Mother Mary Goemaere: Unsung California pioneer

Dominican Mother Mary Goemaere is no bit player in the history of early San Francisco and California. In 1850, the Belgium-born Dominican nun accepted an invitation from Bishop Joseph Alemany, OP, to help bring Catholic education to the new world. She founded the first congregation of women religious in California (now known as the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael), an order that opened the first Catholic schools in the new state and helped bring hope, stability, structure, and literacy to a turbulent frontier.

“Mother Mary was deeply religious,” said Sister Patricia Dougherty, OP, PhD, the congregation’s historian. “She was also capable, determined and fearless.” On Oct. 3, the 60-year-old Jubilarian will bring the life of Catherine Adelaide Goemaere (1809-1891) into full focus with a free, “Gather@Grand” presentation at the congregation’s headquarters in San Rafael. The event is part of a continuing commemoration of the congregation’s 175th anniversary.

Soeur Marie de la Croix Goemaere’s (Sister Mary of the Cross) contemplative life as a choir nun in a Dominican monastery in France was short lived. She braved a month-long, transatlantic crossing with Bishop Alemany and another Dominican priest, Father Sadoc Villarosa to join their mission of establishing a Catholic educational system in America. She spent another 40 days on a schooner, mule and canoe to arrive in California, which months before became the country’s 31st state.

Once there, Mother Mary wasted no time in founding the state’s first congregation of women religious, the Congregation of the Most Holy Name, originally in Monterey. She opened St. Catherine Academy, and in her lifetime and beyond it, her congregation opened dozens of schools and administrated and taught at many more. They include St. Rose Academy (closed after the Loma Prieta earthquake) in San Francisco, Dominican College (now Dominican University of California, an independent university) in San Rafael, and San Domenico School in San Anselmo (now an independent school). It also opened St. Joseph’s Hospital in Stockton (now Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Medical Center).

Bringing her footsteps into focus

With an academic interest in 19th century European history, Sister Dougherty was a young Dominican sister and Fulbright scholar conducting doctoral research in Paris when she said of her foundress, “I encountered her in earnest for the first time.” She has spent the decades since adding substantial detail to the scant knowledge of Mother Mary.

The “Gather@Grand” event will take guests on her journey. Congregational archivist, Jack Doran, will share artifacts from the museum-quality, historical Heritage Room at the congregation’s campus in San Rafael, including Mother Mary’s prayer and song books, correspondence, and beloved music box. Guests will also be able to tour the Heritage Room themselves for a look at other congregational artifacts, including Mother Mary’s pump organ, which sailed with her around Panama’s Cape Horn to arrive in California. The Heritage Room’s floor to ceiling stained glass windows cast the whole room in antiquity. They were rescued from the original motherhouse which stood four stories high on the same grounds before a fire destroyed it in 1990.

To commemorate her Jubilee, and the congregation’s anniversary, Sister Dougherty penned two companion pieces for the latest issue of OP Ignite, the community’s bi-annual publication. One is a comprehensive, historical biography of Catherine Adelaide Goemaere (1809-1891), and the other, a first-person account of her mission to do justice to her contributions.

The exploration of Mother Mary Goemaere “unfolded into a ministry, a responsibility, and ultimately, a calling,” she said.

In the 1980s, Sister Patricia traveled to Mother Mary’s former Dominican monastery in Paris hoping to see some of her early letters from California, requests sent, perhaps, for the practical goods needed to sustain a convent, school, and chapel on the frontier. Nothing had been saved. However, Sister Dougherty was able to provide that community with a bit of their own history.

“Imagine my delight, when I was able to tell them that the replies to those requests had been kept by Mother Mary and were carefully preserved, translated, and archived in San Rafael,” she said.

Mother Mary’s hometown was destroyed in both world wars. Sister Dougherty visited an archive there and inquired about the Goemaere family. She was shown only a date of birth next to the name Catherine Adelaide on the family tree.

“That moment was a jaw-dropping moment for me,” she said. “No indication that she had entered religious life. No hint that she had crossed an ocean, founded schools, or established the first congregation of women religious in California.”