The Northwest’s mother of faith: The life, legacy of Mother Joseph on her 200th birthday
Mar 29, 2023
Features
Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart, the woman who helped build the Catholic Church in Western Washington with her leadership and skills — ranging from fine embroidery to carpentry and design — would be celebrating her 200th birthday April 16.
During her 46-year ministry (1856-1902) in the Northwest, she served as the first leader of the Sisters of Providence in the West, establishing 29 hospitals, orphanages and schools, including St. Joseph Hospital, the Northwest’s first hospital, and Providence Academy, both in Vancouver.
As a key figure in the history of Western Washington, Mother Joseph is honored with a statue at the United States Capitol and was inducted into the Puget Sound Business Hall of Fame in 2002. Thanks to the efforts of some Vancouver sixth graders back in 1999, April 16 is Mother Joseph Day in Washington state.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Mother Joseph was born Esther Pariseau in 1823, on her family’s farm in the village of Saint-Elzéar, not far from Quebec, Canada. When she entered the Sisters of Providence, a newly established community in Montreal, she brought with her an array of skills and abilities and a seemingly inexhaustible capacity for work.
“I assure you, Madame, she will someday make a very good superior,” her father, Joseph Pariseau, told Mother Emilie Gamelin, founder of the Sisters of Providence.
He was right. Esther — who took the name Sister Joseph — proved an invaluable asset to the new community. She took care of the elderly, nursed the sick through epidemics of typhus and cholera and watched by the bedside of Mother Gamelin when she succumbed to cholera in 1851. She also skillfully handled the community’s finances.
So when Bishop A.M.A. Blanchet came looking for sisters to assist him in his new mission diocese of Nesqually, Sister Joseph was the obvious choice to lead the new community. She and four other sisters set out for far-off Vancouver in Washington Territory. They navigated many inconveniences and some very real dangers — their journey concluded dramatically when their ship Columbia nearly foundered at the mouth of the Columbia River.
Throughout the journey, Sister Joseph (now Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart) was a tower of strength, at least on the outside. Only Mother Caron, back in Montreal, knew her inner misgivings. In a letter home, Mother Joseph wrote: “The idea of being responsible for leading the others, for running a house, training the young sisters, my lack of experience, my disagreeable nature, my ignorance — everything seemed to overwhelm me … and yet I had to maintain my composure for the sake of the others.”
BUILDING FROM SCRATCH
When the sisters arrived in Vancouver on Dec. 8, 1856, nothing was ready for them. Before they could go to sleep that first night, they had to transform part of the attic of Bishop Blanchet’s residence into a convent. Mother Joseph put her skills to immediate use: Wooden boxes became chairs, and spare lumber was turned into shelves for prayer books and a fold-down table where the sisters could eat.
“When Mother Joseph and her companions arrived at Fort Vancouver in 1856, they immediately rolled up their sleeves, pinned their skirts up out of the dirt and went to work,” said Providence Sister Barbara Schamber, current provincial leader of the Mother Joseph Province of the Sisters of Providence.
By Ash Wednesday of 1857, they moved into a separate residence that had been built for them. Bishop Blanchet dedicated a small chapel for the sisters and reserved the Blessed Sacrament in a tabernacle crafted by Mother Joseph. Before the sisters had been in Vancouver six months, they had started three ministries in that little building: a school, an orphanage and a hospital.
They fed and tended to those in need, including mothers struggling to feed and clothe their children, Sister Barbara said.
“Always they prayed and trusted they could reach the souls of the people by ministering to their physical needs first,” she said. “They counted the number of poor assisted rather than the number of converts made.”
Mother Joseph could work, dream, design and build, but dealing with people was more challenging. She could be irritable and impatient, especially with any signs of laziness or incompetence.
“Sister Joseph is very pious, zealous, and all afire for the good works of Providence,” Bishop Blanchet said in a letter to a brother bishop, “but she is also too hasty. … Thus she makes her sisters suffer, though I am sure her intentions are very good.”
Mother Joseph was often frustrated with herself.
“I am incapable of doing any good,” she wrote to Bishop Joseph Larocque in Canada. “Yet at the same time, I am happy to be here, and to make these sacrifices for our Lord, and to allow my life to be consumed in his holy service.”
‘WHATEVER CONCERNS THE POOR IS ALWAYS OUR AFFAIR’
A decade after the sisters arrived in Vancouver, Mother Joseph’s dear friend and fellow missionary, Sister Praxedes, became the community’s new superior. Although the change brought disappointment, it also brought relief. Mother Joseph was free to concentrate on what mattered most to her — establishing new ministries and serving the poor.
“More and more I feel that I shall be happy only in contacting and relieving the destitute,” Mother Joseph wrote to Bishop Larocque.
In the 1890s, when she was in her 70s, Mother Joseph began slowing down. She underwent cancer treatment, but the cancer later returned, eventually spreading into one eye. Even worse than the excruciating pain was the loss of sight in that eye, since it meant she could no longer do the work that she loved.
In the first days of 1902, it became clear that Mother Joseph was dying, and Bishop Edward O’Dea performed the last rites. The biography “The Bell and the River” recounts how, with the sisters gathered around her bed, Mother Joseph begged their forgiveness and expressed love for her community. Her last thoughts were of her beloved poor: “My sisters, whatever concerns the poor is always our affair.”
Mother Joseph died Jan. 16, 1902, and was laid to rest among the Sisters of Providence at St. James Acres (now Mother Joseph Cemetery) in Vancouver, amid an outpouring of praise and gratitude from the whole community. Mother Mary Antoinette, superior general of the Sisters of Providence, described her as the “perfect model of a Sister of Charity, with her soul of flame and her will of tempered steel!”
Two hundred years after her birth, Mother Joseph’s example and legacy are as powerful as ever.
“Mother Joseph lived a life of compassion, faith and determination” and serves as a model for women today, said Providence Sister Susanne Hartung, mission officer for Providence Health Systems. “To emulate Mother Joseph is to follow the message of the Gospel.”
ENCOUNTERING MOTHER JOSEPH TODAY
• Visit the Proto-Cathedral of St. James the Greater in Vancouver. The tabernacle in the adoration chapel is attributed to Mother Joseph, and she created a wax model and embroidered tunic for St. Lucien relics beneath a side altar.
• Pray at Mother Joseph’s grave at Mother Joseph Cemetery, 1401 E. 29th St., Vancouver.
• Take a tour of Providence Academy, now held by The Historic Trust, thehistorictrust.org/providenceacademy-2.
• Explore Mother Joseph’s life and ministry at the Providence Archives, providence.org/about/providence-archives/history-online.
• Read the definitive biography of Mother Joseph, “The Bell and the River,” by Providence Sister Mary of the Blessed Sacrament McCrosson.
