Sisters of the Divine Compassion

Susanna Dannat was the daughter of Daniel Jones, a Welsh immigrant who became a wealthy merchant and amassed a fortune in brewing and real estate.

[1] While her mother joined an Episcopal congregation, her father had by then gravitated towards the tenets of the Swedenborgian Church, and Mary Caroline did the same.

[2] Dissatisfied with her faith community, she sought instruction in Catholicism from Father Thomas Preston, parish priest of St. Ann's on the East Side.

That autumn she and some associates opened a sewing school for girls in St. Bernard's parish, whose congregation was mostly Irish immigrants and their descendants.

[3] Seeing the necessity of a religious community which should be trained to this work and perpetuate it, Father Preston compiled a rule of life for those who desired to devote their lives to it.

The first draft was written September 5, 1873, and was observed in its elemental form until 1886, when it was elaborated and obtained the informal approbation of the Archbishop of New York.

In order to establish a novitiate and relocate the ministry, in 1890 Mother Veronica purchased from James Tilford, a fourteen acre estate on Broadway in White Plains, New York, including a three-story frame house built in 1856, with carpets and furniture for $25,000.

To make room for the chapel, in 1895, the house was moved to the back of the property and was later enlarged and became Our Lady of Good Counsel Academy Elementary School.

The Sisters of the Divine Compassion today are a religious community of vowed members, lay associates, and partners committed "to proclaim and witness by our lives and service the Compassionate Presence of God in our world."

The Sisters retained use of the Chapel of the Divine Compassion under a fifty year lease,[12] as well as, St. Joseph’s House, a nearby historic Victorian building, for the congregation's administrative offices.