Ancestral History

The spirit and mission of Saint Dominic have inspired numerous branches of the Order of Preachers to spring up throughout the world.  In the latter half of the nineteenth century United States, this vision prompted three women to found Dominican congregations to proclaim the Word of God to an immigrant Church through the education of children and the care of the destitute sick.  Mother Bertrand Sheridan, Mother Augustine Neuhierl and Mother Mary Walsh began their religious journeys on three separate paths.  Their companions and followers came to be known respectively as:  Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena of Fall River, Massachusetts; Dominican Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary of Newburgh, New York; and Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor of the Immaculate Conception of Ossining, New York.

Through decades of major change in Church and society, these congregations traveled their separate journeys. A journey of transformation together begun as collaboration in 1981 and led to a new religious Congregation of Dominican women. In 1995, three Dominican groups, from Fall River, MA; Newburgh, NY; and Ossining, NY, joined to form the Dominican Sisters of Hope. July 20, 1995 marks the establishment of this new Congregation as an apostolic religious institute of pontifical right within the Roman Catholic Church, but the journey continues today.