Russell, Mother Mary Baptist (1829–1898)

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Russell, Mother Mary Baptist (1829–1898)

Irish-born Roman Catholic nun who founded St. Mary's Hospital, the first Catholic hospital on America's West Coast. Name variations: Katherine Russell; Sister Mary Baptist; Mary Baptist Russell. Born in Newry, County Down, Ireland, on April 18, 1829; died in San Francisco, California, on August 6, 1898; daughter of Arthur Russell (a sea captain and brewer) and Margaret (Hamill) Russell; educated by a governess and in private schools; never married; no children.

Established the House of Mercy, a shelter for unemployed women (1855); founded St. Mary's Hospital, the first Catholic hospital on the West Coast (1857); established the Magdalen Asylum for reformed prostitutes (1861).

Mother Mary Baptist Russell was born Katherine Russell into a large and comfortably wealthy family in Ireland on April 18, 1829. Her parents, Arthur and Margaret Hamill Russell , made sure that their children practiced their Catholic beliefs, and lived out their own faith by ministering to the starving men and women of their town. During the Great Famine in Ireland, Margaret Russell managed the relief efforts for those people who were most destitute. Inspired by her mother's charity, Katherine, with two of her sisters, entered the Sisters of Mercy convent in Kinsale in 1848. The following year, Katherine cared for the victims of a cholera outbreak. She received her habit the same year, and became a full-fledged sister in 1851, taking the name Sister Mary Baptist.

In 1854, Russell answered a call for help in San Francisco to care for victims of another cholera outbreak. Her order, the Sisters of Mercy, had recently established a branch there, and the archbishop appointed Russell its mother superior. She left Kinsale with eight other nuns and novices, and embarked on the work that would shape the rest of her life. In the course of the next five years, Russell not only worked with the poor and sick, but also established institutions which allowed her to continue this work on a broader, more far-reaching basis. While she initially ran a hospital for San Francisco and the surrounding county under contract from the city, after two years questions arose about the separation of church and state, and she ended the arrangement in 1857. That year Russell founded St. Mary's Hospital, the first Catholic hospital on the West Coast, where nuns from the Sisters of Mercy nursed countless poor and sick people.

In addition to nursing, Russell also involved the Sisters of Mercy in the education of the poor and the protection of unemployed women. In 1855, the Sisters of Mercy, under her direction, established a night school for adults and a shelter for unemployed women called the House of Mercy. In 1861, Russell also created the Magdalen Asylum (named in reference to Mary Magdalene ), a shelter for young women trying to escape from prostitution which housed nearly 200 women over the next eight years. She visited death-row inmates at San Quentin, as well as inmates at local and county jails. She established a home for the aging and infirm, and provided, among other things, daily hot meals for the poor of San Francisco during particularly hard times. She also established Catholic schools for children in Sacramento and San Francisco.

In order to maintain the broad scope of her charity work, Russell had to ensure funding for her programs and homes. In this endeavor, too, she worked diligently. She organized a society for Catholic lay women in 1859, and encouraged its members to contribute to the causes of the Sisters of Mercy. When Russell died in 1898 at the age of 69, she left behind a powerful legacy of charitable work and devotion to others; a local newspaper recognized her as the "best-known charitable worker on the Pacific Coast." Because of her generosity, her managerial skills, and her diligence in pursuing funding, she guaranteed that the work to which she had dedicated her life would continue long after her death. Her brother Matthew Russell published The Life of Mother Mary Baptist Russell, Sister of Mercy, in 1901.