Euphemia Van Rensselaer AKA Sister Marie Dolores

Euphemia Waddington (Van Rensselaer) AKA Sister Marie Dolores

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/211805925/euphemia-van_rensselaer

Euphemia Van Rensselaer ("Sister Marie Dolores") was a Roman Catholic Nun with the Sisters of Charity New York. She was born on December 16, 1842 in Jamaica, Queens, in New York City. Euphemia was the Daughter of Henry Bell Van Rensselaer (1810-1864) and Elizabeth Ray King (1815-1900) and the Granddaughter of the last of the great New York Dutch Patroons, Stephen Van Rensselaer III (1764-1839), who owned large estates in the Albany area of New York State. She grew up a child of wealth and privilege. A turning point in her life came during the Civil War when her father, an Inspector General in the Union Army, contracted typhoid fever in Cincinnati, OH in March 1864. Euphemia and her mother rushed to his deathbed, and it was there she decided to devote the rest of her life to caring for the sick.

Euphemia enrolled, during 1873, in the first nursing class at Bellevue Hospital, in New York City, where she received training from Sister Helen, an Anglican nun, who herself had learned the art of nursing from Florence Nightingale. She is credited with designing the first nurses' uniform in 1876 - Blue and White Stripped dress with collar, cuffs, an apron, and a cap. Shortly after she completed her training, Euphemia went to England to join the same Anglican order. She spent time reading the classics of Catholic spirituality and felt drawn to explore Catholicism. She and her brother, Henry Van Rensselaer, who was studying for the Anglican priesthood in Oxford at the time, and also feeling a keen interest in the Catholic faith, traveled to France and were received into the Catholic Church by a Jesuit priest in 1877. When they returned to New York, her new faith gave Euphemia a new way to achieve her desire to serve the sick and poor. In 1878, she entered the Sisters of Charity at 35 years old. She was now known as Sister Marie Dolores and was sent to The New York Foundling Hospital to start a training program for pediatric nurses. She remained there for ten years. The Sister had many more accomplishments during her long career:

- In October 1889, she traveled on the S.S. Santiago to the Bahamas to be the first Sister Servant of the newly established Sisters of Charity mission in Nassau, Bahamas. She remained for a number of years, along with four other sisters and three lay women, who served the new mission as teachers and social workers. The Sisters of Charity opened the first of many Catholic Free Elementary Schools, Saint Francis School, in an old rented building on the grounds south of St Francis Xavier Cathedral Church. In a section of their small rented residence north of the Church, they began St. Francis Xavier Academy, a fee-paying institution. After 130 years, the schools continue in operation today.

- In 1894, she returned to New York City to take charge of the recently opened Seton Hospital in the Bronx where tuberculosis patients were cared for. The Hospital was sold to New York City in 1948 and demolished in 1955.

- In 1897, she was named the first director of Grace Institute in Manhattan, started by the Grace Family, a free school for immigrant and economically disadvantaged women with classes in sewing, cooking, and secretarial subjects. Three hundred women were enrolled when Grace Institute first opened its doors in 1898. The following winter enrollment grew to 500 students. From 1900 to 1962, over 900 students each year attended classes at the school. After over 120 years, the Grace Institute continues to provide tuition-free education and training in administrative skills to economically disadvantaged women.

- In 1901, she opened the Nazareth Day Nursery on West 15th St. in the Chelsea area of Manhattan to care for the children of working mothers. This was her favorite mission because it was her brother Rev. Henry Van Rensselaer’s dream and allowed her to work with him. The Nursery school operated for 114 years before closing in 2015.

By 1913, Sister Marie Dolores had returned to The New York Foundling Hospital, and spent her last year there, where she had begun 35 years before.

Sources:

"Amazing Grace: Sr. Marie Dolores Van Rensselear", Sisters of Charity New York Vision, Volume 11, Issue 1, Winter 2006-2007, pages 6-7. By Sr. Mary McCormack.
https://www.scny.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Vision_Winter_2006-...
"130 Years of Catholic Education", The Nassau Guardian, November 4, 2019, by Shavaughn Moss.
https://thenassauguardian.com/2019/11/04/130-years-of-catholic-educ...
"One of the City's Oldest Nursery Schools to shutter amid real estate boom", New York Daily News, Jan 25, 2015, by Katherine Clarke.
https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/city-oldest-nurs...