Daughters of Charity Provincial Archives

06/19/2026

“Civic Season” is the term for the time period between the two great days of freedom in the United States, Juneteenth and the 4th of July. The season is dedicated to understanding community history and rededicating ourselves to the work of creating a more perfect Union.

This news clipping comes from but one historical example of this type of labor, Marillac Social Center in Chicago back in 1965 (Clipping from the Chicago Defender).

06/18/2026

The United Nations has dedicated June 20 of each year as a day to honor “the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home country to escape conflict or persecution.” Among the Daughters of Charity who believed in this ethos was Sister Phyllis Nolan. After spending 20 years teaching and ministering in Bolivia, she returned to the United States and began an 8-year ministry at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, an organization dedicated to aiding immigrants and refugees in their quest to achieve a better life for themselves and their families, flee to safety from violence, and reunite families. Las Americas focused on West Texas, New Mexico, and Greater Juarez regions. Sister Phyllis provided legal assistance, taught English as a second language, and was a staunch champion for the rights of unaccompanied minors.

06/14/2026

Sharing this post from the Provincial Annals of 1909 for Flag Day!

06/11/2026

The Daughters of Charity placed a value on outdoor recreation and physical activity for those under their care. Several orphanages had summer camps outside the city, which were particularly useful in the time period when many large cities were heavily polluted. When they were unable or it was not feasible to leave the city, schools and social centers built playgrounds, or, as seen here, took advantage of city parks. This 1948 photo depicts children from St. Vincent’s Home in Philadelphia, often referred to by its home-neighborhood, Drexel Hill.

06/09/2026

New blog post up on American history. Some sort of holiday or big anniversary coming up within the next few weeks...

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2026 edition of ‘Faith Afire’, a publication of the Daughters of Charity, Province of St. Louise in the United States. The full edition ca…

06/04/2026

This week we mourn the loss of Sister Bernice Coreil, former Visitatrix of the West Central Province from 1983 to 1989. Sister Bernice entered the community with a background in business and used this knowledge to ensure hospitals provided better care to their patients. The end of her term as Visitatrix did not put an end to her work, and she went on to hold top-tier positions in the Daughters of Charity National Health System and the Catholic Health Association (CHA), including a year as Board Chairperson from 1989 to 1990. It was even after her time as Chair that she did her most prominent work in the public eye, advocating alongside CHA for the attempts at healthcare reform of the 1990s to confront the rising costs of healthcare for both providers and patients and resolve the problem of a wide gap in health insurance and health coverage.

Pictured: Sister Bernice with her mother in 1997, Sister Bernice with St. Pope John Paul II during a health care symposium in 1987, and Sister Bernice throwing out the first pitch at a St. Louis Cardinals game in 2015.

06/03/2026

We welcome locals, visitors, tourists, guests, and pilgrims alike to Emmitsburg!

05/28/2026

Among the teachings of the Second Vatican Council for the Catholic Church was ecumenicism, of seeking places of unity across religious lines with people of all faiths in the world. In 1979, St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chicago hosted a pastoral care seminar, gathering those concerned with spiritual wellness of their patients in one place for a free exchange of ideas. Pictured are two Daughters, Sister Virginia Kingsbury (left) and Sister John Gabriel McPhee (right), with Reverend Mary Wilkins of the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church standing between them beneath the seal of the Daughters of Charity, which reflects their common care for those under their charge.

05/25/2026

05/21/2026

In the late 1990s, the Superioress General of the Daughters of Charity expressed a desire that the Sisters learn a language other than their native tongue. Several Daughters from the Evansville and St. Louis areas took up the challenge. Pictured is a Spanish class from around the year 2000, taught by a high school Spanish teacher from nearby Mater Dei High School. After the summer-long course, Sisters were prepared to, first and foremost, keep studying, but would now know the beginnings of conversational Spanish.

The class included 15 Sisters – here is merely a sampling of the students: Sister Esther Diaz and Sister Vera Purpura (top); Sister Juliana Beuerlein and Sister Mary Eugenia Hultman (bottom).