Housing plan in line with Sisters' mission

The original chapel.

As South Boston NDC makes progress on transforming the former St. Augustine's Convent into McDevitt Senior Homes, we'll be doing periodic stories about the building and the Sisters of Notre Dame who lived there.

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South Boston NDC’s project to convert the former St. Augustine’s Convent into affordable senior housing is very much in line with the mission of the Sisters of Notre Dame.

According to Nancy C. Barthelemy, Provincial Archivist, East West Province, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, the Sisters’ purpose was to reach out to low-income folks. “Their main mission was always to reach people who are in the most abandoned places.”

Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, women with hearts as wide as the world, make known God’s goodness and love of the poor through a Gospel way of life, community, and prayer, Nancy said. 

The St. Augustine’s Convent was opened in 1895 in response to the huge number of Catholics who were immigrating into South Boston, Nancy said.

“They already had Saints Peter and Paul,” she said. “And then they had sisters working at Gate of Heaven Church. They were working in several churches in South Boston already out of their convent and it was huge. So they ended up having to open another convent on E Street.”

 In 1995, the building stopped being a convent.

The sisters who lived in the convent were pretty much semi-cloistered. “Whenever they went out, they all went out by twos,” Nancy said. “They had a pretty regimented life. They got up at 5. They did their prayers, Mass, then started teaching. If they went to the doctor, they always went in pairs. They never went anywhere alone.”

The sisters worked hard. They were up at 5 a.m. and worked long hours, Nancy said. Then when they got back home, they had to take care of the convent and sometimes do the cooking.

The sisters taught until June, would go on retreats, and then come back and prepare for the next school year. 

In the 1880s, the Sisters of Notre Dame attended summer school where they were taught new techniques of teaching for things like penmanship. 

When Emmanuel College opened in 1919, some of the professors would come to the convent and teach them there.

“It was a semi-cloistered life. They entered because they felt that they were called to this,” Nancy said.