‘Over There’: Daughters of Charity’s service in the first World War.

Many are just discovering the role of the Daughters of Charity in the Civil War. The Daughters of Charity also played a distinguished role in World War I.

From the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame ….Sister Chrysostom Moynahan (1863-1941) was called to lead a band of nursing Sisters and lay nurses to Italy to serve the U.S. war effort during the first World War. This group, the Loyola Unit, was the only group of its kind to serve abroad in the War, and Sister Chrysostom was decorated by both the Italian and United States governments for her bravery and service to the military.

Sister Chrysostom Moynahan was the first registered nurse licensed in the State of Alabama, receiving License #1 on March 10, 1916. Realizing the need for skilled personnel to assist the group of nursing Sisters, she founded St. Vincent’s School of Nursing, the first nursing school in the State of Alabama, and she served as director of the school during her tenure in Birmingham.

She organized the Ladies of Charity in Birmingham to extend the ministry of the Daughters of Charity in providing aid and relief to the city’s poor.

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And now from the Daughters of Charity Provincial Archives an exhibit ‘Over There’: Daughters of Charity’s service in the first World War.

“Over There” tells the story of the Loyola Unit, a base hospital staffed by 10 Daughters of Charity and a team of nurses and doctors recruited from Daughter of Charity hospitals around the country. The Loyola Unit served from September 1918 to March 1919. Their hospital, officially known as Base Hospital 102, was located in Vicenza, Italy, 15 miles from the Italian Front. The exhibit features photographs, correspondence, artifacts, and diaries kept by three of the Sisters. An accompanying video features additional images as well as passages from the Sisters’ diaries, read by Sisters from the Emmitsburg Campus.