St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, Virgin (Feast day - November 18) was born in Grenoble, France, in 1769.  She later joined the Society of the Sacred Heart.  In 1818, when she was forty-nine years old, Rose was sent to the United States.  She founded a boarding school for daughters of pioneers near St. Louis and opened the first free school west of the Missouri.  At the age of seventy-one, she began a school for Indians, who soon came to call her "the women who is always praying".  Her biographers have also stressed her courage in frontier conditions, her singlemindedness in pursuing her dream of serving Native Americans, and her self-acceptance.

This holy servant of God died in 1852.  She was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1940 and canonized by Pope John Paul II  in 1988.