USA

The USA Collection of Archives

On 2^nd August 1862, six SHCJ sisters sailed from Liverpool to start a foundation in the town of Towanda, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the generosity of the Duchess of Leeds was undone by her unscrupulous land agent Mr C.L. Ward since the ‘mansion’ he procured for the Duchess was in reality a ruin.

This first American SHCJ community endured many hardships from a lack of food to spending a severe winter with snow falling on their beds in the dilapidated house. Despite suffering such privations, the sisters still managed to establish a boarding school alongside day and night schools for the local area.

Father Carter, Vicar General to the Bishop of Philadelphia, suspected the sisters were suffering behind their ‘smiling evasive answers’. He helped the SHCJ acquire the property Sharon Hill for the sisters in 1864 and requested more SHCJ travel to America.

In 1867, Cornelia visited America for, sadly, the first and only time after founding the SHCJ. She made good use of her time, appointing superiors for each convent and purchasing a building on Chestnut street which became St Leonard’s Academy.

Between 1883 and 1886, the SHCJ moved West, setting up communities in Avoca and Waseca in Minnesota, in Lincoln Nebraska and in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Most of these foundations were only briefly held, but an SHCJ community flourished in Cheyenne for 50 years.

The SHCJ in America continued to start schools throughout the 20^th Century, with 25 more opened between 1914 and 1962. In 1921, Rosemont College was established to provide liberal arts education for women. The fast growth of the American Province was a factor in repeated decisions to divide it into two provinces between 1924 to 1930 and three provinces between 1958 – 1976.

In the aftermath of Vatican II, the American Province of the SHCJ began social justice initiatives. Sisters worked abroad in countries such as Chile were four American SHCJ sisters taught in the Santa Rosa school, Lo Barnechea from 1966. Sisters also began work in poorer communities in states where they had not been based before: Alabama, Florida and Ohio. American SHCJ and attorney Sr Ann M. Durst set up Casa Cornelia Law Center with Sr Mary Wayne Gradon in August 1992. Based in San Diego, the centre continues to provide legal support to victims of human and civil rights violations.

Although, like the European Province, the SHCJ in America is aging, their Province chapter pledged to continue in ‘a spirit of courageous hope and joy’ as the SHCJ spirit fostered in 19^th century Towanda continues through the American sisters, the Network of Schools and SHCJ Associates.