by M. Doretta Cornell, RDC
Since Tuesday is our 127th anniversary, I’d like to share a bit about the beginning of the Sisters of the Divine Compassion (RDCs).
Each time I look through our history, I see different patterns. Today, the adaptations our founders made to meet the needs of immigrant children of their time stand out.
Our Founders:
Mary Caroline Dannat Starr, later Mother Mary Veronica, came from a wealthy New York family. In the 1860's, a recent convert to Catholicism and mother of two sons, she began the work that would shape the rest of her life.
Our co-Founder, Thomas S. Preston, was a local parish priest and noted preacher. After hearing him preach, Mary turned to him for advice. Father, later Monsignor, Preston became her friend, spiritual advisor, and mainstay in the work and the formation of the community.
Soon after Mary joined a friend at a mission school for mostly Irish immigrant children in lower Manhattan, she was invited to establish a similar school at St. Bernard’s parish, in one of the most squalid tenement districts of the time. With Mrs. Catherine Emmet, and encouraged by Monsignor Preston, Mary took up the challenge.
The Beginnings of The Work
When opening day arrived, not even one child showed up.
Adaptation began immediately: Mary nd Mrs. Emmet sought out little girls on the street and invited them for candy and peaches. Seeing how needy the girls were, the women abandoned their plan to meet once a week, and the girls returned a few days later.
By Christmas, 150 little girls came regularly to learn simple prayers, basics of their faith, and beginner sewing stitches. Soon after, finding that many of the children were homeless or had no stable home, Mary rented a building to house 45 little girls.
When the girls’ older sisters asked for help, Mary gathered some well-off friends to form The Association for Befriending Children and Young Girls, to support the work and share the labors.
Mary insisted that the children be treated with love and respect, to erase the traits of tough street life. They wore pretty dresses and ordinary shoes, so that they would not “acquire an institutional gait,” as Mary put it. The older girls, some of whom had supported themselves as prostitutes or thieves, were forbidden to speak of their past to any but Mary, so that they too would learn to see themselves and each other as worthy young women.
Besides fostering their spiritual development, Mary ensured that both younger and older girls became adept at skills to prepare them for respectable work and decent marriage. Neither would have been on their horizons as street children.
Within a few years, the school moved into two building in Monsignor Preston’s parish. One hundred little girls lived in St. Ann’s, and the older girls in the House of the Holy Family.
New Needs
In the 1870's financial crisis, Mary organized “outdoor relief” to meet the desperation of young women. During the first year, 2,000 women received food, clothing or lodging, and jobs were found for 142 more. Mary and her colleagues also began visiting local hospitals, offering spiritual comfort and instruction to needy patients.
Still more adaptation came when Italian immigration expanded: Mary opened schools for these children to learn about their Catholic faith as they learned English.
Always, as the young women moved out into the work world, Mary and Monsignor Preston continued to invite them back for spiritual and social meetings. Mary also corresponded with many of them for years.
The Beginning of a Religious Community
Over the years, Monsignor Preston and Mary began to dream of a religious community to carry on their work. They searched for an established community amenable to continuing their work. Finding none, and both being drawn to Sts. Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal, they created a new community based on God’s compassion.
Mary had pictured herself as a member of a community, but she reluctantly acquiesced to Monsignor Preston’s insistence that she was best suited to lead the new community. However, when the community began on July 2, 1886, she was not able to make her vows: she still had responsibility for her sons. Two other women became the first Sisters of the Divine Compassion.
Only after a full year was Mary able to become a Sister. That day was one of mingled joy and grief. In October, her son Chandler suffered a severe head injury while horseback riding. Although Mary tried to care for him at home, he had to be institutionalized for the rest of his life. When her other son, Walter, married in June of 1887, Mary was free to become a Sister.
On July 2, 1887, Mary Dannat Starr became Mother Mary Veronica, RDC.
