History

The orphanage in St. Agatha, Ontario in the 1920s.

In 1868, Mother Caroline Friess received an invitation from Fr. Eugene Funcken CR to send sisters to take charge of the orphan children in St. Agatha, Ontario.  Finally in 1871 she was able to fill this request and in October she arrived with two sisters.

Requests for teaching sisters increased and the number of Canadian missions quickly grew. By 1927, the SSND ministry in Canada had spread into the West where they opened a boarding and day school in Leipzig, Saskatchewan.

The number of women seeking admission to the congregation also grew. As a result, in 1927, the Canadian Motherhouse was built in Waterdown, Ontario, and the Canadian Province became an administrative unit within the congregation.

In 1934 the SSND missions in England became part of the Canadian province. Sisters of the Canadian Province later answered Pope Paul VI’s call to send missionaries to Latin America.  Sisters went to Bolivia in 1961 and Peru in 1965. Today we have sisters in mission in South Sudan and Italy.

Times and situations change.  Although fewer sisters are now in formal education in Canada, the focus remains on education, in its broadest sense, enabling people, especially persons who are poor, women and children, to reach the full potential for which God created them. Our education ministry continues in schools, in parish ministry, counselling and spiritual direction; in social justice work, the ministry of prayer and presence, and in community leadership.