Sister Blandina meets Billy the Kid

Today marks the death of Sister Blandina Segale, S.C. (1850-1941), an Italian-American nun who ministered in the Wild West during its heyday. Born Rosa Segale in Italy, she emigrated to America as a child, settling in Cincinnati. At age sixteen she joined the Sisters of Charity, taking the name Blandina. After a few years teaching in Ohio schools, she was assigned to teach in Trinidad, Colorado, then a fairly lawless frontier town. A formidable character herself, she once helped a sheriff stop a lynching. Among the many colorful figures she encountered during her twenty-two years out West was the famed outlaw William Bonney, aka “Billy the Kid” (1859-1881). Sister Blandina thus described him: “Billy has steel blue eyes, peach complexion, is young, one would take him to be seventeen—innocent looking, save for the corners of his eyes, which tell a set purpose— good or bad.” On one occasion, when local doctors refused to help a wounded member of Billy’s gang, Billy threatened to kill the doctors, but stopped when Sister Blandina interceded on their behalf. He reputation for honesty and fairness was such that she even helped negotiate peace between Native Americans and whites. In 1894, she went back to Cincinnati, where she started settlement houses for Italian immigrants and worked as a probation officer for the city’s juvenile court.