St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

St. Rose Philippine Duchesne was a missionary who founded the first convents of the Society of the Sacred Heart in the United States. Born into a wealthy family, she studied at a convent and entered the Visitation Order in Grenoble in 1788. After the French Revolution, she did charitable works for nine years before turning the convent over to the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1804. Duchesne prepared for a missionary career for 14 years, founding the first Sacred Heart convent in Paris in 1815. She led a band of five nuns to pioneer U.S. territory west of the Mississippi, opening a free school and boarding academy in St. Charles, Missouri. They later moved to Florissant, Missouri, where they founded an orphanage and novitiate. They founded two convent schools in Louisiana, and an academy and orphanage in St. Louis, Missouri. Duchesne was sent to the Indian mission among the Potawatomi at Sugar Creek in 1841, where she remained in ill health for one year. She spent the last decade of her life in St. Charles, where a memorial church was built in her honor.