Connell became widely known as "Angel of the Battlefield" due to her outstanding medical work as well as her dynamic personality.

Immediately following the war, four Sisters of Charity were sent to Santa Fe to open St. Vincent's, the first hospital in the New Mexico Territory. Other Sisters soon followed as the work expanded to include an orphanage, industrial school for girls, care for the indigent poor and other social needs. They supported themselves and their works by begging at the railroad and mining camps throughout the West. Soon other Western missions were accepted until by the 1880s the community had Sisters in cities and towns along the front range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and New Mexico. The most colorful and well-known of the Sisters to serve in the West during this early period was Sister Blandina Segale. Her letters and journals became the basis for a book, At the End of the Santa Fe Trail, and, subsequently, for articles, movies and plays.

As the community continued to grow, it was able to offer assistance in the establishment of two additional branches of Mother Seton's daughters, the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth at Convent Station, N.J. (1859), and the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill in Greensburg, Pa. (1870).

Meanwhile, the Sisters widened the expanse of their work in the Midwest. Many new parish schools were accepted in the Cincinnati area and throughout Ohio. The first Sisters sent to Michigan in 1872 began a long and substantial commitment by the congregation in that state. In Cincinnati the hospital grew and became known as The Good Samaritan. What began there as a service to unwed mothers and their babies grew to become St. Joseph Infant and Maternity Home by 1872.

The locations of the community's first two Motherhouses were in areas being annexed by the city in the early 1880s. Consequently, property was purchased in an outlying area known as Delhi, west of the city. It was here that the present motherhouse was built in stages over a 15-year period. This complex, known as Mount St. Joseph, sits on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River and serves as the administrative, educational and retirement center for the community .

By the end of the nineteenth century, the community became involved in work with Italian immigrants. The Santa Maria Italian Educational and Institutional Home was incorporated as the first Catholic settlement houses in the United States and became the foundation for an Archdiocesan social service program.

As the scope of education expanded, the Sisters of Charity responded. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, schools of nursing were begun in hospitals sponsored by the congregation. In the early twentieth century, the community assumed responsibility for running a boarding school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. The establishment of parish, diocesan and Sister of Charity-sponsored high schools required the involvement of more and more Sisters. In 1920 the College of Mount St. Joseph was founded to respond to the increasing demand for higher education for women.

Also in the 1920s the community decided to become a Papal community. The most important of the changes brought about by this event were the adoption of new Constitutions and a change in dress from the traditional Mother Seton black cap to a more elaborate black veil.

China became the first Sister of Charity foreign mission. In 1928 six Sisters arrived in Wuchang, a city about 750 miles up the Yangtze River from Shanghai. Here they operated a hospital and dispensary, cared for the aged and orphans, ran a school for young children, and a training program for nurses. By the early 1930s Chinese women began to join the community and in 1934 a novitiate was opened there. The Sisters remained in China through the Japanese invasion and occupation during World War II and the Chinese civil war, but they left in 1949 in the wake of the Communist takeover.

Other missions outside the United States have included Rome in the 1950s and '60s; Peru in the 1960s and beyond; Africa briefly during the 1970s; and Ecuador, Nicaragua, Armenia and Poland more recently. Presently a clinic in Guatemala is directed by a Sister of Charity.

With the passing decades the community experienced continued growth. By 1925 there were nearly 1,000 members; by 1951 the number had grown to 1,300. Participation in the Sister Formation movement resulted in more emphasis on initial formation and education for new members beginning in the 1950s. By the end of that decade most Sisters taught while others engaged in works such as health care and social services. Membership reached its highest at just over 1,500 in the mid-1960s.

The impact of the Second Vatican Council caused reassessment within the congregation of ministry, lifestyle, sponsorship of institutions, and internal governance. During this time some chose to leave the congregation. Those that remained moved forward with the changes.

An Associate program initiated in 1973 invites friends and co-workers to share in the mission of the community. In 1975 the founder, Elizabeth Seton became the first canonized American-born saint. And in 1979 all Sister of Charity-sponsored health care institutions were brought together in the Sisters of Charity Health Care Systems under the leadership of Sister Grace Marie Hiltz. This became one of the largest Catholic health care systems in the United States before it was dissolved in the late 1990s to join in a multi-system endeavor named Catholic Health Initiatives.

The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati currently have over 500 members, and the Motherhouse continues to be at Mount St. Joseph near Cincinnati, Ohio. Besides traditional ministries of teaching, health care and social work, Sisters are engaged in parish ministry, administrative positions, hospital chaplaincies, and work with senior citizens and the poor throughout the United States and in Guatemala. In addition, the community sponsors the Seton Enablement Fund, which awards low-interest loans to organizations unable to secure loans through traditional means, and the SC Ministry Foundation, which makes grants to financially assist community development and social justice organizations and projects.

In March 2003 the congregation unanimously passed a resolution to merge with the Vincentian Sisters of Charity of Bedford, Ohio, a 51-member congregation who minister mainly in the diocese of Cleveland. The resolution was also unanimously passed by the Vincentians in March. The two congregations are proceeding with the merger, preparing the necessary paperwork to be submitted to Rome. Both congregations are looking forward to this joyful union.

 

Bibliography

Mahoney, Sister Benedicta, S.C., We Are Many: A History of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati 1898-1971. Mount St. Joseph, Ohio: Sisters of Charity, 1982.

McCann, Sister Mary Agnes, S.C., The History of Mother Seton's Daughters: The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati Ohio 1809- 1917, 3 vol. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1917.

Metz, Judith, S.C., “Women of Faith and Service: The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati.” Mount St. Joseph, Ohio: Sisters of Charity, 1997.

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