Sisters of the Humility of Mary

Humility of Mary Center in Davenport, Iowa
Abbreviation	H.M./C.H.M.
Formation	c. AD 1854; 170 years ago (1854)
Founder	Fr. John Joseph Begel
Type	Catholic religious order
Headquarters	United States of America
Website	humilityofmary.org

The Sisters of the Humility of Mary, also known as the Congregation of the Humility of Mary, is a Roman Catholic religious congregation, founded at Dommartin-sous-Amance, France, in 1855. The community immigrated to the United States in 1864.

The sisters in the eastern United States wore a blue woolen habit, a black veil being worn by the professed, and a white one by novices. A silver medal is suspended from the neck on a blue band, and a rosary from the girdle, which is also of blue. The western US sisters wore a black habit, that featured a shoulder cape, and veil. They wore a crucifix suspended on a cord around their neck and a rosary suspended from their belt.

The novitiate lasts from two and a half to three years, and perpetual vows are made at the end of nine years. The superior, her two assistants, and four consultors are elected triennially.

The founder was John Joseph Begel (b. 5 April 1817; d. 23 Jan., 1884), pastor of the two villages of Laitre and Dommartin. In 1854, three pious women, Mlle Poitier, the foundress, known in religion as Mother Mary Magdalen, Marie Tabourat, later Mother Mary Anna, and Sister Mary Joseph, having offered their services for the work of teaching poor children, Father Begel conceived the idea of establishing a religious community. The following year he drew up a rule which was adopted by the sisters and approved by the Bishop of Nancy, 29, August, 1858.^[1]

The object of the new congregation was the education of youth in country districts and small towns, the training of orphans, the care of the sick, and incidentally the decoration of altars in parish churches. The association increased in numbers. Soon, however, Father Begel's open condemnation of the policy of Napoleon III towards the Church and especially towards religious institutes, brought him into disfavour with the civil authorities, and the sisters of the community were refused diplomas and prevented from opening schools.^[1]

In 1862 Father Louis Hoffer of Louisville, Ohio, U.S.A., applied for four sisters to teach in his school. Bishop Louis Rappe of Cleveland not only gave his approval, but invited the whole community to settle in his diocese. The sisters, accompanied by Father Begel, set sail 30 May 1864, and on their arrival took possession of a farm of 250 acres (1.0 km²) near New Bedford, Pennsylvania,(which had been transferred to the Cleveland diocese from the Diocese of Pittsburgh). The farm had recently been vacated by the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine, and to which they gave the name Villa Maria. It was far from a railroad, and the land was uncultivated, undrained, overgrown with brush, and dotted with sloughs, the buildings being surrounded by a marsh. Moreover, the community was destitute of resources and burdened with debt.^[1]

The sisters undertook the care of orphans and the work to which they had pledged themselves, and were soon able to enlarge the buildings (1869 and 1878). In 1879 a hospital was built, and shortly afterwards a chapel. The year 1884 was marked by the death of Father Begel, the venerable founder. In 1899 ground was purchased at Cleveland, Ohio, for an academy, which was chartered a few years later, in 1892, under the title of Lourdes Academy, named for Our Lady of Lourdes, and empowered to confer degrees. In 1897 it was removed to a more suitable location.

Since Villa Maria was far from railroad facilities, a tract of sixty-three acres between Canton and Massillon, Ohio, was purchased in 1904 for the purpose of erecting a new mother-house, to be known as Mount Maria, and a college, which was opened in 1908 under the title of College of the Immaculate Conception.

The sisters also entered health care when given charge of St. Elizabeth Hospital in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1910.^[2] In 1922, undertook the staffing of the Rose-Mary Home, a home for crippled children. Two more Ohio hospitals came under the direction of the sisters - St. Joseph Health Center in Warren in 1924 and St. Joseph in Lorain in 1927.

Today, the Sisters of the Humility of Mary work in education, healthcare and social service primarily in the diocese of Cleveland, Youngstown and Pittsburgh.

Twenty years after they established themselves in Pennsylvania, five sisters settled in southeastern Iowa where they eventually established a motherhouse in Ottumwa. The sisters established St. Joseph Junior College, later renamed Ottumwa Heights College, in 1925. It was a normal school that trained young women to teach in Iowa’s rural schools. They created the first religious "vacation schools" that educated children in rural Montana in their Catholic faith.^[3] They brought the same program back to Iowa, and then extended it to other parts of the Midwest. In 1939 they opened Marycrest College, a four-year Liberal arts college, in Davenport, Iowa.^[4] In 1983 the congregation's headquarters in Iowa was transferred to Davenport.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Institute of the Sisters of the Holy Humility of Mary". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

• Sisters of Humility of Mary, Pennsylvania
• Congregation of the Humility of Mary, Iowa