By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
My wife Vicki always says if you want to get something done, put a woman in charge of it. The 150 year old story of the Holy Cross Sisters in Utah proves her point.
The Holy Cross Sisters first arrived here from their convent in Notre Dame, Indiana on June 6, 1875. Sister Raymond (Mary) Sullivan and Sister Augusta (Amanda) Anderson traveled to Salt Lake City via train and stagecoach at the invitation of Father Lawrence Scanlan (soon to be Utah’s bishop).
Scanlan apparently shared my wife’s view about female organizing superpowers. He hoped the good order of Sisters—originally from France but soon full of hardworking and devoted Irish Catholic women—would help his fledgling Catholic community build schools and meet other local human and spiritual needs.
Sister Raymond was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1830. She initially worked as a seamstress and archivist at the Indiana convent but then devoted 17 years to teaching and hospital work in Utah.
Sister Augusta (later known as Mother Augusta after she was elected to lead the Holy Cross order) was born in 1830 in Virginia. Her own mother died when she was four, and the surviving Anderson family moved west via prairie schooner.
Augusta joined Holy Cross and worked in its schools and medical facilities. A Civil War nurse, she managed two Union army hospitals so well that General Ulysses S. Grant exclaimed, “What a wonderful woman she is! She can control the men better than I can.”
Several other Holy Cross Sisters came west soon after those first two. With their trademark energy and industriousness, by the Fall of 1875 these magnificent women had started both a school and a hospital in Salt Lake City.
Over the next century and a half in the state, they also would create a dozen other schools, found two other hospitals, start an orphanage, form a school of nursing, build a college, and start numerous other social service ministries.
They’d also support almost every other local Catholic institution, including teaching me at St. Joseph High School in Ogden. They taught Utah Monsignor Terrence Fitzgerald too, at Judge Memorial Catholic High School.
In a 2008 article for the Holy Cross History Association, Fitzgerald explained that over 1300 Holy Cross Sisters served in the Diocese of Salt Lake City. He said 50 of them were born here, and that for 93 sisters, Mount Calvary Cemetery was their “last assignment.”
Many more now rest at Our Lady of Peace, the lovely Holy Cross convent cemetery I visited in Indiana last autumn. That morning, a soft white mist floated up from the nearby St. Joseph River and lingered on the outskirts of the sacred site.
It felt like the gentle spirits of the good sisters were there, watching us, curious and thrilled to have a few living souls stroll by, and perhaps hoping I’d share some of their Utah stories. There are many extraordinary tales to be told.
After they first arrived the Sisters rode horses, climbed mountains, and endured many hardships while visiting every single mining camp in the state. Scanlan later wrote, “The outlook was wild and gloomy, but they were not discouraged.”
Interested not just in her fellow Catholics, Sister Augusta also made friends with the Lion of the Lord, Brigham Young. One of his great granddaughters later joined the order.
Some Holy Cross Sisters born in Utah graced the front porches of family reunions and other events. Many were from well-known families, and joined along with two or three siblings.
The early Sisters used nursing skills learned during the Civil War to start hospitals that cared for the sick, the poor, and the unwanted in Utah for over a century. When one sister passed away in 1936, a Salt Lake Tribune editorial called her one of the “ministering angels who now and then are permitted to visit the earth.”
The Sisters hosted Babe Ruth during his 1927 visit to the Salt Lake orphanage they operated. They wrote acclaimed poetry and scholarly works.
They cared for broken-down Irish miners and old horses and were among the few people who would treat Utah AIDS-HIV patients in the 1980s.
A future president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints honored them with a pioneer monument. Catholic Monsignor Fitzgerald called them the “compassionate face and the caring hands” of the Utah Church.
The old Holy Cross Hospital Chapel the Sisters built has been an oasis for thousands since 1904, making it the oldest surviving Catholic building in Salt Lake City. I found comfort and support there during the birth of all three of our children in the 1990s.
I visited it again recently, thanks to the kindness of the current owners at CommonSpirit. They even let me climb the balcony and ring the old church bell.
Although much has changed, the Hospital’s president Bryan McKinley still feels the spirit of the Holy Cross Sisters there. He says it gives him comfort and strength to know “we are not alone.”
The Chapel—now an interfaith haven—was damaged in a 2020 earthquake and needs some tender loving care. Jeremy Bradshaw, President of the CommonSpirit Utah Market, says they are working diligently to “restore the sacred space.”
The Holy Cross Sisters are not resting on their 150 year old Utah legacy and laurels.
When they sold their medical facilities here in the 1990s, they started and funded a nonprofit—Holy Cross Ministries of Utah—that still meets local education, health, and justice needs.
I serve on HCM’s board of trustees. When I started volunteering, I traveled back to Notre Dame and met the president who now leads this group of amazing women.
A fellow lawyer, Holy Cross Sister Sharlet Ann Wagner has worked with immigrants in Washington, D.C., served as an immigration attorney in Utah, done clinic work in Uganda, and taught high school English and journalism in the United States.
Sister Sharlet gave my wife and I an after-hours tour of the Holy Cross heritage and archives room, which tells the Sisters’ long history in words, photos, and exhibits. Many of the displays involve Utah.
When I asked her later about the Holy Cross sesquicentennial in Utah, Sister Sharlet said, “We are proud and grateful that our forebears made the pioneering trek to Utah 150 years ago, giving remarkable life to our motto/mission of find a need and meet it. What followed was an amazing outpouring of kindness, love, and service that continues today, through Holy Cross Ministries. We hope to keep working with our Utah brothers and sisters for the next 150 years too.”
Holy Cross Ministries CEO Emmie Gardner once conducted an oral history interview with Sister Joan Marie Steadman. Sister Joan Marie has done hospital and parish work in Utah, served as president of the Holy Cross order, and even led the national Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).
During the interview, Gardner noted the upcoming 150th anniversary of the Sisters’ arrival in Salt Lake City saying, “It’s hard to imagine Utah without the Holy Cross Sisters.”
Displaying the wit and humility of so many of these remarkable women, Sister Joan Marie just smiled and replied, “It’s hard to imagine the Holy Cross Sisters without Utah.”
(The Salt Lake Tribune published a version of this article on May 18, 2025.)
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
