Founder's Day!
On April 9,2021 we celebrated Founder's Day! This date marked 166 years as a congregation. Pretty exciting for the Sisters of St. Francis! How did it come about?
An immigrant from Bavaria, Germany, Maria Anna Boll Bachmann (later known as Mother Francis) became a widow with three children and was pregnant with a fourth child. In 1851 her husband Anthony was mortally wounded at work as the result of bias against immigrants—a bias stirred up by the American Nativist Party in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To support herself and her young family, Anna operated a small shop and hostel for immigrant women while her sister, Barbara Boll, sewed for a tailor. Both Anna and a young guest in the hostel, Anna Dorn, a novice in the Franciscan Third Order Secular, concurred with Barbara’s wish to found a religious congregation. They sought the advice of Rev. John Hespelein, C.Ss.R., who wrote to Bishop John Neumann, then in Rome. Bishop Neumann had asked Pope Pius IX for permission to bring German Dominican Sisters into his diocese but was advised by the Pope, also a member of the Franciscan Third Order Secular, to establish a congregation of Franciscan sisters in his own diocese.
Seeing God’s hand in the letter and the advice, Bishop Neumann instructed the women, provided spiritual guidance, and accepted them into religious life. On Easter Monday, April 9, 1855, the bishop invested the three founding members in the habit of St. Francis, giving them new names:
- Anna Maria Boll Bachmann: Sister Mary Francis
- Barbara Boll: Sister Margaret
- Anna Dorn: Sister Bernardine.
The day was commemorated by a virtual webinar offered by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and attended by many. Learn more about the Sisters of St. Francis and our history by visiting our website: https://osfphila.org/about/our-history/.
