Bl. Mary Frances Schervier

Bl. Mary Frances Schervier was an nineteenth-century German religious sister known for founding the Poor Sisters of St. Francis, a congregation of the Third Order of St. Francis. She was born into a wealthy family but discerned the call to be a religious sister. She formed a new group of sisters, the Poor Sisters of St. Francis, in order to help care for the sick and wounded. Some of the sisters went to the United States, and she visited these sisters in 1863 to help in their efforts to care for the wounded in the Civil War. At the time of her death in 1876, her congregation had grown to 2,500 members.