In this post, we’d like to highlight two small oddities in the Archives, relatively simple records of the Sisters and an awkward accommodation with the government.
The first comes from a small, now defunct government office called the Bureau of Industrial Alcohol.
The document itself is located within a folder named “Various Corporate Certificates,” containing letters, approvals, and resolutions that, while necessary to conduct the business of the Sisters, are relatively mundane. The association with a government office such as the Bureau of Industrial Alcohol is the first thing that is peculiar.
This is explained when you look at the date, April 8, 1933. Through December of 1933, Prohibition in the United States was still in effect, placing Sisters, priests, and many Catholics in a theological bind – How were Catholics to partake in Communion when wine was illegal?
The Volstead Act of 1920 had carved out exemptions for alcohol used for medicinal purposes and specifically for wine “for sacramental purposes or like religious rites,” but this required a permit from a commissioner to do so. Thus, a letter in the official documents governing the province from a minor government office in Baltimore.
It is also worth noting that the letter addresses the Sisters as “Gentlemen” in its greeting, as the assumption of the time was that only men would be serving on a corporate board.
The letter, however, brings up a problem. The government office had received their permit application, but the Treasurer of the community was not a recognized agent to work with the Bureau. Prohibition was in its thirteenth and final year of enactment in the United States; this was not a new rule the Sisters were complying with at this point.
A hint for this comes when looking at the Treasurers of the Community. Sister Bernard Orndorff had served as Treasurer for the Eastern Province for over 30 years, from 1901 to 1933, but had to abruptly resign for health reasons in February. Indeed, just the year before, the corporate minutes of the Province show that the Sisters had petitioned for the very same form (although the alcohol was not for liturgical purposes, but “for their laboratories and infirmaries,” presumably at St. Joseph College in Emmitsburg).
Succeeding Sister Bernard as Treasurer was Sister Mary Loretta McGinness. The helpful permitting agent pointed out, though, that Sister Bernard was still the authorized agent to work with the Bureau. Thus, he advised the Sisters to pass a resolution authorizing their new Treasurer to be named as the official person to work with the Bureau, which the Sisters then did.
This process would soon be rendered moot when the 21st Amendment was ratified in December of 1933, essentially abolishing the government departments meant to enforce Prohibition and leading to the consolidation of the remaining ones into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A month before this letter was sent, President Franklin Roosevelt had signed the Cullen-Harrison Act, which defined drinks with alcohol content up to 3.2% as not legally alcoholic for the purposes of the Volstead Act. The agent seems very lenient with the requirements for the permit from the Sisters – it is a mere act of their board and a piece of paperwork that is missing, and the permit would be granted.
Prohibition is a curiosity of an era in American history, possibly from its coinciding with the Roaring 1920s, possibly from its constitutional oddity and the shortness of its enaction. Nonetheless, it had a wide effect on American life during its 13-year national lifespan, with a few bureaucratic records showing that the lives of the Sisters were no exception.
Sister Bernard OrndorffSister Mary Loretta McGinness
In April 2022, the Archivist for another community of Sisters reached out to a number of other Archivists from other religious communities, asking about a Sister Loretto O’Reilly who served in the Civil War. The Daughters were able to claim her, so we responded.
The Archivist went on to say that she had a set of letters written from Sister Loretto to her uncle in their collection and would like to repatriate the letters back to their home collection. We happily agreed to accept the letters when she next travelled through the area next.
Two and a half years later, the transfer finally happened.
Prior to the transfer, the Archives had some information about Sister Loretto. We knew she was born Mary Ann O’Reilly. She immigrated from Ireland in 1853 and that her parents were farmers. We know she joined the Community in 1855 and served in a few schools and infant homes prior to 1861. When the Civil War began, she served as a nurse in Cliffburne and Lincoln Hospitals in Washington, D.C., where she acquired the moniker “Guardian Angel of the Ambulance.” She became the second administrator of Providence Hospital in Washington in 1865, a position that stemmed from her work at the D.C. hospitals, where she was vital in establishing the Hospital in the post-war years. She died at age 37 in 1869 of an early-onset heart condition.
There are two known photos of Sister Loretto.
As best as we can conclude, the letters were used by a Sister of St. Joseph as a teaching tool, coming from their Wichita chapter. They are marked as “Found in Sister Margaret Mary Sheehan’s Educational folder.” In total, there are six complete letters from Sister Loretto to her uncle, one incomplete letter between the same, and one additional incomplete letter from her uncle to a woman named Mary.
Prior to these letters, we did not believe any of her own personal accounts still existed. The information about her time in the War came from the Civil War Annals, and, while these are massively valuable resources, they suffer from two drawbacks. First, they were written as recollections in 1866, not as accounts written in the moment. And second, they often discussed locations in general in a few pages, not the works of individuals. At Cliffburne Hospital, accounts describe a night of 64 men arriving, with “only eight [who] had all their limbs.” In spite of the challenges, doctors and nurses tried very hard to care for their patients’ physical and spiritual conditions, among the challenges being an outbreak of smallpox that required quarantining of some soldiers. Alongside the Sisters’ works, there was also evidence of collaboration with the government, with accounts of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln herself bringing donations of supplies to soldiers who had been in residence for an extended period of time!
The letters go into much more extensive detail about life and work at the Hospitals. On August 10, 1862, Sister notes that there are 15 Sisters and 13 doctors working at Cliffburne, with attendants to do “the cleaning, etc.” She also described the political state of the Hospital: “When we first came here there were nearly two hundred Confederate prisioners [sic] confined here. Many of them badly wounded but as they got better they were taken to the old Capitol and confined there until they were exchanged.” They received care, and she notes with some surprise that the “Confederates got more visitors than the Union soldiers.”
Her November 28th, 1862 letter attests to a few conversions among the soldiers, but shows her anguish at what she considers many soldier’s “indifference” to their spiritual lives. She goes into detail about the Cliffburne itself, describing it as a converted barracks for the cavalry, so many of the wards are actually horse stables: “It is a very nice place for a summer Hospital, but it is inconvient [sic] for winter.” She says that the Hospital fit 2,000, that their patient population had topped off at about 1,400, but was down to 600 by November. “I think it is about one mile square or neally [sic] so. There are seven long wooden wards or Barracks each containing seventy-five beds and forty-two tents each contanes [sic] eighteen beds, scattered about a large space besides there are a number of other buildings such as store houses, kitchens mess rooms etc.”
By April 26, 1863, Sister Loretto had relocated to Lincoln, the largest field hospital in Washington: “It is composed of twenty large wards or Barracks build in the form of a V, ten each side and one large one in the center which is used as head quarters the Doctors rooms, offices, dispensary, etc. Each Ward holds from sixty to seventy beds, they are high and well ventilated.” Her personal thoughts: “I like the Wards and the hospital generally but the situation is miserable. It is a swampy hollow place and a perfect mud hole.” They had begun receiving patients shortly before Christmas 1862 from the Battle of Fredericksburg. The Battle was one of the most lopsided victories for the Confederacy of the War, and Sister calls it “not a Battle but a slaughter [emphasis hers].” By May 1, 1863, many of the soldiers from this battle are still at the Hospital, and Sister notes that “I saw them realize what War is or at least see the fruits of it.”
By July 3, 1863, there had been even more major battles: “Since my last letter to you we received a number of sick and wounded. The wounded were all from a cavalry fight a short distance from here [likely the Battle of Brandy Station on June 9, 1863]. They were brought to the hospital the day after the battle. They are not making preparations for a great many from the battles now going on [possibly Gettysburg]. Nearly all the prisoners have been exchanged. We have only ten or twelve here now. Only a few of them died.” She expresses the hope for the end of the War: “I am sure you have heard of the great excitement in this quarter for weeks past. I wish every day more and more that this war ended. It is dreadful to think of the number of poor souls plunged daily into eternity and the misery brought into thousands of homes. Tho so long accustomed to witness their sufferings I can not get used to it.” Finally, her time with the common soldiers revealed to her the longstanding and common divide across time, generations, and Wars between the common enlistees and draftees and their commanding officers, particularly after the long string of losses the United States suffered early in the early years of the War: “The poor men too, are so discouraged at (as they say themselves) getting whipped all the time and blame their officers very much with very few exceptions they all seem tired and disgusted with the war.”
In the last letter of hers in the collection, from November 1, 1864, an incomplete letter, she comments on the soldiers’ and their political talk in the wards, as they expect more wounded from the battlefields in Virginia, and her note that many of the soldiers she encounters tend to be supporting the election of the former general Scott McClellen over President Lincoln in the upcoming election.
As fascinating as her accounts of the Hospital and wartime life are, the letters help flesh out her life in far more detail than we have ever had before. Based on these, we are able to draw conclusions about her early life and her family life far more than we ever have before. She makes reference to writing to her parents, entirely separately from her uncle and apparently back in Ireland: “I was truly sorry to hear such accounts of our poor Ireland and it makes me still more anxious to hear from my parents.” When Sister Loretto immigrated to the United States in 1853, Ireland was still in the worst days of the Great Famine, and she brings up two names of siblings as well, Mage and Lizzy. By July 3, 1863, they have relocated to Dublin, despite listing her father’s occupation on her community entry papers as “Farmer.” Seemingly, the city offered better opportunities than continuing to farm.
The final letter in the collection was written by her uncle in 1870, a year after Sister Loretto’s death, postmarked from Atchison, Kansas. Regarding her early life, he writes that “Since she left Saint Louis we kept up a regular correspondence. Her letters were always interesting to me and I miss her on that account as well as for their feelings. Though her education was not expensive her letters show that she made good use of the opportunities that she got to learn.” It seems likely that her uncle was her sponsor when she emigrated, and she possibly lived with him, considering the separation of her uncle and the rest of her family across the sea. She also received some level of schooling, possibly from one of the many Daughters of Charity institutions in St. Louis at the time.
It is even more impressive what he wrote about the final stages of Sister Loretto’s life, events which otherwise have not made it into the historical record and shows just how much the nursing prowess of the Daughters was respected in Washington. “A Member of Congress invited her to command their Carriages when she wished to take recreation, but she never used that privilege. The President even paid her the honour of a visit. Thadeus Stephens” – the famous Congressman and advocate of a Radical Reconstruction following the Civil War – “a member of Congress who successfully contended for a grant of money to assist in building Providence Hospital was at the point of death. Mary Ann [Sister Loretto] with several Sisters visited their dying friend and with the consent of those present she Baptized the dying Statesman.
Thaddeus Stevens, courtesy Library of Congress
These letters are not just a massively valuable addition to the Daughters’ Civil War collection, they illustrate a remarkable life that, while far shorter than it should have been, made an impact on hundreds or even thousands. It is a tribute to the nurses, the combat doctors, the Irish diaspora, and, certainly, the Daughters of Charity.
The letters are available for researchers alongside the rest of the Civil War collection.
January 8, 1875: “Today we received the sad intelligence that our dear Sisters are to be driven from their homes in Mexico by a Godless government. Not less two hundred and fifty of them torn from the poor, the sick and the dear orphans.”
-Provincial Annals, Province of the United States
The Daughters’ Archive details a number of dramatic events in national and international history alongside those of the Community. In 1875, international and Community history collided in the Restored Mexican Republic and made refugees of the Daughters of Charity themselves. Their American sisters took them in and provided them with the chance to maintain their lives and vocations.
Since 1857, Mexico had been a Republic with no official religion. After a brief intervention by the French Empire and the defeat of Emperor Maximilian in 1867, the republican nature of the country was restored. Attempts to seize land of those who had collaborated with Maximilian, however, led to protests and uprisings in the years afterward. Among those considered allied with Maximilian was the Catholic Church.
In 1875, President Lerdo seized the property of the Daughters of Charity in Mexico under the Law for the Nationalization of Ecclesiastical Properties. Over 400 Daughters were deported, most of them citizens of Mexico. Most notably among the institutions the Daughters were forced to abandon were the hospitals of the capital city, and their departure saw crowds turn up and weep on the fateful day they left. About 80 Daughters came to the United States, with others going to Spain and France.
Much of the correspondence between the American Visitatrix – Sister Euphemia Blenkinsop – and her counterpart in Mexico has been lost. The Provincial Annals provide the most detailed dates of the arrival of the Sisters to the U.S., with the first group of 21 sisters having arrived in New Orleans on February 2 and the second group of 45 arriving in San Francisco on February 19. Based on the surviving letter of February 5, this was not exactly in the plan, as Mother Blenkinsop asked that “the greater number…be sent by New Orleans.”
Sister Ignatia Bruce described the arrival in San Francisco, where the Daughters on mission there, along with about one hundred students of their schools, went to see and show how to welcome refugees:
In compliance with the Archbishop’s wish, we, with about one hundred of the larger day scholars went to meet them. We were on the wharf nearly an hour before the steamer made its appearance. By special request several officers were on the spot to see that everything was attended to. They were indeed very kind and had everything taken out of the way, so the children might stand just where the steamer would land.
Letter from Archbishop Alemany of San Francisco
Sister Ignatia went on to describe the comedic scene that took place as everyone present ran against the language barrier, as the Daughters from Mexico did not speak English. They did, however, have carriages arranged, which took them to the School in order to give the Mexican sisters their first meal on shore and to make sure they had warm clothes for the San Francisco cold. With only two of the American sisters present speaking Spanish, they found that they easiest way to communicate was sign language:
Meantime the Sisters were getting acquainted with each other. None of the Mexicans understood one word of English and of the Californians but two spoke Spanish. But some of them had a smattering of the language and though they might count the words they knew, even so much was not to be lost. And then, some three or four had acquired a slight knowledge of the language of Deaf-mutes. This was brought into service too, and as the signs were of the simplest nature they were intelligible to all. Laughable mistakes were sometimes made. One of the California Sisters for instance sympathetically inquired “if they were married?” instead of “if they were tired,” the words of the Spanish being similar. But, their gentle courtesy understood the proper question and graciously answered “No.”
Sister Candida Brennan at St. Simeon’s School in New Orleans offered her own account of the arrival of the refugee Daughters there:
Ere this arrives you will have heard that our dear Mexican Sisters, twenty two in number, are with us. Mother, Sisters Agnes Slavin, Andrea Gibbs and myself went as far as Algiers to meet them yesterday evening. The train arrived at four o’clock p.m. The last car contained the long expected guests. When they caught sight of our cornettes they nearly jumped out of the cars. Then, such a silent conversation! The eyes spoke what the tongue refused to utter. Sister was able to speak some Spanish and I said all the Spanish words I knew regardless of sense or connection, so between us, we made them feel quite welcome. Of all the sights you ever saw, none surpassed them! They had worn their cornettes for three weeks, through all kinds of weather and in all places. Their blue aprons were patched, pieced and padded with all the shades of blue that ever born the name. Their shawls were not only unlike, but of all colors white, black, grey and I think one was yellow. As to the bundles, bags, band boxes, tin cans, baskets, you can forme no idea, some of which were so heavy that it required two Sisters to carry one of them.
Many of the foreign Daughters were missioned to Paris or to Panama by mid-summer of 1875. A few stayed around for a few more years serving in some of the missions in California. In 1880, Sister Carlota Gazea wrote back to the United States from Panama:
I have kept silence a long time, but it was only the month that ceased to speak for want of time, but my heart is always full of gratitude towards you and I have you all present in my poor prayers. You know my dear Sister, the confidence I always have had in you, and that I have chosen you to be my interpreter with our esteemed Mother Euphemia, and as the principal object of my letter is to wish her a happy feast. I beg you to do it for me choosing the most affectionate and energetic words of the English language and all that your loving and grateful heart may dictate to you.
Four sisters served in California until 1880 when they were missioned to Ecuador. In 1882, the last sisters who had been exiled were missioned to El Salvador. They, too, wrote in their gratitude for their American sisters’ fulfillment of the demand to help those in need and in exile.
Our colleagues at the Archives of the Province of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Los Altos, CA have their own accounts of this event in their collections. They recently posted some of them here.
docarchivesblog.org 