Mother Joseph

"Architect of the Pacific Northwest"
Sisters of Providence
Seattle, Washington

In Statuary Hall in the Capitol, Washington, DC, is a statue of Mother Joseph. Not only is she one of only a few women represented in the Capitol, she is the only Catholic woman religious. The inscription on the base of the statue summarizes her life: "She made monumental contributions to healthcare, education, and social services throughout the Northwest."

Mother Joseph was born Esther Pariseau on April 16, 1823, in St. Elzear, a village near Montreal, Canada. Esther was the daughter of a coachmaker and his wife, and she learned carpentry at an early age. On December 26, 1843, Esther became the thirteenth woman to join the newly-formed Sisters of Providence in Montreal. When presenting her to the mother superior, her father said: "Madame, I bring you my daughter Esther, who wishes to dedicate herself to religious life. She can read and write and figure accurately. She can cook and sew and spin and do all manner of housework well."

In her early days as a sister, she cared for victims of typhus. In 1851, Mother Gamelin, the young foundress of the religious community, died of cholera, and the following year the archbishop asked the community to come to the Northwest United States. The journey from Montreal to Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory, was 6,000 miles across treacherous waters: first to New York, then on to Jamaica, Panama, Acapulco, and, finally, San Francisco. Five sisters departed, but the people they expected to serve had left for the California gold rush. They decided to return to Montreal, but were forced by illness and the weather to stop in Chile, where they took over an orphanage.

Four years later, in 1856, community leaders selected a second group to make the journey. This time, Mother Joseph was the leader.

Mother Joseph and the other sisters suffered from intense seasickness during the journey. In San Francisco, they stayed with the Sisters of Mercy at Saint Mary's Hospital before making the difficult journey up the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver. When they reached their destination, the five women settled into a tiny room in the bishop's attic. The bishop who had sent for them was in Europe when they arrived, and the vicar-general wanted them to move to Olympia.

Under the leadership of Mother Joseph, the sisters soon settled in their first convent, an old fur-storage building in Ft. Vancouver abandoned by the Hudson Bay Company. Mother Joseph herself designed the chapel and built the altar.

The sisters made home visits to the sick and cared for Native Americans displaced by warring. They took in orphans and started teaching, establishing Providence Academy, Vancouver, Washington, the first permanent school in the Northwest.. In 1858, they opened the four-bed St. Joseph Hospital (the first permanent hospital in the Northwest) in a tiny building intended for a laundry and bakery. Also that year, Mother Joseph incorporated the Sisters of Providence—one of the earliest organizations in the state to become incorporated—enabling the religious community to legally acquire property.

Not only did Mother Joseph open schools, orphanages, and hospitals, she designed and built them. In his book Cornerstone, Ellis Lucia described her: "There was Mother Joseph striding across the ground near Fort Vancouver, Washington, hammer dangling from her belt like the sheriffs of the Old West carried their six-guns, and wielding a saw in her hand.

"There was no stranger sight around Fort Vancouver than Mother Joseph in her black habit bouncing on a high cross beam to test its strength or wriggling out from beneath the ground level where she had been inspecting a foundation."

During the next 50 years, Mother Joseph opened, designed, and built hospitals, orphanages, and schools throughout the Northwest. To raise money for the buildings, she begged in the mining camps. The begging tours often lasted for months and exposed Mother Joseph to harsh weather and primitive living conditions (including wolves, snakes, and bandits). But each series of trips to the mining camps could yield up to $5,000.

On a trip to Denver, it is said, masked men seized the stagecoach and thrust guns through the windows. They demanded that the travelers hand over all their baggage and belongings. When the baggage was piled up, the passengers were ordered back into the coach. Mother Joseph lagged behind. "My boy," she said to one of the bandits over fierce protests to be quiet from the other passengers.

"My boy, please give me that black bag." "Which one?" the surprised bandit asked. She indicated her bag.

He lifted an ample carpetbag. Mother Joseph nodded and ordered him to give it to her. Astounded by her audacity, the bandit carried the bag to her. "Thank you. God bless you, my boy," Mother Joseph said. The looting of the other bags continued, but the $200 Mother Joseph had collected remained safe.

Another time, a farmer who had been impressed by her on a begging trip wanted to send her a cow that she could auction for money. He attached a tag to its horn reading "For Mother Joseph" and sent it along to her as freight. The cow arrived and yielded $250 at auction.

Even as she grew older, Mother Joseph remained in command. On one construction job, she pointed out to workers that the chimney they had just built needed to be rebricked. They ignored her. The next morning they found the chimney rebricked the way she wanted it.

Mother Joseph was a woman of multiple and contrasting abilities. She was not only skilled at building design and construction, but was an able needle worker, wax worker, and wood carver. She was honored by the American Institute of Architects and the West Coast Lumbermen's Association.

"Oh, if I were young!" Mother Joseph wrote in 1897, "we would do much good on a mission where there would be misery, and where it would be necessary to make sacrifices. Nowadays, we look for too much comfort in this land which offers so much."

Before she died on January 19, 1902, of a brain tumor, Mother Joseph told the sisters: "Whatever concerns the poor is always our affair." Mother Marie Antoinette, superior general, eulogized her: "She had the characteristics of genius: incessant works, immense sacrifices, great undertakings; and she never counted the cost to self. . . ."