Sisters of St. Joseph
In 1902 nine Sisters of St. Joseph from the mother-house at Le Puy took charge of the school in the French parish of St-Roch, Fall River, Massachusetts. The accession of other members from the mother-house enabled the community to take charge of three other schools in the city attached to French parishes. In 1906 St. Theresa's Convent was formally opened as the provincial house of the community, which was legally incorporated in the same year, and a novitiate was established. In the mid 1970s, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Fall River merged with the Springfield Congregation.
St. Joseph's Church (Fall River, Massachusetts)
Recalled to the Providence Diocese, the first assignment of the young clergyman was to Saint Charles' Church at Woonsocket, R.I., and three months afterwards he was transferred to Saint Mary's Church in North Attleboro. Upon the demise of Reverend Father Brady early in 1885, he was selected as the clergyman in the diocese best fitted to assume the onerous burden of completing the erection of Saint Joseph's Church and arranging for the paying off of the large debt that had been necessarily contracted. Like the hero of centuries past, the historian might well and truthfully write of him: "He came, he saw, he conquered." From that day to the present he has given of his best for the moral and spiritual uplift and advancement of the thousands and thousands who have in all the intervening years been committed to his temporal care, sharing with them their joys and sorrows, a veritable shepherd of the flock. In the earlier years of his pastorate he was often forced to carry on the work single-handed, owing to the scarcity of priests, but he never faltered or hesitated in his tasks.