Teresa Marie Allen, part 2

(this post is a continuation of THIS one)

Teresa Marie (nee Ethelyn) Allen
We know that my grandmother, Teresa Allen, nee Ethelyn, was raised in a Catholic boarding school in Paris, Texas.  We know that she was influenced by the nuns who cared for her (we have the Bible that was given to her by one of the Sisters).  She told her daughter Virginia that she changed her name to Teresa, taking on the name of one of the nuns.  We also know that she was trained as a nurse.  In researching the history of Paris, Texas, the only mention of a Catholic boarding school I could find is St. Patrick's, where the nuns were from the order of the Sisters of Mercy, whose mission was nursing. 

The History of Paris Regional Medical Center: Our Paris, Texas acute-care hospital has come a long way since its inception in 1911....The beginning of what was to eventually become Paris Regional dates to 1896 when the Sisters of Mercy operated St. Patrick’s Academy, a boarding school near downtown Paris, Texas. After several years of agonizing labor and severe tests of faith, six sisters reopened the facility as St. Joseph’s Infirmary on October 1, 1911.

http://www.ipernity.com/doc/138242/7266250

St. Joseph's Infirmary, 1908

St. Joseph's, est. 1911, site of St. Patrick's Academy

Present day site of St. Patrick's Academy (from Google Earth)

From Texas to Oklahoma to Illinois Nursing became a licensed profession in the early 1900's in Texas.  A growing percentage of women were in the workforce, and I believe my grandmother was among those at this cultural cutting edge.  In 1920, she was living in Oklahoma City in a boarding house on 11th Street and was working as a nurse.  A fellow roomer in this house was her lifelong best friend Maud Marshall, also a nurse.  The nearest hospital to this location - in walking distance, in fact - is the present-day Oklahoma University Medical Center and College of Nursing.  The Sisters of Mercy were a strong presence in Oklahoma City, as they founded Mount St. Mary Academy, an all girls' school which began as a mission to education Native American children.  From Oklahoma City, my grandmother moved with her friend Maud to Chicago, where there happens to be another Sisters of Mercy hospital. Coincidence?  I think not.  

UPDATE - Found Mother Teresa online!  This story is definitely adding up.

The first Catholic school in Paris was founded by a little band of Sisters of Mercy under the direction of Mother Teresa Muldoon. The sisters arrived in Paris in 1896. For two months, the sisters lived in the old Wooldridge home, at 238 Clarksville Street. With money bequeathed to her by her brother, Mother Teresa purchased three lots adjacent to the church on Clarksville Street. The little school was on the site of the first St. Joseph's Hospital building and now the parking lot west of the present hospital. In four years the sisters had progressed from small shacks to a fine modern building, a combination of a convent, the Convent of Mercy, and a school, St. Patrick's Academy. The school was started with a solemn blessing on March 17, 1900, and included a boarding school for several years. Financial difficulties forced the sisters to close the school, and the sisters converted the school to a hospital in 1910. It was named St. Joseph's Infirmary. They ran it for its first two years. In 1912 the Sisters of Mercy returned to Chicago, and the hospital was then continued under the direction of The Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio. Mother Teresa is buried in the Sister's plot in Evergreen Cemetery.

Boston Evening Transcript - Jun 26, 1903

http://glt.amormeus.org/documents/USProvinceNewsletterNovDec07.pdf

Update -Mar 2015:   My sister found a couple of documents packed away with her own nursing school stuff... a listing of licensed nurses in Virginia showing that Teresa Allen Crofford graduated from Paris Sanitarium Training School for Nurses, and a yearbook listing alumni of the school.  She, along with her friend Maude Marshall and five others, comprised the 7th graduating class.  The nursing school originated in the St. Joseph's Infirmary, further cementing the facts in the above story.

Update-June 2015:  searched for Maude Marshall and found her name as well as Teresa Allen's in the City Directories of Sherman Texas, and Paris Texas.  They both worked as nurses at St. Vincent's Sanitarium, and then at the Sanitarium of Paris in 1917-1919.

http://digicol.lib.depaul.edu/cdm/ref/collection/cm1/id/1191