Guerin, Anne Therese

Guerin, Anne Therese foundress of a religious community, was born at Etables, St. Brieuc, Brittany, October 2, 1798. In 1822 she joined the Sisters of Providence, an order founded at Ruille-sur-Loire in 1806, assuming the name of Sister St. Theodore. Immediately after her profession she was appointed superior of an extensive establishment at Rennes, the object of which was to give poor children an education. Astonishing success attended her exertions among the ignorant and degraded. She was afterwards removed to Soulaines, where her educational and charitable duties were combined.. Here she studied medicine. On October 22, 1840, Sister St. Theodore, at the request of bishop Brute, founded, at St. Mary's of the Woods, Vigo County, Indiana, a very wilderness at the time the Sisters of providence in America. In November 1841, she was joined by Sister St. Francis, a saintly woman, whose Life and Letters — the latter called "a string of exquisite pearls" — has been published. The two sisters died in 1856, within three months of each other. Mother Theodore united those rare virtues which form the perfect religious with extraordinary governing and financial abilities. The fruit of her charity and zeal is witnessed in extensive and numerous, establishments, educational and charitable, spread over the Western. States. See (N.Y.) Cath. Annual, 1881, page 75.