Theresa Maxis Duchemin, IHM (born ''Almeide Maxis Duchemin'' 1810-1892) was a Black Catholic missionary in the United States, and the first US-born

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

to become a religious sister. She helped found both the

Oblate Sisters of Providence The Oblate Sisters of Providence (OSP) is a Roman Catholic women's religious institute, founded by Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, OSP, and Rev. James Nicholas Joubert, SS in 1828 in Baltimore, Maryland for the education of girls of African de ...

—the first order of Black nuns in the US—and the

Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary The Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (I.H.M.) is a Catholic religious institute of sisters, founded by Fr Louis Florent Gillet, CSsR, and a co-founder of the Oblate Sister of Providence, Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin, in 1845. ...

. The latter was the first predominantly White order founded by an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

, and Duchemin served as one of the earliest Black mother superiors in the nation. She opened multiple schools and orphanages in the Michigan and the Pennsylvania area and, was inducted into the

Michigan Women's Hall of Fame The Michigan Women's Hall of Fame (MWHOF) honors distinguished women, both historical and contemporary, who have been associated with the U.S. state of Michigan. The hall of fame was founded in 1983 by Gladys Beckwith and is sponsored by the Michi ...

. However, the IHM sisters, which she founded, only began to acknowledge her again in 1992—after a 160-year drought.

Biography

Duchemin was born in 1810 to immigrant parents in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. Her father later left her family, and Duchemin was raised by her Haitian mother. At the age of nineteen, she was involved in founding

, which was the first Roman Catholic religious institute begun for Catholic women of African descent. Her mother, who was also involved with the Oblate Sisters died during an 1831 cholera epidemic in Baltimore. Duchemin subsequently moved to Michigan, to work in conjunction with Louis Florent Gillet. The two would found Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and later schools Michigan and, in 1858, expanding into Pennsylvania. Targeted by local bishops due to their racism and her Blackness, Duchemin was exiled multiple times and eventually moved in with

Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart The Sisters of Charity of Montreal, formerly called The Sisters of Charity of the Hôpital Général of Montreal and more commonly known as the Grey Nuns of Montreal, is a Canadian religious institute of Roman Catholic religious sisters, found ...

in Canada, where she would spend much of the rest of her life, until returning to Michigan in 1885. She died in 1892.

Historical suppression

Due to racism, the IHM sisters scrubbed their records of Duchemin for 160 years, and presumably played a hand in Duchemin's 1893 biography going unpublished.

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did not want to be associated with a black sister. It was "embarrassing" and "unpleasant," as sisters wrote in various letters. It would scare white people away from their ministries... before the 1980s, novices didn't even learn about Duchemin in formation... At one point, they even enlisted a cardinal to intervene in the publication of a book that might have outed them as having been co-founded by a black woman."

In 1992, an IHM sister, Margaret Gannon, published letters acknowledging Duchemin and her significance; this began a period of collaboration between the IHM and Oblate sisters (the latter of whom had always acknowledged Duchemin as their own co-founder), as well as a more general acknowledgement of Duchemin within the IHM community.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Duchemin, Theresa Maxis American Roman Catholic missionaries Female Roman Catholic missionaries 1810 births 1892 deaths African-American Catholics African-American Roman Catholicism African-American Catholic consecrated religious African-American Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns