Our Story of the Basket
Our Story of the Basket
On the streets of St. Louis
in the early 1870's, people often met a woman with a basket on her arm.
She was clad in dark garments with a soft veil falling around her
shoulders. She walked with a very purposeful step.
Every now and then she stopped to chat with someone in German. Sometimes the person would hand her a few coins or bills, and she would slip them into her basket.
She was a familiar figure with a basket on her arm, stopping at one
house after another where her sisters were nursing, bringing them
supplies of clean linens, food and medicine for their patients.
The basket on the arm of this woman - Mother Mary Odilia Berger, founder of the congregation now known as the Franciscan Sisters of Mary - became for her sisters a most significant symbol.
Today the basket is woven with the efforts of all people who minister and partner with us.