Remembering Our Roots

Each November we IHMs celebrate Founders Day, our beginnings, our roots, our foundation. Where were the roots, the foundations before Monroe in 1845? Many of those roots were ‘growing’ in Baltimore in the 1840s and before.

By the 1830s and 40s Baltimore was a refuge in the Chesapeake region for Black people, free and enslaved, who were able to work toward their freedom and self-determination. Yet the stronghold of white supremacy and racial segregation were evident in both secular and church worlds. There were Black independent churches, segregated from whites; they sought to establish schools for Black children not permitted to attend public schools. These were “pre-Civil War Days.” Baltimore was an immigrant city composed of a multi-ethnic mix (from the UK, Germany and Ireland in particular). The majority of Catholics in the 1800s were found in the Baltimore area.

In 1840 St. Mary’s Seminary in the Seton Hill section of Baltimore, served the needs of the seminary and the surrounding neighborhood. The lower chapel (or “Chapelle Basse,” as it was commonly known) served the needs of the laity in the locale. It was also the birthplace of the first African American Catholic Community (1797) where the Oblate Sisters of Providence found their roots. In addition, individuals from Canada, Haiti and other French-speaking parts of the world populated this area; it’s no wonder the French Sulpician Fathers felt at ease in this section of Baltimore. This included the Sulpician Father James Hector Joubert, the co-founder of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. Biracial Theresa Maxis Duchemin (whose mother was a Haitian immigrant) knew this locale as a Black educated free woman who was one of the founders of the Oblate Sisters.

In a German speaking section of Baltimore, the Redemptorists served in the parish of St. Alphonsus. It was at this rectory where the young, energized Redemptorist missionary Louis Florent Gillet found residence when he came from London via New York City in early 1843. Although the French-speaking Gillet found it uncomfortable at this place, he made acquaintances with other Baltimorean clergy including Fr. Joubert. Through Joubert’s connection with the Oblate Sisters of Providence, Gillet had been invited several times to say mass at their convent home. The Oblates, established in 1829 for the education of black children, were a struggling group of pioneers in a prejudiced city and church.

After Joubert’s death (1843), the church leaders were less sympathetic toward the existence of this 14-year-old community of African American women who were facing financial, ministerial and spiritual crises.

Also, in 1843 the Fifth Provincial Council of Catholic Bishops was held in Baltimore. At the close of this meeting, some bishops remained longer to attend to business affairs; it was during this time that Gillet met with Detroit Bishop Lefevre to decide about his missionary work in Detroit.

Within this context Theresa Maxis Duchemin, a founding member and superior of the Oblates, found herself discerning her religious vocation in Baltimore and the continued existence of the Oblates. With the invitation from Gillet to go to Detroit, she made the bold decision to ‘go north and west’ to pioneer the foundation of another religious congregation to spread the Word of God.

Taking their shared common native language but different backgrounds, and with their boldness and eagerness rooted in faith and desire to serve God, Gillet and Duchemin pushed “beyond the limits of culture and language. With all of their human short comings, they were both grounded in a common trust of Divine Providence and within two years of their first acquaintance they were to set out on ‘paths of daring-deeds of hope’”—the beginnings of IHM. (Enderle, pg.130).

We celebrate our IHM heritage – in gratitude and awe for all the Spirit- led pioneers and the graces that generated our foundations 179 years ago.

Enderle, G. A., CSsR. (2012). I Desire to be Everywhere, Louis Florent Gillet. Monroe, MI: OSP/IHM Board of Directors.