Sisters of the Most Holy Family of Nazareth (1885)

IN 1875, Mary Frances Siedliska, a distinguished Polish woman of noble qualities and rare virtues, inspired with a desire for religious life and with the establishment of a Polish community of Sisters, she purchased a small house in Rome, where she and a few companions commenced the religious life. These first members were exclusively Polish. Mother Siedliska wrote the Constitutions and designed the habit.

After the example of the Holy Family of Nazareth, the Community was to lead both a contemplative and active life, to pray and to labor, to further the advancement of its members in virtue and holiness. The Mother-house is still in Rome, where the Sisters make their Novitiate, and where there resides the General Superioress of the Congregation. In 1881, Mother Siedliska with her companion Sisters, left for Krakow, the site of their first labors on Polish soil.

There they opened a boarding school for young ladies preparing to be teachers, and in 1890 Saint Hedwig’s Institute opened, which cares for girls who can earn their livelihood by sewing and manual labor. Other houses were opened in Lemberg, Waldovic, Vienna and London. A house was opened in Paris but was closed during the recent persecutions in France against Religious Orders.

In 1885, Mother Siedliska, realizing the enormous work to be done amongst the Polish emigrants in the United States, and that the Polish Communities already laboring in the vast field needed help, concluded to send Sisters to America. Twelve came, with Mother Siedliska herself in charge, to Chicago, the center of Polish emigration. With the help of the Fathers of the Resurrection (another Polish community), they took charge of two Polish schools and an orphanage.

From there, they extended their services to other Polish settlements, making a specialty of parochial school work. Soon many excellent young ladies sought admission to the Community. An American Novitiate was established in Desplaines, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago, sixty-two acres of beautifully cultivated land situated on a most picturesque site near the banks of the Desplaines River.

Candidates undergo one year of probation and two years of novitiate. After the novitiate, they take the yearly simple vows which they renew annually for seven years, when simple perpetual vows are taken. At her investiture, each Sister receives the name of Mary, in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and in addition is given the name of some patron saint. The urgent need of the Sisters’ services in parochial schools became so great that many schools had to be refused, owing to the lack of a sufficient number of Sisters for all the missions. The Community has prospered in the United States, its membership increasing so that today it has outgrown the Community in the Old World.

St. Mary’s of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago is also in charge of the Sisters of Nazareth; it is one of the finest and most modern of hospitals, caring for the poor as well as those with means. In the State of Pennsylvania, two orphanages are conducted by the Sisters,—one at Emsworth and another at Conshohocken.

The final approbation was received July 31, 1909, from His Holiness, Pope Pius X. When Mother Siedliska died in 1902, she had the consolation of knowing her Community was well established in the Old World and in the New World, and was performing the grandest and noblest work in the cause of religion, especially in behalf of the children of her own native land— the education of the Polish Catholic youth.

Elinor Tong Dehey, ed., Religious Orders of Women in the United States: Accounts of Their Origin and of Their Most Important Institutions (First Edition) (Hammond, IN: W.B. Conkey Co., 1913), 287-292.


NOTE: The above has been edited in the interest of blogging brevity.