Sister Thomas Joseph McGoldrick SSJ
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 0
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The incredible story about the role of the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, who came to Florida and Georgia immediately following the Civil War in 1866 to educate the liberated slaves. Florida's first Bishop, Augustin Verot invited the Sisters from the City of Le Puy, south central France, where the Congregation had been founded in 1650. The central piece of the story is about the first eight Sisters and those who followed them in establishing free schools, academies, the founding of orphanages, nursing during yellow fever epidemics (1877, 1888), teaching in public schools, americanization of the congregation, dynamics in dealing with Bishops in America, separation and excommunication, teaching the Apache Indians, and their arrest in 1916 for teaching Black students. Much of the story is told through letters written by the French Sisters to their comrades and family members in France in the late 1800's.