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- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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LEST WE FORGET
The Sisters of Providence of St.Mary-of-the-Woods in Civil War Service
Mary Theodosia Mug
LACONIA PUBLISHERS
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Copyright © 2016 by Mary Theodosia Mug
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LEST WE FORGET
Report of the Surgeons of the Military Hospital
City General Hospital
Our City General Hospital
Hospital Routine
Lest We Forget
THE SISTERS OF PROVIDENCE
OF ST. MARY-OF-THE-WOODS
IN CIVIL WAR SERVICE.
By
SISTER MARY THEODOSIA MUG
LEST WE FORGET
LEST WE FORGET, OLD STORIES must be retold. And lest we depart from the high sentiments that inspired heroic nobleness in the past, old pictures must be reproduced. In emulating bygone glories those finer impulses will be developed that are a guaranty of ever-increasing worth, and will prove again that “a nation’s greatness lies in its men, not acres.”
Our historians have covered Indiana’s story with considerable thoroughness; yet, there is one subject that has been only lightly touched upon, namely: the Military Hospital at Indianapolis during the Civil War. This is due to lack of material.
During the years of stress there was no time, seemingly, to write at length, and when leisure came after the War the matter was neglected or postponed in favor of new issues of the moment. Whatever the cause, postponement has had its regrettable consequences.
The sketch here presented contains, besides the newspaper stories and editorials of the War-time, data secured from the Community records of the institution at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. Very little of this material has hitherto been published. In the present awakening of interest in everything connected with Indiana history, this brief narrative, then, will have its place and value.
The building that served as a Military Hospital in Indianapolis during the Civil War was the old City Hospital located in a then unimproved plat near Fall Creek and Locke Street. It was in charge of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. As the story of the hospital is inseparable from that of the Sisters in service there, some details of the order may be of general interest.
The Sisterhood of Providence originated at Ruille-sur-Loir, France, in 1806, and was organized to meet the pitiful conditions prevailing after the catastrophe of the Great Revolution. The care of disabled victims, and of the sick and suffering of all classes, was traditionary in appeal and purpose of those communities whose foundation lines ran so close to the tremendous upheaval, and there was widespread need of the nurse’s devotedness as well as of the educator’s arduous toil.
The founder of the Sisters of Providence was the Rev. Jacques Dujarie, a confessor of the faith, who was ordained in a cellar and said his first Mass in a barn, and suffered great persecutions throughout the Reign of Terror. The first Mother General of the society was Mile. Josephine Zoe du Roscoat, daughter of Count Casimir du Roscoat, one of the noted exiles of the Revolution. Called the “Angel of Ploermel,” for her work among the poor and suffering; of middle age, educated, experienced in the direction of others, and religiously devoted, she was just such a one as Abbe Dujarie needed for his newly-founded community; and kind Providence sent her to him.
Her example and prestige drew many others to the little society, among the number being Mother Theodore Guerin, the foundress of St. Mary-of-the-Woods. Mother Theodore and her five associates arrived at their wilderness home, live miles beyond the Wabash River west of Terre Haute, Indiana, October 22, 1840. Although the Indiana foundation was made chiefly for educational purposes, the religious Rule included in its scope the care of the sick at their homes or in hospitals. Mother Theodore had made in France a four year course in medicine and pharmacy. One of the other pioneer Sisters had had some hospital training. Together they would carry on in the New World, and prepare others to carry on, this work of mercy and zeal as occasion offered. Primitive as was the beginning at St. Mary-of-the-Woods, a pharmacy was started, and the care of the sick of the neighborhood was a regular occupation in the Community. Many instances of heroism in the discharge of these duties were recorded. At times when the roads were impassable and the cold intense, the Sisters would set out on foot to give succor several miles away, falling often, sometimes crawling over the ice, and all but perishing from exhaustion, bruises, and cold. Once, in the middle of the night, when a courier came for the priest to attend a man who had been crushed by a falling tree, the priest not being at home, Mother Theodore mounted a horse, and with Sister Olympiade riding behind her, holding on in very agony of fear, she followed the courier through the dark woods, in peril at every moment. Doing what she could to ease the sufferings of the injured man, she then prepared his soul to meet its Judge, and remained praying with him until daybreak, when, after Father Corbe’s arrival and administration of the sacraments, she closed his eyes in death.
Mother Theodore’s example infused courage into the hearts of her Sisters, and a devotedness to the work of caring for the sick and afflicted that took deep root in the Community, The chief work of the order, however, was education. Various establishments were opened in the course of time, besides the boarding school (St. Mary’s Academy) founded at the Mother House in 1841, an institution that took rank among the best in the country.
