The Sisters Come To The United States
Soon after this legal recognition, the Sisters spread their service overseas. An American foundation was established within seven years of its founding, to serve German emigrant communities in New York, New Jersey and Ohio. At the same time, as their Superior General, Mother Frances oversaw the foundation of several hospitals and sanatoria in both Europe and the United States for those suffering from tuberculosis, then a widespread cause of death, especially among the working classes.
Over the next fifty years, hospitals were established in several states. In New York City, the Sisters opened and staffed St. Francis Hospital (1865-1966), St. Joseph Hospital for Chest Diseases (1888-1962) and the Frances Schervier Home and Hospital, all located in the Borough of the Bronx. They founded various community hospitals around the nation, including St. Anthony Community Hospital in Warwick, New York (now operated by the Bon Secours Charity Health System), and the former St. Mary Hospital in Hoboken, New Jersey (now Hoboken University Medical Center).
Mother Frances visited the United States in 1863, and helped her Sisters nurse soldiers wounded in the American Civil War. St. Mary Hospital in Hoboken, N.J. was founded for this work. She visited the United States one more time in 1868.
When Mother Frances died in 1876, there were 2,500 members of the congregation worldwide. The number kept growing until the 1970s, when, like many other religious orders, they began to experience a sharp decline in membership. In response to the request of both the European and American Congregations, and the research they provided regarding her life to the Holy See, Mother Frances was beatified in 1974 by Pope Paul VI.
Since the 1990s, the Congregation has transferred the ownership of many of their institutions to other organizations, and at present focuses on health care, pastoral ministry and social services. Currently, this Congregation has communities of Sisters serving in the United States, Brazil, Italy and Senegal.
Read more about this topic: Franciscan Sisters Of The Poor
Famous quotes containing the words the united states, united states, sisters, united and/or states:
“To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client; still, one must make the best of the case, for the purposes of Providence.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the aristocratic government, a private man was not worth so much in Canada as in the United States; and, if your wealth in any measure consists in manliness, in originality and independence, you had better stay here. How could a peaceable, freethinking man live neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New-Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, probably a rebel, there,—certainly if he were already a rebel at home.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I asked myself, “Is it going to prevent me from getting out of here? Is there a risk of death attached to it? Is it permanently disabling? Is it permanently disfiguring? Lastly, is it excruciating?” If it doesn’t fit one of those five categories, then it isn’t important.”
—Rhonda Cornum, United States Army Major. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, “Perspectives” page (July 13, 1992)