Mary Frances Schervier - Early Life

Early Life

Frances Schervier (German: Franziska) was born into a wealthy family in Aachen, Germany. Her father, Johann Heinrich Schervier was a wealthy needle factory owner and the vice-mayor of Aachen. Her French mother, Maria Louise Migeon, the goddaughter of Emperor Francis I of Austria provided a strict home environment. After the death of both her mother and two sisters from tuberculosis when she was thirteen, Frances become the homemaker for her father, and developed a reputation for generosity to the poor, from her growing awareness of their desperate conditions.

In a dispute over the rights of the Church in 1837 (Kölner Wirren), the Prussian government imprisoned the Archbishop of Cologne, Clemens August von Droste-Vischering, causing a great public reaction; the repercussion was a revival of religious spirit, especially in Westphalia and the Rhine country. In the wake of this spiritual awakening, some prominent Aachen ladies started a society for the relief of the poor and approached Johann Schervier to permit Frances to join. He agreed at first, but later demurred when Frances began to nurse the sick in their homes, fearing that she might carry the disease into his own house. Rather than respond vigorously to her father's objection, Frances discreetly continued to visit the sick until he gradually became accustomed to her involvement; her father later recalled that his daughter grasped how to emancipate herself.

The Reverend Joseph Istas, who was curate at Saint Paul Parish in Aachen and founder of "Saint John's Kitchen" for the poor, deeply impressed Frances, who began to work very closely with him; but their friendship ended abruptly with Istas' premature death in 1843. The following year she entered the Third Order of St. Francis .