Category Archives: U.S. Presidents

February 3, 2014 · 10:16 am

DCs and Presidents – John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams, President, 1825-1829

In February we remember the birthdays of two of the nation’s greatest presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. During the month of February we will be highlighting connections between the Daughters of Charity and Presidents of the Unites States. We begin with John Quincy Adams, President from 1825-1829.

To enable the Sisters to own real estate in the District of Columbia, Congress incorporated the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s, together with the Sisters of the Visitation of Georgetown, in a single act which was signed by Adams May 24, 1828. The original act named 61 Sisters (probably all in the Community at that time) and their successors as long as they remained in the Sisterhood, and the corporation was given perpetual existence.

The Sisters’ ministry in Washington DC began in 1825, when they were asked to staff a free school, known as St. Vincent’s. Their small cottage soon served as an orphanage as well as a day school. Before the end of the first year there were thirty orphans. In 1831, at the request of Father Deagle of Saint Peter’s Parish, sisters were sent to open Saint Paul’s Academy on Capitol Hill, a pay academy to support a free school. The school was well patronized, but the sisters had no opportunity for Mass and the sacraments, and so the Community withdrew in 1834. Daughters of Charity ministries in Washington which are still active include St. Ann’s Center for Children , founded in 1850, and Providence Hospital, founded in 1861.

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January 8, 2014 · 3:21 pm

LBJ and Daughters of Charity

lyndon-johnson-sr-josephine-aitchison-1967

(Photo used with permission of the Daughters of Charity Provincial Archives)
Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty in his now-famous speech. Three years later, on June 21, 1967, he celebrated the birth of his first grandchild, Patrick Lyndon Nugent, at Seton Hospital in Austin, Texas, where the baby was born to his daughter, Luci Baines Johnson Nugent. Before entering the facility, the President was warmly congratulated by another “president,” Sr. Josephine Aitchison, D.C., head of the hospital, as memorialized in this photograph from the hospital newsletter. Today, we are reminded that both Johnson and the Daughters of Charity, in their own way, waged war on poverty, a challenge the Daughters have undertaken since 1633.

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November 22, 2013 · 3:30 am

November 25, the Kennedys, and the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth

Jackie Kennedy letter

Letter from Jackie Kennedy to the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (Courtesy Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Archival Center)

Guest post by Kathy Hertel-Baker, Director, Archival Center, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (KY).

November 25. Most people, if they associate this day with anything at all, associate it with the funeral and burial of a young President, taken from us too soon, with a young widow and her grieving family, and a three-year old child, saluting the body of his father, too young to understand the horror of what was happening. But, before that somber day in 1963, November 25 had a very different association for the Kennedy family. On that day in 1960, John F. Kennedy, Jr. was born at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C., at that time administered by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. The SCNs cared for the newborn and his elated parents, then President-elect John Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline. ‘John-John’, as he was affectionately known, arrived a month early, much to the surprise of his young parents. His father was in Florida at the time and received word of the birth while on the plane back to Washington. Sister Mary Evangelist, SCN, the administrator at Georgetown, presided over the crowd of reporters in the lobby waiting for word of the birth, releasing as much information as she was allowed and trying to keep everyone calm and comfortable. She met Mr. Kennedy when he finally arrived at the hospital and escorted him to his wife’s room. When she returned to speak with the press, she commented that the President-elect “was all smiles. We all congratulated him. Everybody is excited. We never had anything like this.” A few days later, Jacqueline Kennedy sent a personal note of thanks to the Sisters who had cared for her and the newest addition to their family. She included a check with the note, asking the Sisters “to get something nice for Christmas for all the nuns who were so good to me.” The Sisters used this gift to purchase a set of china to use in the Georgetown convent. Little could they have known the deep sorrow that would be enveloping them just three short years later. But until then, November 25, was a day of joy and celebration for the Kennedy family and the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth who helped bring their son into the world.

China

Some of the china purchased by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth with Jackie Kennedy’s gift (Courtesy Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Archival Center)

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