Carolyn Osiek Libri

Young Irish born Anna Murphy entered the Society of the Sacred Heart in Paris with the express purpose of following missionary Rose Philippine Duchesne to frontier America, in imitation of her adopted patron, St. Francis Xavier. She got her wish in 1822 and for eleven years heroically guided the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, through a period of amazing growth. In spite of the continual setbacks of illness and early deaths of her young sisters due to frontier conditions, she carried on until her own premature death in 1836. Beloved by her students and servants alike, she left behind a legacy of care and courage.

The story of a heroic missionary to the Potawatomi Native Americans on the Kansas frontierBiographer and historian of the American frontier, Louise Callan, RSCJ, in 1935:"And through the whole of this, like a golden thread binding it into unity, runs the character of our greatest Indian missionary nun, Mother Lucile Mathevon - a novice of Mother Duchesne, foundress of thehouse of St. Charles (1828), and for about 35 years the very heart and soul of the Indian Mission. She is just glorious - a Dauphinoise, but so different from Mother Duchesne - yet a SAINT. You see where my heart lies. I should thrill to write it all myself?.You can imagine how little of all this I could include in one chapter of my dissertation, not 50 typed pages."--Louise Callan, RSCJ, author of The Society of the Sacred Heart in North America (1937) and Philippine Duchesne, Frontier Missionary of the Sacred Heart (1957)