The story of the Dominican Sisters of Peace is unique. Seven different Dominican congregations whose origins were different, but whose Dominican traditions were the same. Seven groups of women religious moved by the Holy Spirit to place their gifts and resources at the service of God’s people in a new way.
Our goal was to gather ourselves into a new congregation, with a new spirit so that we might preach the Gospel with a new fire, as we like to express it.
On Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009, after several years of planning and preparation, a new Congregation, the Dominican Sisters of Peace, was established. Today, we minister together to bring God’s peace to a world in need.
The first foundation of Dominican women religious in the United States was created at the request of Fr. Edward Dominic Fenwick, OP. Fr. Fenwick founded The Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph in 1806 in Kentucky, and soon extended the ministry to Ohio.
On a frosty February 28, 1822, Fr. Samuel Thomas Wilson, a priest in the frontier parish of St. Rose Church, rose to the pulpit to preach one of the most fruitful sermons of his life. With his friend Fr. Fenwick, Fr. Wilson dreamed of educating the youth of the new Kentucky settlement, and he wanted to find women to bring that dream to pass.
Nine women stood up and became the first foundation of Dominican women religious in the United States.
The women who responded to Fr. Wilson’s sermon, including two blood Sisters, Angela and Benven Sansbury, received the Dominican habit in 1822 and founded the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary Magdalene, the first congregation of Dominican Sisters in the new nation. This congregation later became known as the Kentucky Dominicans and were foremothers to today’s Dominican Sisters of Peace.
The sisters promptly began the work requested by Bishop Fenwick and the Dominican friars – educating the children of the Kentucky frontier. The tiny cabin that they lived in left no room for students or supplies, so the new congregation moved to the Sansbury family farm, located on the banks of Cartwright Creek. There they established the first permanent Dominican convent in the United States, as well as the first Dominican school, built in a rehabilitated “still house” formerly used for making bourbon. The sisters welcomed 15 local students in July 1823.
.Just eight short years after their foundation, the Kentucky sisters sent four sisters, including founder Benven Sansbury, across the rutted trail of Zane’s Trace to the new frontier of Ohio. In Somerset, Ohio, the sisters rehabilitated an old carpenter’s shop to serve as their first school, which they named St. Mary’s. Within a month they had welcomed 30 students. They relocated to Columbus, Ohio, after a fire destroyed their school in Somerset, and founded a daughter congregation, St. Mary of the Springs.
When the first Dominican convent was founded in Kentucky in 1822, the sisters took joy in the blooms of the yellow jonquils that popped up in the valley annually. Nearly 75 years later, after a terrible fire left the sisters homeless, they found hope when the jonquils bloomed again from the ashes. The beauty and resilience of these wildflowers have become a symbol for Dominican women religious across the United States.
As the sisters in Kentucky and Ohio were building schools in Kentucky, Ohio, and later Tennessee, a Cabra Dominican nun from Dublin, Ireland, responded to a request from Fr. Jeremiah Moynihan to staff a school for Irish immigrant students in the New Orleans parish of St. John the Baptist. Mother Mary John Flanagan and six other sisters made the journey across the sea to found the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary’s, New Orleans. On December 3, 1860, the Sisters of St. Mary’s opened their first school to 200 young women.
The Sisters from Ireland might have crossed nautical paths with a new convert to the faith, Lucy Eaton Smith. The Brooklyn native was traveling to Europe to fulfill her own spiritual aspirations. After entering the Dominican Order as a Third Order tertiary in 1876, Smith returned to the United States to create an institute whose mission was to meet the need for faith formation and spiritual development of women.
Before she died, Lucy Eaton Smith, who took the religious name Sr. Catherine de’Ricci opened two retreat houses, pioneering the ministry of spiritual retreats and formation for women in the United States. The Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de’Ricci were not part of the 2009 union that created Peace but merged into the Congregation in 2012.
As important as spiritual renewal and healing were to our founding congregation in New York, the Dominican Sisters of Great Bend, KS, ministered in another sort of healing. Mother Antonina Fischer, six sisters and two candidates left Brooklyn, New York in 1902 with the intention of teaching the Catholic children of the pioneer town of Great Bend, KS, but soon discovered that the residents were much more in need of a hospital.
Dominican Sisters have cared for God’s people in ministries of education, health care, spirituality, religious education, poverty alleviation, and more. The Sisters have ministered in China, Cuba, Honduras, Peru, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Vietnam.
As the sisters in Kentucky and Ohio were building schools in Kentucky, Ohio, and later Tennessee, a Cabra Dominican nun from Dublin, Ireland, responded to a request from Fr. Jeremiah Moynihan to staff a school for Irish immigrant students in the New Orleans parish of St. John the Baptist. Mother Mary John Flanagan and six other sisters made the journey across the sea to found the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary’s, New Orleans. On December 3, 1860, the Sisters of St. Mary’s opened their first school to 200 young women.
The Sisters from Ireland might have crossed nautical paths with a new convert to the faith, Lucy Eaton Smith. The Brooklyn native was traveling to Europe to fulfill her own spiritual aspirations. After entering the Dominican Order as a Third Order tertiary in 1876, Smith returned to the United States to create an institute whose mission was to meet the need for faith formation and spiritual development of women.
Before she died, Lucy Eaton Smith, who took the religious name Sr. Catherine de’Ricci opened two retreat houses, pioneering the ministry of spiritual retreats and formation for women in the United States. The Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de’Ricci were not part of the 2009 union that created Peace but merged into the Congregation in 2012.
As important as spiritual renewal and healing were to our founding congregation in New York, the Dominican Sisters of Great Bend, KS, ministered in another sort of healing. Mother Antonina Fischer, six sisters and two candidates left Brooklyn, New York in 1902 with the intention of teaching the Catholic children of the pioneer town of Great Bend, KS, but soon discovered that the residents were much more in need of a hospital.
Mother Antonina decided to serve both needs, and opened a school in 1902, an eight-bed hospital in 1903, and a 20-bed hospital in 1904. As the healthcare centers grew, so did the need for trained nurses, and the Congregation opened a nursing school in 1917.
By the time the Congregation in Great Bend celebrated its Jubilee, the sisters had founded schools in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Colorado, as well as three hospitals in Kansas and one in Nebraska.
Back in Louisiana, Catharine Bostick had caught the attention of Archbishop Shaw of New Orleans. Shaw supported Catherine’s vision of a foundation that would evangelize, catechize, and offer nursing and social services to ALL people – white and black, rich, and poor. Catherine and her companion, Zoe Grouchy, made their first vows in 1927.
Five years later, at the request of the newly installed Archbishop, the Congregation moved to New Orleans. In 1939, in response to a request from Bishop Gerke, two Sisters traveled to Tucson, AZ, to help teach and evangelize among the native Americans and immigrants there.
In 1956, the Congregation was re-established as the Eucharistic Missionaries of St. Dominic and incorporated into the Dominican Order.
At the urging of Bishop Joseph Schrembs of Cleveland, the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, New Jersey, founded a new provincial house and school in Akron, Ohio, in 1923.
During a 1926 visit by Bishop Thomas Walsh of Newark, Bishop Schrembs of Cleveland arranged to create an independent congregation of Sisters to serve his diocese. Twenty-seven sisters elected to return to New Jersey, while sixty-seven stayed in Akron to create The Sisters of St. Dominic of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
By 1935, there were 105 Akron Dominican Sisters teaching in Ohio elementary and high schools. In the 1960’s, their missions expanded to care for the elderly and campus ministry. They also founded an ecological ministry, Crown Point, in Bath, Ohio.
The Oxford Dominicans were originally founded as the American Province of the Olomouc Dominicans in 1950. The mission was formed “for the salvation of their souls and the preservation of the Slovak heritage.”
Tension between the Congregation’s Slovaks and Czechs after World War I and II spurred a separation of the Congregation.
In August 1950, the American Province of the Olomouc Dominican would become the Oxford Dominicans, and the new Congregation moved to the Coyle Estate in Oxford, MI. Over the years, the property was transformed to meet the needs of the congregation and the community, creating a retreat house for women, a junior college, and, at the request of Archbishop John Dearden, a 100-bed nursing facility. The new facility, named Lourdes, continues to provide care for the residents of the area to this day.
In 2002, seven congregations: Kentucky Dominicans, the Dominicans of St. Mary of the Springs, the Congregation of St. Mary, the Dominican Sisters of Great Bend, the Eucharistic Missionaries of St. Dominic (EMD), the Akron Dominicans, and Congregation of St. Rose of Lima, began to discern the possibility of a union.
These congregations were a perfect sample for such a large union. The founding congregations were of varied origin – homegrown, like Kentucky and the EMD’s, expansionist, like St. Mary of the Springs and Akron, or founded by Sisters who immigrated to minster here, like St. Mary’s and St. Rose of Lima/Oxford. For nearly two centuries, these seven congregations of Dominican Sisters had educated children, cared for the sick and the wounded during war and plague, ministered to the poor and marginalized, and acted as spiritual centers in their communities. They had also conducted missions in China, South America, Vietnam, and Africa, even helping to create an indigenous congregation of Dominican sisters in Nigeria.
Each of these seven congregations had common ministries across the country that could benefit from partnership. Most important, each Congregation was dedicated to the preaching mission, and desired that the mission continue – and that was good enough reason to take the leap of faith that such a union would demand.
In the early years of the twenty-first century, as these seven congregations began to look to a combined future, they formed committees to discuss everything from community life, prayer, Dominican mission, the location of Motherhouses, and the continuation of ministry to the name of the new Congregation. After seven years of discernment and prayer, the newly formed Congregation, The Dominican Sisters of Peace, held their inaugural General Chapter on Easter Sunday, 2009, and were blessed to be joined by the Master of the Order, Father Carlos Aspiroz, OP.
In 2011, after nearly 10 years of research, discernment and prayer, the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de’ Ricci requested to merge with the Dominican Sisters of Peace. The merger ceremony took place on December 15, 2012.
In the 12 years since the union, the Dominican Sisters of Peace have continued to work in all the ministries to which the sisters were originally called – and more. As we celebrate the 200th year since our founding, we are blessed to also celebrate a combined ministerial history of nearly 1500 years of service to God, God’s people, and the Church – and we are not done yet.
Thousands of children have been educated at the hundreds of schools founded in states across the country., and today, we are still affiliated with schools in Louisiana, New York, Ohio, and Tennessee. Our educational ministries also include two colleges and three adult learning centers.
Our hospitals in Kansas and Colorado were founding facilities in Common Spirit Health, the third-largest health system in America. Our long-term care homes in Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio offer compassionate care for both Sisters and laypersons.
Our four eco-spiritualty ministries hold more than 1000 acres of land for sustainable food production, ecological education, and the enjoyment of God’s precious creation.
Our community outreach and retreat centers in Kansas, Louisiana, New York, and Ohio work with their local communities to promote physical and spiritual health and community peacebuilding.
Across the country, our sisters’ personal ministries include spiritual guidance, pastoral work, health care, teaching, service to the poor, immigrants, enslaved and imprisoned persons, and preaching of every kind.
Around the world, we collaborate with partners in Nigeria and Jamaica to offer education, healthcare, and hope.
The Dominican Sisters of Peace presently have eight women in various stages of formation, who bring a variety of gifts from medical care to administration, to teaching. The Congregation is active in national and international planning for the future of the Order’s women religious and continues to preach the Gospel of Christ’s peace in word and in action, in our lives and our ministries.