Saint Mary of Victories is considered the “one true home” of the Sisters of St. Mary — the congregation that would go on to found what is today SSM Health, one of the largest Catholic health systems in the United States.
Five Women, $5, and a Common Door
On November 16, 1872, Mother Mary Odilia Berger and five companions arrived on the St. Louis riverfront. They had just $5 among them. They had come from Germany fleeing the Kulturkampf — the Bismarck government’s systematic persecution of the Catholic Church — carrying nothing but faith, compassion, and the Franciscan charism of service to the poor.
Being German, they were immediately drawn to Saint Mary of Victories, the city’s solid German Catholic parish since 1843. At first they stayed with the Ursuline Sisters, then rented rooms across the street. Ultimately a convent was built that attached directly to the south side of the Church — sharing a common door with Saint Mary of Victories.
That shared door was more than architectural. It was the spiritual connection between a German immigrant parish and a German immigrant religious congregation that together would shape the history of St. Louis.
The Smallpox Sisters
St. Louis in 1872 was a city of tenement housing, industrial pollution, and epidemic disease: smallpox, tuberculosis, typhoid, diphtheria, and scarlet fever swept through the crowded immigrant neighborhoods. The sisters entered this suffering immediately. They went into homes — sometimes spending weeks washing, cooking, and cleaning for sick families — carrying small bells to warn others of possible contagion. The city knew them quickly as “the Smallpox Sisters.”
Because of their proximity to contagion, they entered Saint Mary of Victories only as far as the second balcony, below the choir loft, to protect the congregation from infection.
Named for Our Church
In 1874, the congregation received its formal name: the Sisters of St. Mary — named directly for Saint Mary of Victories Church, with whom their convent shared that common door. It was a name that would carry their mission across the Midwest and beyond.
Mother Mary Odilia Berger, born Anna Katharina Berger on April 30, 1823 in Regen, Bavaria, had earlier co-founded a religious community in Paris and cared for soldiers during the Franco-Prussian War before bringing her community to America. She would not live long to see the fruits of her work: she died in St. Louis on October 17, 1880 — only days after the Archdiocese formally recognized the congregation she had founded. She was 57.
St. Mary’s Infirmary — The First Hospital
On May 24, 1877, the Sisters of St. Mary borrowed $16,000 — then an enormous sum — to open their first hospital: St. Mary’s Infirmary on Papin Street. It was from the beginning a hospital for the poor. Account books from this era identify nearly 60% of patients as unable to pay — recorded simply as “ODL”: Our Dear Lords. The sisters recognized in every patient the face of Christ.
In 1878, Mother Odilia sent thirteen sisters — a full third of the congregation — to Mississippi and Tennessee to care for victims of a Yellow Fever epidemic. Five of them died, all under age 30. Their sacrifice became the foundation of a tradition of heroic service that defines SSM Health to this day.
From Sisters of St. Mary to SSM Health
In 1894, Sister Mary Augustine Giesen and six companions left to found a second congregation, the Sisters of St. Francis of Maryville. In 1987, the two congregations — both born from the same Franciscan spirit that first arrived through the door of Saint Mary of Victories — reunited as the Franciscan Sisters of Mary. Their healthcare ministry became SSM Health, today a non-profit Catholic health system operating hospitals, clinics, and care facilities across Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma. The building where it all began — St. Mary’s Infirmary — still stands visible from Interstate 64, a silent testament to those first five women and their $5.
SSM Heritage Tours at Saint Mary of Victories — Saint Mary of Victories is proud to partner with SSM Health to offer heritage tours of the church as part of SSM’s leadership orientation program. New leaders within SSM Health come to our church to encounter the physical origin of their organization’s mission — standing in the same space where the Sisters of St. Mary first worshipped, and walking through the common door that connected their convent to ours. To arrange a heritage tour, contact us at welcome@smov.info.