Jewels from Jane, April 14

Carondelet, April 14, 1836

Monsignor

Since Thursday the fifth I was not able to go to St. Louis despite the desire I had to go there. Last week I would have gone to St. Louis if I had not known that the priests had agreed to come Thursday and Friday, etc., and that week, starting Monday after dinner up to the present date I was affected by a rigidity ...[in] the bottom of the spine, going from left to right so badly that I was not able to sit or stand. However, today, the thirteenth day, I am beginning to move freely. I learned that the Sisters of St. Joseph were in St. Louis, the ones proposed for Carondelet, and I know also that the orphan children will pass the summer here. Would it not be permitted that one or two Sisters of Charity and the three of St. Joseph could be here with the orphan children and the three of St. Joseph could learn the English language with the Sisters of Charity. All of them performing acts of charity for themselves, the people of the village and for the orphans.

You know, Monsignor, that my intention from the beginning of my stay in Carondelet was to have some charitable persons on the ground occupied by the reformed Sisters of St. Vincent and that titles are not important to me, provided that the charity is done, that they be patient, that they are contented with the little that God sends us and they do not indulge in illusions and dreams.

I am with the greatest respect your humble servant,

Edmund Saulnier [Pastor of Sts. Mary and Joseph Church]

Letter of Fr. Saulnier to Bishop Rosati

Translated from the French

When the Sisters arrived in September to take up residence in the log cabin vacated by the Sisters of Charity

"Beside their personal effects and some bedding, they brought little with them on the long drive from St. Louis to Carondelet, which they reached late in the afternoon. The pastor, Father Edmund Saulnier, shared with them his supper of bread and cheese, spread on a bare table, and conducted them to the convent. It faced the river, and from the front door a passage-way extended between two rooms each fifteen by twenty-four feet. An attic was reached by a ladder from the outside. Two sheds, one containing a single large room which had served as a boys' classroom, and the other used for store-room and kitchen, completed the convent buildings. With the exception of one cot, a table and a few chairs, the rooms were destitute of furniture. Two ticks, which the Sisters filled with straw and laid on the floor, provided them with beds, and the cot they reserved for Sister Saint Protais, who joined them a few days later. Father Saulnier, a good but eccentric man, accustomed to the privations of missionary life, frankly informed them that he was poor, too, and that they must provide for themselves. Kindhearted, however, in spite of his gruffness, he frequently sent them whatever he could spare from his own scanty store."

from Sister Lucida Savage's book: The Congregation of St. Joseph of Carondelet