Ramsey County History – Winter 2001: “Attacked by a Starving Wolf—Four Sisters of St. Joseph And Their Mission To St. Paul: Patience, Courage, Joyfulness in a Crude Log Cabin”

Attacked by a Starving Wolf—Four Sisters of St. Joseph And Their Mission To St. Paul: Patience, Courage, Joyfulness in a Crude Log Cabin

Author: Sister Ann Thomasine Sampson

In November of 1851 four young nuns of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet arrived in the dreary hamlet of St. Paul, invited there by Bishop Joseph Cretin. During the rest of that decade they established schools, a hospital, and an orphanage, taught children of many of the notable pioneer families, ministered to Indians, cared for victims of the 1854 cholera epidemic, and spread their mission work to St. Anthony and Long Lake. Their work lived on for many years in St. Joseph’s Academy (now the site of Christ’s Household of Faith) and St. Joseph’s Hospital. This article, drawn from the author’s book, Seeds on Good Ground, traces the lives of the four sisters from their origins through their fates after leaving St. Paul, plus the history of the order and its work in North America before 1851. It also offers details of life in St. Paul in the 1850s. Illustrated with five photos, two maps, and five drawings or paintings (including front and back covers.)

PDF of Sampson article