OZONE PARK — In 1924, Calvin Coolidge became the nation’s 30th president after a landslide victory, the Statue of Liberty was designated as a National Monument, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade stepped off for the first time. Meanwhile, a small group of religious women arrived in Queens to establish the U.S. Province of the Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk. 

One hundred years later, Americans are preparing for another election while modern-day Ursuline sisters celebrate a century of helping make God known and loved across the United States. 

Festivities began Sunday, Sept. 8, with a Mass celebrated by Bishop Robert Brennan at St. William the Abbot Parish in Seaford, New York. The sisters continued at the noon Mass on Sunday, Sept. 15, at Our Lady of Grace Parish in Howard Beach, which was their second foundation. 

Gratitude and joy flowed from Sister Joanne Callahan, the provincial, as she addressed the congregation before Mass on Sept. 8 — the date in 1924 when Ursuline sisters from Manitoba, Canada, arrived at the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Ozone Park. 

“How courageous they were to start a new province and to make the decisions to expand to other parishes,” Sister Joanne said. “I really can’t believe it’s truly 100 years later.” 

During his homily, Bishop Brennan praised the sisters for the work that he witnessed as a priest and, later, as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. 

Bishop Brennan also noted his longtime friendship and strong working relationship with Sister Joanne, who was a superintendent of Catholic schools for 22 years in the Diocese of Rockville Center. 

“Like St. Angela Merici, their foundress centuries before, the Ursulines came from Europe to Ozone Park answering the call to educate the young and reveal God’s great love,” he said the day after the Mass. 

“I personally am so grateful for the profound impact of the Ursuline Sisters in Catholic education in the United States and proud that it all started in the Diocese of Brooklyn,” he added.” 

In 1924, the nine pioneering Ursuline sisters came to the United States from Canada to not only establish their U.S. province but to teach Catholic school children at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary School in Ozone Park. They soon expanded to other parishes in New York, Connecticut, and beyond. 

Globally, the Ursuline sisters date back to 1535, when St. Angela Merici recruited a dozen women in Brescia, Italy, to form the Company of St. Ursula to teach young girls, aid the poor, and care for the sick. 

At that time, Italy’s patriarchal society offered young women only two options — marriage or monastic life. By educating girls, the sisters helped them realize different futures. 

In 1835, Father John Lambertz, a parish priest in Belgium, also saw the need to educate girls, so he founded the Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk. The Ursulines then grew throughout Europe and North America. 

After arriving in Queens 100 years ago, they established their mother house in Ozone Park. 

It became the base for the U.S. province. In 1925, the sisters began teaching at the since-closed Our Lady of Grace Parish’s Catholic Academy. Later, they took on the teaching and administration of other schools in the dioceses of Brooklyn, Rockville Centre, Bridgeport, and the Archdiocese of Hartford. 

The sisters built a novitiate in 1935 in Blue Point, New York. They were forced to rebuild after a devastating fire in 1980, and the facility was renamed the St. Ursula Center and served as a retirement home and retreat center until 2019. 

It is now the Bayport-Blue Point Library. 

Sister Joanne said approximately 60 sisters are buried on those grounds. 

“[The library] maintains our cemetery for us,” she said. “It’s wonderful.” 

The Ursuline Sisters also have provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and India. 

Today, about 24 sisters belong to the U.S. province, with many retired or living in nursing homes. Still, Sister Joanne said the sisters stay busy. They recently donated funds to help sisters from the Congo build a water well in Tanzania. 

Sister Joanne said there are no plans to grow the community and added that there are discussions about “coming to completion” in the coming years. Whatever ultimately happens, the impact they’ve had won’t change. 

Sister Joanne shared how the night before the Sept. 8 Mass, she came upon an anonymous letter from a woman who wrote about being educated by Ursulines and that, to this day, they remain an important part of her life. 

“We had been with her in good times and in painful losses in her life,” Sister Joanne said. “She signed it, ‘Uniquely Ursuline,’ I was overwhelmed by what she remembered of the Ursulines who taught her and her gratitude to this day. 

“I was brought to tears.”