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Ottr C atleol-ic IIeritage in T ezas
1880 states that the "spacious wards of St. Mary's Infirmary" were being used for the purpose of teaching. The professor of clinical surgery was Dr. C. H. Wilkinson, chief surgeou of St. Mary's Infirmary and one of its most devoted friends. 11 Growtli and Development. With the death of.Mother Blandine in the middle of August, 1867, the newly established Order reached its lowest ebb. Before the year was out good Bishop Dubuis, then in France, sent the afflicted Sisters the glad tidings that six more postulants had volun- teered to join the Texas Order frollll other French convents. The S. S. Austin, which arrived in Galveston on December 4, 1867, brought four Sisters: Agnes, Madeline, Martha, and Mary. The other two volunteers who had taken the habit, Sisters Incarnation and Raphael, were detained in New Orleans by illness and did not arrive until December 12. Father Chambadut had, in the meantime, succeeded in finishing the octagonal wooden structure begun a few months before, which was to serve as the chapel and was dedicated to Our Lady of Fourviere, the patron of the city of Lyons, France. The community of eight joyfully and gratefully attended a solemn High Mass on Christmas Day, 1867, after which Bishop Dubuis formally named Mother Joseph, then twenty-eight years c,ld, the second superioress of the little Congregation. 12 In January, 1868, three aspirants from Galveston, the first volunteers from the Island, en- tered the community, bringing up the membership to eleven. By the end of the year it had grown to twenty members. Tlte Cummunity Branclz.es O,,e. In response to the urgent request of Father Querat, of St. Vincent's Church in Houston, Mother Joseph ap- pointed Sisters St. Ange, Clare, and Mary in the winter of 1868 to take charge of a parish school under a contract by which the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of the Diocese of Galveston would take care of the school for four years. The projected school was opened on April I, 1869. Although well attended and successful from the beginning, the Sisters returned to Galveston in 1873 as their contract stipulated, and were then replaced by Nuns of the Incarnate Word from Victoria, who have continued in this work in Houston ever since. 15 Beginning of the Work in San Antonio. In fulfillment of the promise made in the midst of the yellow fever epidemic of 1868, Mother Joseph, on 11 See the Texas Medical College Catalogue for 1880-1881; also Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Golden Jubile11, 38. 1%/bid., 22. JSSisters of the Incarnate Word, Annals, 1868.
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