Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
The urgent needs of America's immigrants cried out for relief in the mid-1800s.
Seven women of Mercy responded, led by Mother Mary Frances Warde.
The small band of sisters came to early Pittsburgh to serve the sick, orphaned, hungry, uneducated, despised.
Their journey was not easy. Four weeks at sea, often storm-tossed.
Followed by a sixty hour journey by train and stagecoach to the western hills of Pennsylvania.
They arrived on December 20th, 1843
Pittsburgh was alive with expansion and urban spirit.
Smoky, overcrowded, rich in coal, easy access for the river.
It attracted new immigrants looking for work and a place to build a new life.
Pittsburgh's fast growth left many without adequate housing.
Uneducated immigrants were easily exploited and little health care was available.
Typhus and cholera ravaged the city, leaving many orphans in its wake.
Frances Warde and her sisters, immigrants themselves, set out to respond to the needs before them.
Within five years, they opened a hospital, built a school for young women, visited the sick in their homes
Provided adult education, and sheltered orphans, establishing themselves as an integral part of Pittsburgh's life.
They worked not for profit or for fame.
They did it but because love for their brothers and sisters, especially those most in need, called them to lives of service.
Today this legacy continues.
Sisters of Mercy are found throughout the world reaching out to those who are most marginalized.
Whether bringing water to small villages
Teaching women life skills in Haiti
Or helping immigrant peoples through education, health care and housing
They continue to make the works of mercy the business of their lives.
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