Pioneer Spirit: Catherine Spalding, Sister of Charity of Nazareth (review)

Catherine Spalding (1793-1858) entered the newly formed religious community of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth on January 21, 1813 at the age of nineteen. Within six months she was formally elected Mother and superior of the six-member community, and served in that position (the first time) for ten years. She is considered, along with Bardstown Bishop John Baptist David (1761-1841), a cofounder of the Kentucky-based community.

Mary Ellen Doyle's biography of Spalding is a fine contribution to the growing literature on the history of women religious communities and their foundresses. Utilizing annals, letters, and other primary archival sources, Doyle clearly documents the role Mother Catherine played in the growth of both the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth and Kentucky Catholicism. During her four terms as Mother Superior, institutions consistent with the community's apostolate were opened, beginning with Nazareth Academy in 1813. In addition, membership increased (and sometimes decreased), and in 1842 sisters were sent to establish institutions in the Diocese of Nashville.

Even when not serving in a position of leadership, Spalding contributed to the growth of her community in a variety of ways. Sent to assist in the establishment of Louisville's Presentation Academy in 1831, Mother Catherine found herself helping sisters assume the role of nurses during the cholera epidemic that swept the city in 1832. The number of deaths resulting from that disease would help lead to the formation of St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum, an institution that remained near to Spalding's heart until her death at age sixty-five.

Pioneer Spirit, however, is more than a biography of the cofounder of an American religious community. By situating Spalding's life within the context of the history of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, readers are better able to appreciate what it meant to found and administer a religious community on the American frontier. Including stories that have not been told often (at least publicly) allows Doyle to paint a reasonably complete portrait of Mother Catherine. Her accounts of the relationship between Father Charles Coomes and Sister Perpetua (Frances) Alvey (the two were married by a Methodist minister in 1827); the disagreement that led to an eventual split within the community; and the tension between Spalding and her distant cousin Martin John Spalding make for good reading and do much to enhance our understanding of Catherine Spalding.

Doyle is mindful of the fact that one cannot write about either Spalding or her community without acknowledging the institution of slavery as it existed in the antebellum South; and she is willing to tackle the relationship between Catherine Spalding and the slaves owned by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in an honest and forthright manner. As an 1840 entry in Spalding's journal reported, the community had bought '"five negro men; two women; two girls, and two boys. . . . [T]he council decided it was better to buy servants for the farm, etc., than pay so much for hire and then often get bad ones (pp. 119-120).'" After narrating and analyzing the place of slavery in both Spalding's life and the history of the SCN's, Doyle concludes that despite Mother Catherine's ". . . atypical and genuine kindness and concern (p. 122)" for slaves owned by the community, she ". . . simply did not see the radical injustice of slavery" (p. 125). Spalding was indeed a product of her times, good and bad, and is recognized as such in Doyle's biography.

Historians of women religious will find Pioneer Spirit especially valuable for the light it sheds on the founding of an American frontier community. It is also recommended, however, for scholars and general readers interested in the history and growth of American Catholicism.