DUCHEMIN, M. THERESA MAXIS, MOTHER

Co-Founder of Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; founding member of the Oblate Sisters of Providence; b. 1810, Baltimore, Md.; d. Westchester, Pa., Jan. 21, 1892. Theresa is the first U.S. born African American woman to become a religious. Her mother, Betsy, was a refugee from Haiti and was of mixed race; Betsy's grandfather was an African slave. During the Toussaint L'Overture Rebellion, which began in Haiti in 1791, all white persons and those of mixed race came under attack. Betsy was the only member of her family to escape from the island. She arrived in Baltimore in 1793 at the age of 10, and came under the protection of the Duchemin family. They provided a home for her, and procured for her training as a nurse.

Theresa was born of Betsy Duchemin and Arthur Howard, a British military officer who was visiting his U.S. relatives in an adjoining estate. Her parents were not married. Because of her illegitimacy, Theresa was raised in the African American, Catholic, and French-speaking community rather than in the white, Protestant, English-speaking community. Her participation in the community of Haitian refugees led Theresa to attend a school established for children of that community by Elizabeth Lange and Marie Magdalen Baras, also of Haitian origin.

In 1829, under the leadership of Rev. Jacques Joubert, these women, together with another Haitian immigrant, Rose Boegue, formed the Oblates Sisters of Providence, the first congregation of African American women in the U.S. Theresa, who was then a 19-year old student at the school, was admitted to the new congregation, thereby becoming the fourth founding member. At first the congregation flourished under the guidance of the Sulpician Fathers and with the support of the Archbishop of Baltimore, James Whitfield. The sisters' situation changed upon the death of Archbishop Whitfield and as the number of Haitian children dwindled. The poor African-American students could not afford to pay the tuition, and the sisters turned to manual labor activities to support their fledging community and ministry. The new Archbishop Samuel Eccleston, was not supportive of the congregation and ordered them to discontinue accepting new members.

During some of the congregation's most difficult times, Theresa served as General Superior. She explored a number of avenues for rescuing the congregation from its desperate situation. One approach was to change the congregation's name to the Sisters of St. Charles in the hope of gaining the sponsorship of the descendents of the colonial hero, Charles Carroll. Her efforts, however, were unsuccessful, and she came to believe that the congregation was fated to disband.

Shortly after completing her term as General Superior, Theresa came into contact with Rev. Louis Florent Gillet. A French-speaking Redemptorist from Belgium, Father Gillet followed the missionary inspiration of St. Alphonsus Liguori; he had arrived in the U.S. in 1843 and established a mission in the town of Monroe in the Detroit diocese. He had met Mother Theresa in Baltimore where he was happy to minister in French to the sisters at the Oblate convent. In 1845, realizing that he needed bilingual sisters to teach the French-Canadian children in Monroe, he asked Theresa to establish a congregation there. Theresa agreed, traveled to Monroe, and on Nov. 10, 1845 initiated community life with two other sisters, Charlotte Shaaff (also from the Oblates) and Theresa Renault. Louis and Theresa adapted the Redemptorist rule to the circumstances of the new congregation of sisters. It was the beginning of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (see immaculate heart of mary, sisters, servants of the).

Once she moved to Monroe, Theresa dropped the Duchemin name and did not refer to her African American background, separating herself from her earlier life in Baltimore. Only in the last years of her life did she share with the sisters the information about her African American roots. The bishops with whom she had contact, however, knew of her origins, and used that information to try to discredit her when they were dissatisfied with her activities.

After almost a decade of successful ministry and growth in Monroe, the congregation was caught into difficulties arising between the bishop, Peter Paul Lefevere and the Redemptorist Fathers. In 1854 the Redemptorist leadership decided that it was necessary to withdraw from the Detroit diocese. Bishop Lefevere fought irately against the decision, but the Redemptorists did indeed withdraw from Monroe. The bishop's reaction was to strive to eradicate all Alphonsian influences in the IHM congregation and to sever all Redemptorists' contacts with the IHM sisters. He appointed a diocesan priest, Rev. Edward Joos, to lead the congregation, supplanting the role of the superior as it was specified in the congregation's rule.

Pennsylvania Foundation. Theresa was eager to preserve the Alphonsian tradition to the congregation and to restore the place of the superior in the government of the congregation. She recognized this was not possible in Monroe. She therefore persuaded Bishop Lefevere to allow her to accept a mission in Pennsylvania, where the Redemptorist St. John Neumann was bishop. The ministry was to poor, Irish Catholic immigrant farmers, whose ethnicity and religion had doubly marginalized them in 19th century U.S. society. Theresa intended eventually to move the entire congregation to Pennsylvania, where they could develop their Alphonsian charism. In that effort she pressured to open another mission in Pennsylvania; Bishop Lefevere reacted to her persistence by sending Theresa away to Pennsylvania permanently. She encouraged some Redemptorist priests to write to sisters in Monroe, encouraging them to leave Michigan and come to Pennsylvania. These letters were intercepted and forwarded to Bishop Lefevere. His response was to dismiss those sisters he deemed to be disloyal and to declare the two convents separate congregations as of 1859. His correspondence with Bishop James Wood, Neumann's successor in Pennsylvania, condemning Theresa's assertiveness, indicates how much the racism of the times had influenced his appraisal.

Theresa struggled for years to reunite the members of the congregation. In an effort to remove herself as an obstacle to reunion, she left the Pennsylvania congregation and lived with the Grey Nuns of Ottawa. In 1868 she traveled from Ottawa, first to the Monroe congregation, and then to the Pennsylvania congregation, in the hope of readmission. Having been refused by the bishops of both dioceses, she was received back at Ottawa, where she remained as a guest of the Grey Nuns for 17 years. The bishops forbade the sisters in the IHM congregations to communicate with Theresa during most of these years, times of great isolation and loneliness for Theresa. In 1881 Sister Genevieve Morrisey from Scranton broke the silence and established a regular correspondence with Theresa. Theresa's letters are full of longing to return to her congregation and suggestions on how the return could be effected. In 1885, efforts by IHMs and Redemptorists succeeded in gaining permission for her return to the congregation at Westchester, PA, where she lived until her death on Jan. 21, 1892.

Bibliography: m. gannon, ed. Paths of Daring, Deeds of Hope: Letters by and about Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin (Scranton, PA, 1992). r. kelly, No Greater Service: The History of the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Monroe, Mich. 1948). g. h. sherwood, The Oblates' One Hundred and One Years (New York 1931). sisters, servants of the immaculate heart of mary, monroe, michigan, Building Sisterhood: A Feminist History of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Syracuse 1997).

[m. gannon]