The Sisters of mercy in the United States, 1843-1928

Front matter

■Vh

THE SISTERS OF MERCY IN THE UNITED STATES 1843-1928

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Foreword

In the making of this book the writer has attempted to give to those interested in the activities of religious congregations and in social welfare propaganda, a reference book in which facts can be found to show how religious communities have been and are an integral part in the advancement of civilization. Especially will this particular record be convenient at a time when the Sisters of Mercy are rounding out one hundred years of benevolent endeavors.

The history of any religious congregation pursuing the active life is a narrative whose situations cannot be isolated from the social, the moral, and the intellectual progress of the communities in which they live; so the history of the Sisters of Mercy in the United States is a record of practical service to their fellow men : in the hospital, in the orphanage, in the home for the aged and the infirm, in the school, and in the college — it is a simple story of God’s love in the hearts of those women whose only gift to the world is their service to humanity.

The Author.'

Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,

College Misericordia, Villa St. Teresa, Dallas, Pennsylvania.

Introduction

A FULL century has passed since the first Sisters of Mercy began their work in 1827, in the Baggott Street house in Dublin. The century has seen many changes in the world of industry and of social life. Material comforts and legitimate recreations are now within easy reach of the wage-earning and working classes, which were not thought of in the first quarter, or even during the first three quarters of the nineteenth century.

Wealth and opportunities for ease, as the superficial observer sees them, have taken away, perhaps, something of the old esteem for the life and the virtues of religion. But change of environment has not changed the real wants of individual, social, and family life. The massing of population in great centers of industrial life has brought new problems to be solved by leaders in human welfare and in religion. The demands of education, schools, hospitals, and the care of the unfortunate physical and social wrecks of humanity, are a constant call for the generous service of Christian charity and mercy. There is an answer to this call in divine vocations to follow the Counsels of Christ, to devote the energies of life to religion, to the service of God, and to the needs of men. The call is still Christ’s invitation to unselfish Apostolic work, to the service of brother men, a service which is sacred because it values human life by the standard of God.

For more than eighty-five years the Sisters of Mercy have given this service to religion and to humanity in the United States. The work of the sisters is the best witness to its worth. It was a spirit of generous service that sent the sisters to the front in the Crimean War in 1854, to the

Xll

INTRODUCTION V missions of Australia and New Zealand in 1845. The same will to serve the cause of Christ and of humanity is found in their coming to the United States. Courage, devotion, and the gift of Christian fortitude were needed to endure the hardships of pioneer days in Pittsburgh, in Chicago, in Little Rock, and in San Francisco.

Unselfishness is the key to the life and the work of our Catholic sisterhoods. Teaching, nursing, and the care of those who are spiritually poor leave little room for notice and the advertising of self. There is a real need for a source-book of facts and information about the work that has been done by our sisterhoods in recent times. It was the thought of such a handbook to the activities of the present and the past that first suggested this work — an index to the work of the Sisters of Mercy in the United States, at the same time fulfilling the academic requirements of the State for a thesis in the school work of the sisters.

F. E. T.

Villanova, Sept. 8, 1928.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction xi

CHAPTER

Chapter I

Who shall find a valiant woman? far and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her. — Prov. xxxi. lO.

The first community of the Sisters of Mercy in United States arrived in Pittsburgh from Carlow, Ireland, December 2 1, 1843. Seven sisters of the institute, organized by the venerable Catherine McAuley in Baggott Street, Dublin, in 1827, and inaugurated as the Congregation of Sisters of Mercy, December 12, 1831, came in response to the earnest, personal appeal of Rt. Rev. Michael O’Connor to share the burden of apostolic mercy and charity in the new diocese. The bishop was the sisters’ traveling companion on the voyage, probably a sailing vessel, to New York, thence by stage over land, by way of Philadelphia, to their new home. The first colony comprised: Sister M. Josephine Cullen, Sister M. Elizabeth Strange, Sister M. Aloysius Strange, Sister M. Philomena Reid, Sister M. Veronica Darby, Sister Margaret O’Brien, a postulant, and Mother Francis Xavier Warde, a woman of high romance and spiritual adventure, the leader of this hazardous undertaking.

The sisters spent the first night at St. Paul’s Orphanage, the guests of the Sisters of Charity. On the following day, December 22, they took possession of the convent home, a four-story brick building on Penn Street, now Penn Avenue, previously prepared for their accommodation.

The first activity of the institute was the opening of a Sunday School in the Cathedral Church, St. Paul. Five hundred children were enrolled for instruction in Christian Doctrine. Their next step was the visitation of the sick and the poor of the parish and of the neighboring towns. During the following summer, 1844, the basement of the convent was fitted up for school purposes, and in September the sisters opened their first school in the United States. Thus was riveted, in the great Republic of the West, a new link in that momentous chain forged in Baggott Street, Dublin, which now encircles all English-speaking nations, uniting them in one vast chaplet of mercy.

Pittsburgh in 1843, every other industrial center in the United States, needed the spiritual work of religious communities devoted to mercy, charity, and education. The diocese, formed in 1843 from the See of Philadelphia, comprised what was commonly called “The Western District of Pennsylvania.” The Catholic population of the city numbered about twenty thousand souls. There were only two churches, St. Patrick and St. Paul, and the congregation of German Catholics under the care of the Redemptorists, later, the parish of St. Philomena. St. Paul’s had a free school, also an orphanage, both in charge of the Sisters of Charity, a foundation from Emmitsburg, Maryland. There had been an academy and boarding school for girls at Mt. Alvernia, near Pittsburgh, directed by a congregation of Poor Clares, as early as 1830. This had been closed and the community disbanded in 1839.^

Ten days after the arrival of the new colony, January i, 1844, the sisters, according to their custom, renewed their vows, and, at the bishop’s request, the ritual was a public ceremony. This renewal encouraged them to face the difficulties and work which Providence brought to them in the land of their adoption, the home of their choice and future activities. Present in the convent chapel at this

^ See Bishop Kenrick’s Diary and Visitation Records, p, 64 et seq.

ceremony was one destined to take a prominent part in the community during her short life in the sisterhood: Elizabeth Jane Tiernan, the American postulant to the Sisters of Mercy, one month later, February 2, 1844, began her novitiate in Pittsburgh. Miss Bessie McCaffrey from Cleveland, Ohio, entered on October 22 of the same year, and Miss Elizabeth Wynne, daughter of Major Wynne of Pittsburgh, joined the ranks of the sisterhood on the feast of All Souls, November 2, 1844. Several lay sisters entered the novitiate during the same year.

On February 22, 1844, the first ceremony of religious reception took place in the sisters’ chapel. Miss Margaret O’Brien, a postulant who came with the first band from Ireland, received the habit of religion and the name Sister M. Agatha; Bishop O’Connor officiated. Later, 1846, Sister M. Agatha was sent to Chicago as superior to direct the work of the sisterhood in a new foundation.

The first public ceremony of religious reception and profession took place, April ii, 1844, in St. Paul’s Cathedral by request of Bishop O’Connor. The usual place for holding these religious ceremonies was the convent chapel. Sister M. Aloysius Strange, who came here from Ireland as a novice, and who was the first Sister of Mercy to be professed in America, made her final vows; Miss Elizabeth Tiernan received the habit of religion and the name Sister M. Xavier. In order to have a joint ceremony, the bishop had anticipated the regular time of reception by four months, while the profession of Sister Aloysius Strange was four months deferred.

St. Paul’s Parish School, the first school of the Sisters of Mercy in the United States, was opened in the basement of the convent, September, 1844. The basement was not adapted for school purposes but was made available by the^ ingenuity and energy of the sisters.

In the life of Mother Xavier Warde the horarium of this school and the class work of the day are given. Classes began at nine o’clock. At twelve o’clock there was an intermission of two hours to enable the children to go home for dinner. At two o’clock classes were resumed and continued until four o’clock. Arithmetic was taught for one hour each day. Reading, writing, spelling, and English grammar made up the remainder of the day’s program. History and geography, English, and bookkeeping were taught on alternate days.^

In 1844 the sisters secured the title to one hundred and fifty acres of land, the Kuhn farm, in Westmoreland County, near Youngstown, now Latrobe. This land, the gift of Bishop O’Connor, was given to establish a Catholic school under the supervision of a religious community. The work of boarding schools was perhaps not a part of the express design of Mother McAuley, the revered foundress, who met conditions peculiar to the people, and to the poorer classes of Ireland as they existed in 1825 to 1850. However, guided by the counsel of Bishop O’Connor, the sisters realized that the needs of the diocese demanded a departure from the letter of the Constitution in minor points of observance and work not foreign to the spirit of the Rule.^

In April, 1845, Mother Warde and Mother Josephine

^ Life of Reverend Mother M. Xavier Warde, by the Sisters of Mercy, Mount St. Mary’s, Manchester, N. H., pp. 109, no.

® Some of the boarding schools for girls in the eastern section of the country at this time were: The Academy of the Visitation, Georgetown, opened by “The Pious Ladies” in 1805; a school in Baltimore, Park and Centre streets, opened by the Sisters of the Visitation in 1838; St. Joseph’s. Emmitsburg, mother house of the Sisters of Charity, Mother Seton’s foundation, 1809; St. Peter’s Boarding School, Wilmington, Del., and an academy at Frederick, Md., both under the care of the Sisters of Charity. The Boarding School at McSherrystown, Pa., had been in charge of the Sisters of Charity from 1834 to 1840. The Ladies of the Sacred Heart took this school in 1842, and remained, apparently, until 1852 or 1853. The Sisters of St. Joseph have had the care of this school now since 1854. The school of the Ursulines, opened at Mt. St. Benedict’s, Charlestown, near Boston, in 1826, had been destroyed by a mob crazed momentarily by anti-Catholic traditions and hate, August II, 1834. The Ladies of the Sacred Heart had just opened their school in Houston Street, New York, later removed to Ravenswood, L. 1. At Binghamton, N. Y., was the school of Mrs. Edward White (sister of Gerald Griffin) and her daughters from 1836 to 1852. Loc. cit, p. 64 et seq.

Cullen, accompanied by Bishop O’Connor, went to view the property at Youngstown, for the purpose of completing the arrangements for the future boarding school, St. Xavier’s. During the month of May, the sisters were established in the priest’s house at St. Vincent’s, Father Stillinger having given his own house for the sisters’ use until their convent should be ready for them. Mother Josephine Cullen was appointed superior. The building was a two-story structure containing twelve rooms; later, a kitchen, a dining-room, and two classrooms were added. Here the sisters remained until 1847 when St. Xavier’s, the new building, was opened. Among the first pupils enrolled at St. Xavier’s were Ellen Shoemaker, Anna Elena Ihmsen, Susan Myers, Anna McCaffrey, Alice Mulvaney, Catherine McGirr, and Sarah Blakely, daughters of leading families of Western Pennsylvania. In the meantime a free school was opened in the sacristy of St. Vincent’s Church, to offer opportunities of education and religious instruction to the children of the parish. This was the beginning, so far as we know, of the first parish school in the diocese outside of the city of Pittsburgh. The beginnings of the sisters’ work in the academy are given in a news note in the Catholic Herald of August i, 1845.

“Taking the Veil” — Correspondence of the Pittsburgh Catholic Youngstown, July, 1845.

Mr. Editor:

Your readers are, I presume, already aware that the Sisters of Mercy have established a branch of their order at Youngstown, Westmoreland County.

Mr. Henry Kuhn, one of the old Catholic settlers, has given them 150 acres of excellent land, on which they are erecting extensive and suitable buildings, so that this is likely to become the central establishment of the Order.

The account then describes the “Solemn reception” of three sisters in St. Vincent’s Church, July 26, 1845. Rev. J. A. Stillinger celebrated the Mass. The Bishop (O’Connor) spoke. The church was crowded. The names of the new sisters are Sister M. Vincent (Miss M. A. McGirr), Sister M. Gertrude (Miss Katherine Maguire), and Sister M. Bridget Tobin.

In the Catholic Directory of 1847, we have a survey of the advantages offered in education, music, and needlework in the new academy:

The course of studies embraces: History, Philosophy, Music, Drawing, Plain and Ornamental Needlework, French, Italian, etc.

The institution offers peculiar advantages to young ladies wishing to acquire a solid and refined education. It is situated about two miles from Youngstown in one of the most healthy sections of Western Pennsylvania, sufficiently elevated to command from every point an extensive view of the delightful country which surrounds it. While every attention will be paid to the comfort of the pupils, special care will be taken to nourish in their minds those principles of virtue and religion which alone can make education profitable.

A comparison of the cost of academic education of over sixty years ago as recorded in the Catholic Directory, with that of the present time is of interest:

Tuition, including Bed and Bedding, Washing, Mending, etc. (paid half-years in advance), $100.00; Music, and the use of the Piano, per quarter, $8.00; Vocal Music, $5.00; Painting and Drawing, $5.00; French, $5.00; Italian, $5.00.

The Directory gives notice also of a “select school for young ladies” at Penn Street, Pittsburgh, with sixty pupils in attendance; and “a day school at the Asylum, Coal Lane,” with two hundred pupils enrolled.

The Kuhn farm had been uncultivated for many years, consequently, farm implements and household articles were needed. The purchase of these and the cost of their transportation from Pittsburgh made a serious drain on the sisters’ financial resources. A small building designed to accommodate not more than forty pupils was erected as the first St. Xaxier’s Academy, about two miles from St. Vincent’s Church.

New demands for teachers were the natural consequence of opening the academy at St. Vincent’s. The sisters saw that if their work was to continue, their growth must be in proportion with the needs of the community at large. With this fact in view. Mother Warde, accompanied by Sister Mary Xavier, returned to Ireland, August, 1845, recruits for the work in America. In December of the same year, 1845, they returned, bringing back with them three professed sisters: Sister M. Gertrude Blake (Superior of Birr), Sister M. Anastasia McGawley (Mother Assistant in Cork), Sister M. Augusta Goold, and two aspirants to the Mercy sisterhood. This reenforcement enabled the sisters to meet other demands for their services. The Orphan Asylum, St. Paul, and the day school on Coal Lane were placed in charge of the Sisters of Mercy in March, 1846."^

The asylum, supported by the people of the parish, had on register thirty orphan girls; the records of the day school show an enrollment of two hundred pupils.

At the request of Bishop Quarter, and with the consent of Bishop O’Connor, a foundation from Pittsburgh was established in Chicago in 1846. Six sisters were sent with Mother M. Agatha O’Brien, as superior. Mother Warde accompanied them and remained several months until the community was settled in their new home. Supplying a foundation for Chicago naturally thinned the ranks of the Pittsburgh community; consequently, it was found necessary to close the academy on Penn Street, in order to supply teachers for the Cathedral School. However, to provide for the future development and to furnish accommodations

^ These institutions had both been in charge of the Sisters of Charity since 1838. In July, 1845, the Sisters of Charity were withdrawn. Some pious ladies then took charge of the orphan girls until March, 1846. The boys were placed temporarily under the care of the Presentation Brothers. The day school was closed and remained closed until reopened by the Sisters of Mercy.

for new members, the sisters in Pittsburgh, Penn Street, moved into more spacious quarters, also on Penn Street. This new residence, formerly known as “Concert Hall,” was later called “Liberty Hall.” Here on January i, 1847, Mother Warde, with the sanction of Bishop O’Connor, transformed the ballroom of “Concert Hall” into a hospital. This was the beginning of Mercy Hospital, the first hospital of the Sisters of Mercy in the United States. The prevalence of what was then known as “ship fever,” and the need of caring for the health of the men employed on river boats engaged in trade on the Ohio River, induced the sisters to turn the ballroom of “Concert Hall” into an emergency hospital, then to establish Mercy Hospital as a permanent institute of relief and charity.

During the year 1848-49, four hundred and four patients were treated at Mercy Hospital. The work of the hospital and the charges made, as described in the Catholic Directory of 1851, are worthy of notice:

As many patients as the means of the Institute permit are received free.

Pay patients in general ward are charged $3.00 a week. Those who occupy private rooms pay $5.00 a week.

Ample accommodations for about eighty patients.

The sisters remained in “Concert Hall” until 1848, when, on account of its unsanitary condition. Dr. Addison, one of the hospital staff, deemed it imperative that the sisters should vacate the house which had been used as an emergency hospital. The bishop (O’Connor) gave them his own residence near the Cathedral, while he and his attendant priests received hospitality from the members of the congregation. The sisters remained in the bishop’s residence until December, 1850, when they took possession of the recently completed convent. Coal Lane, later St. Mary’s Convent of Mercy, Webster Avenue. This was the mother house and headquarters of the Sisters of Mercy of the

Diocese of Pittsburgh until 1855 when the mother house was transferred to St. Xavier’s, Latrobe, Westmoreland County. The parish school of St. Paul was, during these years, conducted in St. Mary’s Convent. The orphans also had a home in rooms set apart for the purpose in the rear of the same building.

The charter which incorporates the Sisters of Mercy in the State of Pennsylvania in 1848 is a document worthy of study. The fact that the laws of Pennsylvania recognize as “a body politic and corporate” an association of “religious women living in community devoted to charitable works” and whose aim is “the relief and support of the sick, destitute and dependent persons, the maintenance of orphans, and the care and education of youth,” is a precedent in law and history from which modern legislators, politicians, and sociological theorizers could learn practical lessons and the solution of problems of our own times. We shall quote the charter in part:

An Act — to incorporate the Sisters of Mercy of the county of Allegheny.

Section i — Be it enacted — That Frances Theresa Ward, Hester Strange, Frances Brown, Mary Fennessy, Elizabeth Goold, Mary Gillespie, Mary McCreedy, Maryanne Fisher, Elizabeth Blake, Elizabeth McCaffrey, Mary McCaffrey, Elizabeth Wynne, Ellen Cullen, and their associates, members of the society known as the Sisters of Mercy, being a society of religious women living in community and devoted to charitable works, be and they are hereby constituted a body politic and corporate, by the name, style and title of The Sisters of Mercy of the County of Allegheny, etc.

Section 2 — The essential objects of the said corporation shall be the relief and support of sick, destitute and dependent persons, the maintenance of orphans and the care and education of youth ; and the houses and grounds of said society occupied for these purposes, and the income used for this support shall be exempt from taxation. (Laws of Pennsylvania — 1848, April 8, pp. 397-398.)

In 1848, at the invitation of Rev. Hugh Gallagher, the m sisters opened a new school at Loretto, a place of interest in the early Catholic history of Pennsylvania, the center of missionary labors and the life work of Gallitzin, the “Prince Priest” of Pennsylvania. The community comprised four sisters : Sister M. Augusta Goold, Sister M. Rose Hostetter, Sister M. Lucy McGivern, and Sister M. Catherine Wynne, superior. This foundation marks the beginning of the present academy, St. Aloysius, Loretto, Pennsylvania, and later, 1875, the independent mother house at Cresson. The poverty of the Holy Family was reflected in the privations of the sisters’ early experiences at Loretto. The sisters were often left without food and fuel, not because of the neglect of the people, but because of the hardships of pioneer days. In 1853 the sisters removed to a more spacious building, which was given the name of St. Aloysius’ Convent and Academy. Two additions to the convent were made later, one in 1866, the other in 1868. On account of the distance from the mother house in Pittsburgh, St. Aloysius’ was made an independent community in 1875.

In 1851 Bishop O’Reilly of the Diocese of Hartford applied to Bishop O’Connor in Pittsburgh for a colony of Sisters of Mercy to take charge of his school in Providence, Rhode Island. Mother Francis Warde was appointed to direct the work. Her companions were: Sister M. Camillus O’Neill, Sister M. Paula Lombard, and Sister M. Johanna Fogerty. This was the first foundation of the Sisters of Mercy in New England.

In the same year, 1851, two sisters were sent from St. Mary’s, Webster Avenue, to open a school for the girls of St. Peter’s Parish, Anderson Street, Allegheny. School was held in the basement of the church, and had an enrollment of one hundred pupils. For one year the sisters from the Webster Avenue convent walked to and from this school every day, a distance of about two miles. In 1852 after the opening of St. Ann’s School, Washington and Lockhart streets, Allegheny, the sisters teaching at St. Peter’s made ii their home at St. Ann’s. Schools were opened in Wiley Street, Chatham Street, Pittsburgh, and in St. John’s, Birmingham. In Birmingham, South Side, there was also an orphanage for boys in the care of the sisters. During the same year, 1852, a House of Industry was opened at St. Ann’s for homeless girls and immigrants who were taught housework, sewing, and fancy needlework.

A notice of this institution in the Catholic Directory of 1856 describes its work and aim:

A new building has been erected for this purpose in a handsome part of Allegheny City. Single females are received in it who are desirous of living under the protection of the sisters, though able to support themselves by their own labor, and also to afford young women of good character a shelter, and train them in various branches of industry.

In 1852 at the request of Dr. May, Washington, D. C., and the approval, we presume, of the Archbishop of Baltimore, Francis Patrick Kenrick, five sisters left Pittsburgh to take charge of a hospital in Washington, D. C. This institution was formerly under the care of the Sisters of Charity; at their withdrawal, the hospital was placed under the management of seculars, with unsatisfactory results. The new community comprised: Sister M. de Sales Brown, Sister M. Angela McCreary, Sister M. Stephana Ward, Sister M. Collette O’Connor, and Sister M. Isidore Fisher, superior. This was the beginning of the work of the Sisters of Mercy in the Diocese of Baltimore.

At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the “Washington Infirmary,” the title by which the Washington Hospital was known, held on May 4, 1857, ^he following resolutions were unanimously adopted:

Resolved by the Board of Directors that we entertain the highest appreciation of the services of the Sisters of Mercy in the Infirmary, and hereby express to them our entire confidence in their fidelity and attention to every duty during the past year, with our thanks for their interest, more than official, always manifested by them, for the welfare of the patients and property of the institution.

Resolved that the Curator be requested to commurv’cate the above resolution to the sister superior.

Albert Thos. Fred^k May^ Curator Wash. Infirmary.

Later, 1854, an invitation came requesting the sisters to take charge of St. Peter’s parish school in Baltimore. Five sisters were sent to open this new foundation: Sister M. Neri Bowen, Sister M. Colette O’Connor, Sister M. Ann Rigney, and Mother M. Catherine Wynne, superior. This now became the mother house of the Sisters of Mercy in the metropolitan See of Baltimore.

A school in Hollidaysburg in charge of Mother Elizabeth Strange, then Mother Assistant of the community, was opened in May, 1853. Her coworkers were Sister M. Baptista Hearne, Sister M. Regina Brown, and Sister M. Marcella McKeown. This school, St. Mary’s, opened with an attendance of fifty pupils. The convent, formerly a hotel, was a two-story brick structure containing nine rooms with a basement and attic. They remained here two years. The distance of school and convent from the church made its location undesirable; in consequence, a small brick house was purchased in 1855. During the early days at Hollidaysburg, the sisters suffered much from poor accommodations, extreme cold, and an insufficiency of food.

Meantime, the new academy in Westmoreland County, the Kuhn foundation, at Latrobe, two miles from St. Vincent’s, was completed, blessed, and placed under the patronage of St. Francis Xavier, June, 1846. School opened in September. In 1852, the number of pupils on record is over seventy. It was now necessary to enlarge the building by an addition, forty by eighty feet, thus affording new rooms for kitchen, refectory, dormitories, and a large chapel.

A tract of land of over one hundred and eighteen acres, known as the “Boyd farm” adjoining St. Xavier’s School property, was purchased by Bishop O’Connor in 1855. The purpose was to remove there to St. Michael’s Seminary. This plan was later abandoned, and the sisters bought the property in August, 1853, for thirty-five hundred dollars.

The mother house and novitiate were transferred from Pittsburgh to St. Xavier’s, Latrobe, in 1855, and remained here until 1875 when St. Xavier’s was cut off from the Diocese of Pittsburgh and became the mother house in the new Diocese of Allegheny. In the fall of 1862, a request came to the mother house for sisters to take charge of the Stanton Hospital, Washington, D. C. Some time between November 26 and December 8, this hospital was ready for occupancy, and eight sisters were placed in charge of the first detachment of one hundred and thirty sick and wounded soldiers from the front. The sisters, eight in number, reenforced at different times by new recruits, cared for the disabled men from both the North and the South, who were sent to Stanton Hospital from the fighting line. They remained in charge of this hospital till the close of the war.

On one occasion when Secretary Stanton refused to increase the month’s allotment of rations, the matter was brought to the notice of the President who wrote a personal letter authorizing the sisters to solicit aid. The letter ^ reads :

To all whom it may concern:

On application of the Sisters of Mercy in charge of the Military Hospital in Washington, furnish such provisions as they desire to purchase and charge the same to the War Department.

Abraham Lincoln.

In 1863 the sisters in Pittsburgh gave their services to the West Penn Hospital which was turned into a military hospital by the government. It was used principally for convalescent soldiers who were transported from hospitals

^ This letter quoted in the Annals is not dated, hut there is no reason to doubt its genuineness.

near the scene of battle. The sisters remained at the West Penn Hospital until the war was over and all the patients were either discharged or removed to other hospitals.

The following are the names of some of the Sisters of Mercy of Mount St. Mary’s Convent, Mount Mercy, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who served at Stanton Hospital in Washington, and also at West Pennsylvania Hospital, Pittsburgh, during the war:

Stanton Hospital