“God will give you something special to do that God won’t ask of anyone else, so pay attention.”

– Mother bernard

Faith, ForesiGht, and Flexibility

The life of Mother Bernard Gosselin

Mother Bernard Gosselin1874 -1960

By 1912, the LaGrange community had grown to 90 Sisters, under Mother Bernard’s work as Directress of Novices. With such a burgeoning community, there wasn’t enough work for all of the Sisters, who provided for themselves while ministering to the poor.

A new community takes rootWith this concern and faith that God would

show her the way, Mother Bernard traveled to Eureka, California, at the invitation of a bishop to see how the Sisters of St. Joseph could expand their ministry there. In a whirlwind trip, she left by train on May 24, 1912, to tour Eureka, a town of 13,000, returned to LaGrange, where she recruited seven Sisters to join her, and was back in Eureka to stay on June 22.

In 1836, six French women stepped off

a Mississippi River steamboat in St. Louis, Missouri, to give their lives to God for a purpose larger than themselves. They were the first Sisters of St. Joseph in America. Seventy-six years later, one of their descendants, Mother Bernard Gosselin,

boarded a train for the West, the beginning of a mission that would bring the Sisters to California, where Mother Bernard would found the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.

Mother Bernard’s life is a story of grace in action, and of bold faith in a call to serve God.

California callsAnna Gosselin was born February 18, 1874,

into a prosperous farming family in Kansas. She entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, Kansas, and on July 19, 1896, became Sister Mary Bernard. A few years later she joined her sister, Mother M. Alexine, in LaGrange, Illinois.

By 1916, with trust that God would see them through, Mother Bernard responded to parish priests’ requests and expanded the Sisters’ work yet again, this time nearly 700 miles away in Southern California, where they built schools in Santa Ana and Brawley.

Mother Bernard buys a carThe Sisters and their good works were in

demand, but they were running out of time for everything. By now, they were educating children in far-flung places, giving music lessons and raising a menagerie of farm animals on convent grounds, all while fitting in time for prayer and daily chores. Mother Bernard, determined to make sure the Sisters’ work continued efficiently, chose a radical solution. She bought a car.

It was unheard of at the time for a religious order of women to own a car, but Mother Bernard saw the Maxwell coupe as a necessity for the Sisters of St. Joseph. Now, she could easily travel to the

In less than a month, Mother Bernard had founded the Sisters of St. Joseph in Eureka, California. By October, the community had 12 members and grew steadily from there, attracting women from across the country. Their path in this new life was smoothed by faith in God, determination, a thousand kindnesses along the way and the Sisters’ own thriftiness.

A thriving communityTheir first home, Luther House, was a barely

furnished ramshackle building with holes in the walls so big that the Sisters could see their neighbors. Mother Bernard immediately created a music room where the Sisters began giving lessons for $1 a month. For many years, these lessons were the Sisters’ most stable source of income. For food, they would glean the fields of local farms for cast-off fruits and vegetables.

During their first three years, the Sisters created a thriving community for schoolchildren. In August 1912, within a month and a half of their arrival, they welcomed their first 60 students to school. By Christmas, the number had more than doubled to 150.

With faith comes expansionWith such rapid growth, Mother

Bernard obtained a loan and by January 1914, a new convent, the Nazareth Motherhouse, and the 12-room Nazareth Academy had opened. The school developed a strong reputation as a place of faith and moral life.

A year later, the Sisters expanded again, this time 20 miles away in Ferndale, where they built a boarding school for boys, Our Lady of the Assumption, at the request of parishioners.

Mother Bernard and the Sisters gave music lessons when they arrived in Eureka, California, to provide for themselves. These lessons were their main source of income for many years.

“We dug with our spades and threw dirt out the window. We did a magnificent job.”

– Mother bernard

many places that required her attention. It would be 50 years before Rome would officially sanction Sisters owning cars.

Up until this time, the Sisters of St. Joseph had brought the love of God to others through education. But their mission would expand in another direction with the influenza epidemic of 1918.

‘Everybody is calling for the sisters’The epidemic killed at least 22 million people

worldwide. When it arrived in Eureka, doctors appealed to Mother Bernard for help treating the sick. Sisters went into homes with medicine kits that included mustard plasters, one of the popular treatments of the day, to care for the sickest patients. When they came down with the flu themselves, the Sisters were treated at the Nazareth Motherhouse, and others went to minister in their place.

“Everybody is calling for the sisters,” Mother Bernard wrote at the time. “The sick and dying plead for us. We did all we could for these poor creatures. The funerals are going on all day.”

Prior to the flu epidemic, the Sisters of St. Joseph had been somewhat isolated in Eureka, objects of curiosity in the community at large. Their selfless work changed that.

A second ministryMother Bernard had begun working before

the scourge to take over a failed hospital in Eureka. The Sisters’ unflinching care during the epidemic affirmed her belief that a hospital ministry would fulfill two important missions for the Sisters: It would heal the sick, and it would assure them that the path to God was open and welcoming.

Mother Bernard obtained funding in 1919 to buy and renovate the hospital. The Sisters did much of the work themselves and became the talk of the town when they began excavating the ground floor with pick and shovel to build a basement. Locals would stop by daily to see their progress.

“We dug with our spades and threw dirt out the window,” Mother Bernard recalled later. “We did a magnificent job. The men used to watch us through the window. We were covered in dirt, and they were surprised that the Sisters were doing that.”

Sisters become nursesNext, Sisters helped tear down walls and

rebuild them. They painted, scrubbed and varnished. Others sewed linens, gowns and towels

When the Sisters bought a hospital in Eureka, they provided much of the sweat equity, including digging a basement.

“We have no worries as far as finances nor any other worry, only that we will always correspond to the graces of God so generously poured on this little community.”

– Mother bernard

for the new hospital. Meanwhile, Mother Bernard sent seven Sisters to school for medical training. Some became nurses, while others learned to

take X-rays and perform surgery.

When St. Joseph Hospital held its open house on Nov. 1, 1920, the Sister nurses greeted their guests in crisp white habits and gowns. Soon, residents began to go to the hospital, and local timber companies contracted with St. Joseph to care for their workers.

“Our hospital is more of a success than we ever anticipated, both spiritually and temporally,” Mother Bernard said a year later.

Motherhouse moves southFrom the founding of the Sisters of St. Joseph

in Le Puy, France, in 1650, they had observed their vows and lived in poverty, sometimes direly so. But for the first time in their history, they now had a measure of financial stability. This would allow them to live modestly and without the constant worry of providing for themselves.

“We have no worries as far as finances nor any other worry,”

Mother Bernard said then. “Only that we will always correspond to the graces of God so generously poured on this little community.”

Within a decade of their arrival in Eureka, the Sisters were in the same situation that Mother Bernard faced at the end of her time in LaGrange, Illinois. There was little room left for more growth in Eureka or farther east in Sacramento. By now, most of the Sisters’ schools were in Southern California, and in 1922 they voted to move their motherhouse to the Los Angeles Diocese, becoming the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.

The Sisters struggled with poverty for many years. To make ends meet, they raised animals on convent grounds in Eureka, California, and gleaned fruit and vegetables from nearby farm fields.

Sisters teach farm workersThey settled in Orange County on the

Burnham estate. The 24-room home came with 10 acres sprinkled with rose bushes and 26 orange trees. Once again, the Sisters set to work, painting, scrubbing and reviving the estate grounds.

No sooner had the Sisters arrived, they were traveling to camps of families of naranjeros, Mexican workers who picked oranges. The Sisters taught religion on makeshift benches under trees, beside one-room plank houses and in little mission churches.

The ministry lives onThe Sisters settled into a life of work, prayer

and service. Orange was truly their home. Mother Bernard’s roving days were over, but her legacy would guide the Sisters for years to come.

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange would continue to open schools and hospitals, using the template created by Mother Bernard. A template based on “a soulful understanding between God and me.”

Today, graced with faith and the promises of God’s provident care for them, the Sisters’ ministry lives throughout California, in other locales in the United States and beyond.

“Everyone is calling for the Sisters,” Mother Bernard said during the flu epidemic of 1918. After doctors appealed for their help, Sisters donned surgical masks to care for some of the sickest patients in Eureka, California.

‘God has never failed us’When Mother Bernard Gosselin and a

small band of Sisters migrated from Illinois to California in 1912, they were religious pioneers and strangers in a new land. Would they be welcomed? How would they earn their keep? Decades later, we know the answers to these

“I shall never fail you” – “I shall supply all your needs.” Sisters – Keep this motto. It means much to the community from the First. It was the means of coming to California – and was providentially the same greeting that was hanging at the door as we came in our little house in Eureka, California. It has been our guide from the first. As you see after all these years, God has never failed us. Let us be grateful to Him and one another always. – Mother Bernard

questions. The Sisters of St. Joseph flourished, building a ministry that started in Eureka and spread south. Looking back on their work, Mother Bernard wrote to the Sisters about the rewards of unwavering faith. This faith and love anchored the Sisters when they were founded in 1650, and continues to guide them today.