Dating back from the founding of the Province, the Archive contains at least basic information about all the Sisters of the province. In the 20th and 21st centuries, we usually have a little more information, such as a formal obituary, a few accounts, or newspaper clippings. Sometimes we even have a few pieces of personal memorabilia about a Sister. But sometimes, we are fortunate enough that a Sister will donate pieces of her own family history, which illustrates both her pathway to the Sisterhood and brings to life a subject in its own right.
Recently, Sister Francine Brown was kind enough to donate a collection of her family materials to the Archives. Sister Francine is a second-generation American who has spent most of her ministry with and for persons with intellectual and physical disabilities and their families or as an interpreter. Her health care background, along with her knowledge and fluency in French stem from her mother and grandmother before her.
Julia Durupt Guérin, Sister’s grandmother, married Alfred Eugène Georges Guérin in 1919, after World War I, in eastern France. She began her nursing service in 1938 in Paris, on the eve of World War II, after receiving her State nursing certification. She rose to the rank of supervisor and later Director of the OB Department at La Maternité in Paris. For her hospital service during the War and the Occupation, she was awarded the Departmental and Municipal Medal of Honor in 1949 for her service at the Lariboisiére.
As an aside, Sister Francine donated many of her grandfather’s service records, including a diary with artillery sketches, to the World War I Museum in Meaux, France. The Daughters of Charity Archives does have copies, along with a bullet that he sculpted for his fiancée. The bullet is not live or active; we checked.
Madeleine Julia Guérin Brown, Sister Francine’s mother, was born in 1923 and followed in her own mother’s footsteps, receiving her State nursing diploma in 1948. In the same year, she married an American former soldier, Howard Nelson Brown and left France for the United States. She received her naturalized citizenship in 1952.
Growing up in the chaos and uncertainty of the War, Madeleine had changed schools several times. She did not have proof of completing or graduating from high school, and her nursing diploma was not considered reciprocal for receiving her nursing registration in the United States. This meant that she had to go through the arduous process of receiving letters of practice and good conduct (from oversees to boot) and obtaining a high school equivalence certificate. All of this in spite of her working in good conduct and standing, to the level that her supervisor called “of superior quality” (this letter is also in the collection). She at last received her certification as a registered nurse in 1971 for the District of Columbia.
In addition to the family history it entails, the collection is a valuable tool for looking at the professionalization of the nursing profession. The Daughters of Charity, as a French community, have their own parallel history with this subject as they confronted the increased regimen of examinations and certifications, both with the scientific subject of nursing and the waves of secularization in France in the centuries since the Revolution. They even share a history of having distinctive head coverings! Yet it also shows the human level that a person will go to fulfill their duty.
This collection, for the time, is available with the permission of Sister Francine (you may contact the Archives about access). It presents a full background of a Daughter of Charity and her family, the origins of her vocation, and her particular vocation within a religious community with a strong Franco-American history.
