DAUGHTERS OF CHARITY OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL. In October 1869 the International Order of the Daughters of Charity, founded in 1633 by St. Vincent de Paul in Paris and in 1809 in the United States by Mother Elizabeth Bailey Seton, opened their first institution in Texas, an elementary school in Jefferson City. It took the six sisters assigned to teach in the school three weeks to travel the 800 miles from New Orleans. The school opened with five pupils, and by 1870 the enrollment had increased to fifteen. Within five years the population of Jefferson City had declined considerably as the railroad replaced the river trade, and so the sisters were withdrawn in 1875.
The second Texas institution opened by the order was in El Paso, a frontier town of only a few thousand residents when three Daughters of Charity arrived on February 3, 1892. The interested citizens of El Paso requested the nursing sisters to establish a hospital similar to Charity Hospital in New Orleans.Full story
