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Page Two
SOUVENIR CENTENNIAL EDITION, HANCOCK COUNTY EAGLE
August, 1958
St Joseph's Academy, Second Oldest Institution
In the archives of Our Lady of the Gulf Church, Bay St. Louis, the following lines were taken from the diary of the Pastor, Reverend Stanislaus Buteux:
“Three Sisters of St. Joseph arrived at the Bay today. It is Saturday and the Feast of the Epiphany. What a beautiful coincidence!
Are not these Sisters the Star that will bring the people to Jesus Christ?”
The three Sisters who came to Bay St. Louis on January 6,
1855, were Mother Eulalie, the superior, a strong energetic woman, fifty-seven years old; Sister Anatolie, thirty-two years old; and little Sister Gonzaga, probably twenty.
They had come at last to the end of. their fifty-six day journey.
They bade farewell to Reverend Mother St. Claude in Bourg,
France, November 11, 1854. On November 19, they boarded the John	Bishop Van de Velde and Fath-	was closed, and classes in religion	Louis, the Sisters of St. Joseph	swept away in the storm of re-
.Hancock, a sailing boat at Le	er Buteux, planning for	a school,	and sewing were begun at Bay St.	have expanded with ai Novitiate of	volution which engulfed all
Harve, and after a rough journey had purchased a large tract of Louis.	its own, the Provincial House of France. Many Sisters were thrown,
of forty-one days, arrived at New land. The healthful climate of	Early years in America were dif-	New Orleans.	into prison, many suffered	death.
Orleans, La.	the Gulf Coast and its accessi-	ficult ones for the little band of	The first group	of	Sisters	of	Authentic records have	been
For a week they rested at the bility gave good promise for a	Sisters who began their American	St. Joseph came	to	America	from	found of their faith.
Ursuline Convent there. Most	boarding school.	apostolate at Bay St. Louis. They	the Mother House of Bourg in	Among the religious thrown
Reverend John Oliver Van de	Until the school was	ready at	had much to suffer. Mother Eu-	the Diocese of Belley, France.	jnt0 prison was Mother St. John
Velde, Bishop of Natchez, accom- the Bay, the Sisters conducted lalie soon discovered that it would Reverend Father Buteux, Pastor Fontbonne. She was saved from panied the Sisters by train and classes at Waveland, about four be almost impossible to make a Our Lady of the Gulf Church ob- the guillotine by the fall of Ro-boat to their mission at the Bay. miles distant. Every day in all living here. On July 15, 1855 she tained these religious women to bespierre on the very day set for On the following day the bishop kinds of weather the devoted writes her fears to the Superior help him in his missionary work the execution. In 1807 this heroic formally installed the Sisters in three walked there and back. A	General in Bourg: “ . . . the Bay	in Mississippi.	woman recognized the Sisters of
their small four-room house, fur- narrow lane running through the is too poor to feed a community.” In Le Puy, France, the City gt. Joseph in Lyons. In 1825 Bish-nished with beds and a few lin- woods was their only road. Of- But they worked on against all of Mary, the Sifters of St. Jos- op Devie asked for and obtained ens. The kitchen had the barest- ten snakes dropped from the odds. In September they were eph were founded, October 15, an autonomous government for the necessities. As Father Buteux had branches of overhanging trees, able to open a school with an en- 1650. Four canonized saints and sisters of St. Joseph of his dio-warned them, they suffered pri- or crawled across their pathi. In rollment of thirty-three pupils. The two holy men had a part in their cese 0f Belley. In this way the vations of every kind. These they rainy weather they had to ford a Sisters spent every spare moment organization. Reverend John Peter Congregation of the Sisters of St. bore bravely. Soon after their ar- small torrent barefoot. Classes studying English. They gave Medaille, the famous Jesuit mis- Joseph of Bourg was formed. Mo-rival Mother Eulalie wrote their were held in a cabin used as a religious instructions to the pupils, sionary, following the example of ther St. Benedict was first Superdifficulties to Reverend Mother church when a priest was avail- their parents, to the slaves, and his teacher, St. Francis Regis, had i0r General.
St. Claude, but added: “Have we able. After the long trek home, even to the Indians of the outly- trained a band of six pious women, in 1343 Mother St. Claude was come here to lead a life of re- the Sisters often found scantly ing districts. They knew hard and proposed to Monsignor Henry elected second Superior General, pose in the midst of plenty, . . . fare in their kitchen. Sometimes, work and dire poverty. But the de Maupas to organize them into it was during her term of office It was through poverty and suf- however, kind Mrs. Combel, a archives in Bourg give evidence a religious congregation. The bish- that Father Buteux begged Sisters fering that thie saints have con- neighbor, would bring over a dish that their courage never failed, op, who had been trained by St. to help spread the Kingdom- of verted the world. We must use of hot food.	When three new Sisters arriv- Vincent de Paul to see the need God in the poor Missions of Mis-
the same means.”	In April the school at Waveland ed from France in 1856, Mother of works of charity, approved the sissippi.
For More Than a Quarter Of The 100 Years That Bay St Louis Has Been An Incorporated City, We Have Been Saving Our Customers Money On Their Food Purchases
MR. AND MRS. J. R. SCHARFF OWNERS OF THE BAY ST. LOUIS
Eulalie, and S’ister Anatolie began a foundation in New Or-A leans. Mother Esperance became the new Superior at the Bay. She was assisted by Sister Esdras.
On August 14, 1858 five more laborers came to the American vineyard, Mother des Agnes and Sister Rolandine for Bay St. Louis, and three for New Orleans. Mother Esperance now erected a three story boarding school. St. Joseph’s Academy on the Gulf Coast was prospering.
In 1860 four more Sisters came from France and American girls began to speak of becoming Sis-| ters of St. Joseph. The first novice received the Holy Habit. A I second postulant entered.
From this humble beginning in the New World, and from the labors of the first three Sisters who began this work in Bay St.
plan, and helped Father Medaille to draw up the rules, which combined the active with the contemplative life.
The idea of such a congregation hiad originated with St. Francis de Sales, who had been forced to give up his own plan in favor of cloistered Visitandines. The rule for the Sisters of St. Joseph is modeled on that of the Visitation nuns with additions from the rule of St. Ignatius.
The little band prepared by Father Medaille received the holy habit and the name Sisters of St. Joseph from Bishop de Maupas, in the orphanage of Le Puy. Soon the Sisters of St Joseph Were found all over France engaged in works of charity and education.
In 1789, this congregation was