She served as an educator and social worker who worked in Ohio, Colorado and New Mexico, assisting Native Americans, Hispanic settlers and European immigrants.

Segale traveled alone on dusty trails and railroads, through the unexplored lands of the far Southwest, finally reaching Trinidad, a frontier mining town, on December 9, 1872.

[13] In December 1873, Segale received a letter from her Mother Superior directing her to move to Santa Fe, New Mexico to help in the religious settlement.

Despite the scarcity of funding and resources, she built several schools and orphanages, continued to visit the mines in the area and railway construction sites to minister to the people there.

She also attempted at building a hospital there but was recalled in 1889 to Trinidad, where she defended the right of the Sisters of Charity to teach in the local school while wearing their religious habit.

[13] According to one story, she received a tip that Billy the Kid[19] was coming to her town to scalp the four doctors who had refused to treat his friend's gunshot wound.

[18] On 25 August 2015, supporters and researchers presented their case before the Archdiocese of Santa Fe at a ceremonial “first inquiry” in Albuquerque on why Sister Blandina Segale should become a saint.

The public inquiry, headed by the former Archbishop of Santa Fe Michael Jarboe Sheehan, was aimed at determining if there was enough evidence to move her case through the largely secret process through the Vatican.

)[22][23] Segale fought against the injustices committed against the Native Americans and supported their civil rights;[24] she wrote: "Poor wild hearts, how they feel full of anger and treated unfairly.

"[25] In her letters, Segale referred to Billy the Kid:[26] "His eyes were blue-gray, rosy complexion, and the air of a little boy... [looking no] more than seventeen years.

He was an innocent, if not for the iron firmness of purpose, good or bad, that we read in the corner of my eye;... could choose the right path and instead chose the wrong.

"[25] When she learned of his death, she noted: "Poor Billy the Kid, thus ending the career of a young man who started down the slope at the age of twelve to avenge an insult that had been done to his mother.

[28] In June 2003 a character based on her co-starred in the episode of Magico Vento (Italian comic published by Sergio Bonelli Editore ) titled "Jericho".

In issue #74 (Niagara Falls, August 2003), Gianfranco Manfredi, series creator and curator of the publication, says that the story of Sister Blandina generated a lot of interest from readers, many of whom demanded her return.