A member of the Sisters of Charity Federation in the Vincentian-Setonian Tradition, the order operates schools and hospitals in the United States and Peru.

She was not a physically large person standing at just barely five feet tall but she had what would later be written as the “will of a winner by a contemporary.”[2] Not long after she joined the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, and upon completion of her novitiate was sent to Louisville, Kentucky to teach at the Orphan Asylum.

[1] In 1858 Mother Xavier Ross came to Leavenworth, from Nashville, Tennessee, at the invitation of Bishop John Baptiste Miege.

However, The Sisters of Charity were also in great debt due to being “under a bishop who was ultimately unable to sponsor them.” Before Mother Xavier left for Leavenworth, the community commenced a Novena to Mary, Queen of Heaven.

The acceptance went thought as “The bishop recognized before him a woman of the highest integrity who had undergone a severe trial and was capable of enduring even more.”[3] Within a week of arriving in Leavenworth, the sisters were teaching in a boys’ school.

The days that followed found them opening an academy for girls, visiting wagon trains and traveling to towns to tend the sick during epidemics.

Not to mention, the Sisters would also be able to meet the Native Americans who had possessed the land first, “...and eventually they hoped to be employed in evangelizing the Indians, a work for which they most ardently longed.”[5] When Mother Xavier returned back to Nashville, she could only report back to the Sisters that there were four Indian tribes; Pawnee, Osage, Kansa, and the Paducah.

We will take our time to fully explore the injustices these schools inflicted upon Native American peoples and then seek to achieve a true and deep reconciliation.”[7] This statement came out after the list of Catholic run Native Boarding schools in the United States was released by the Catholic Truth and Healing Organization.

The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth came to the Montana gold camp of Helena in 1869 at the invitation of the Jesuits to teach youth, care for orphans, and minister to the sick in the frontier community.

[13] Since the 1960s, the Sisters of Charity have expanded work in social services and outreach, and operate missions in South America and Italy.