011r Catholic Heritage in T ezas
a Little Mothers' Club and to teach classes in home nursing. In 1946 St. Paul's of Dallas Sisters of Charity, 24 in number, aided by 180 student nurses provided care for T 5.000 patients. and 80,000 treatments in the Clinic. Seton Hospital, Austin, I9n1. Almost ten years before the establish- ment of Seton Infirmary, as it was originally called, a charitable associa- tion of Catholic and Protestant women was formed to visit and care for the sick an<l needy, known as St. Vincent Aid Society." It was this society, under the patronage of the great apostle of the poor and sick, St. Vincent de Paul, that became the inspirational force that decided the Superior of the Sisters of Charity at Emmitsburg to accept the invitation to come to Austin in preference to many other larger and richer towns which were then clamoring for their services and offering them much more attractive inducements. The daughters of St. Vincent de Paul, whose Motherhouse is at Emmits- burg, Maryland, had, by the turn of the century, obtained an enviable reputation throughout the United States for their splendid works of charity. They were being solicited and offered substantial aid to open modem hospitals for the care of the sick and the poor everywhere. Austin had little to offer other than the advantages of being in the center of the great State of Texas and its capital. but it had one appeal that impressed the Superiors of the order and decided them to accept the invitation. The Aid Society had made it clear it was a poor place, with less than 25,000 inhabitants, where there was urgent need for Christian charity in an area long neglected. A writer on the subject has aptly commented on the incident in these words. "Realizing the spiritual need as well as the physical poverty which characterized central Texas in those early days, the Sisters . .. decided to establish a foundation in Austin."' 9 Before their coming, the Aid Society appointed a committee of five, Mesdames A. F. Martin, Mike Butler, W. R. Homby, and Sweetie Villeneuve, with Mrs. Thomas F. Taylor as chairman, to raise funds for the new hospital. A benefit operetta given on July 8, 1897 at the old Hyde Park Pavilion. located where Baker School stands today. was 41 Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, The Golden Jubilee of Seton Hospital, 1891-1951 [pp. 19-20]. Sister Mary Climacus Shelly in Catholic Hospitalization ;,, Tnas, says the association was founded by Catholic women, who were helped in their works of charity by all citizens alike. One of the purposes was "to see that Catholic patients in the city hospital did not die without the sacraments." See o'/) &it., 100. "Shelly, t>'/J. cu., 99.
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