Public 111111/tle aud S()ciat Welfare Work
the advice of Bishop Dubuis, sent Sisters Madeline, Agnes, and Pierra to San Antonio, Texas, on March 9, 1869, to open a Catholic Hospital. The first two had been members of the Galveston Congregation for over a year and the third was a novice who had been in Galveston only six months at the time. Father Ansteadt had acquired a house for the projected hospital in San Antonio to which several rooms had been added, but before the Sisters opened it as a hospital, a fire destroyed most of the building on March 22. Undaunted, Father Ansteadt immediately began building a new one. "It is our intention," he said, "to push with all possible dispatch the completion of the Hospital ... the encouragement we have received from one and all the good people of San Antonio makes us feel assured we shall soon have the much needed institution of charity prepared for the reception of the sick." 14 But misfortune seemed to hound the project. The first week in July, when the walls of a new rock building were completed and the roof was going to be put on, a wall gave way and m.'<>re funds had to be collected to start again. The response of the people was prompt and generous. Messrs. Twohig and Guilbeau each gave a thousand dollars, and many contributed as much as five hundred apiece. By August the damage had been repaired and the flooring was being finished. The three Sisters who came from Galveston stayed with the Ursulines meantime, and were joined in June by Sister Mary of Jesus. In October, 1869, at long last, they had the pleasure of taking possession and opening the first private Catholic Hospital in San Antonio since the days of the missions. It was a two-story brick and stone building, which was operated until early in 1870 as a branch of the newly founded Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of Galveston. Due to the distance and difficulty of travel in those days and the rumorecl division cf the diocese, the new foundation was rendered independent of the Galveston Community by Bishop Dubuis. The convent of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of the Diocese of San Antonio since then has become the Motherhouse of numerous branches in the United States and Mexico. The rules of the two communities have remained essen- tially the same.u The expansion of the work of the Galveston Community to Houston and 14 Letter of Father Ansteadt to Bishop Dubuis, March, 1869. C. A. T. 15 For details of the establishment of the San Antonio foundation, see Chapter VIII. Cf. Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of Galveston, Dianw,uJ Jubilee, 1866-1941, pp. 27-28.
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