Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Personal Papers, 1888-2009 | Maryknoll Mission Archives

Title: Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Personal Papers, 1888-2009

Predominant Dates:1910-1956

ID: MSA/01/MS0031

Primary Creator: Rogers, Mother Mary Joseph

Extent: 17.0 Boxes

Arrangement:

This collection has been arranged into 8 series.

Series 1, Personnel File, includes confidential documents on Mother Mary Joseph.

Series 2, Early Life, includes material on Mother Mary Joseph’s life before forming the Sisters in 1912. It includes two subseries, Family and Education and Young Adulthood.

Series 3, Retirement, includes material from Mother Mary Joseph’s life after her retirement as Mother General in 1947.

Series 4, Death, includes material related to Mother Mary Joseph’s death and funeral in 1955.

Series 5, Books, includes books owned by Mother Mary Joseph. This series includes three subseries – Gifts from Others, Gifts to Others, and Personal Books. Items in this series are intellectually arranged alphabetically but are physically arranged by size.

Series 6, Commemorations and Honors, includes material related to events and honors given to commemorate Mother Mary Joseph. It includes two subseries – Degrees and Certificates, and Events and Memorials.

Series 7, Ephemera, includes ephemera owned by Mother Mary Joseph. It includes two subseries, Memorabilia and Scrapbooks. Material in Subseries 1, Memorabilia, was largely left in its original place in relation to other things in its folder – for example, all the material in Box 9 Folder 3 was in a folder together in the previous arrangement of the collection, but it is now alphabetized.

Series 8, Writings About, includes material written about Mother Mary Joseph after her death. It includes two subseries, Articles and Remembrances.

Subjects: Diaries, Events, History, Manuscripts, News articles

Languages: English, Chinese, Korean, Latin

This collection has been arranged into 8 series.

Series 1, Personnel File, includes confidential documents on Mother Mary Joseph and is not open for research.

Series 2, Early Life, includes material on Mother Mary Joseph’s life before forming the Sisters in 1912. It includes two subseries, Family and Education and Young Adulthood. Series 2 is located in Boxes 1-2.

Series 3, Retirement, includes material from Mother Mary Joseph’s life after her retirement as Mother General in 1947. This includes correspondence with Maryknoll and non-Maryknoll sources. Series 3 is located in Boxes 2-3.

Series 4, Death, includes material related to Mother Mary Joseph’s death and funeral in 1955. Series 4 is located in Boxes 3-4.

Series 5, Books, includes books owned by Mother Mary Joseph. This series includes three subseries – Gifts from Others, Gifts to Others, and Personal Books. Items in this series are intellectually arranged alphabetically but are physically arranged by size. Series 5 is located in Boxes 5-7.

Series 6, Commemorations and Honors, includes material related to events and honors given to commemorate Mother Mary Joseph. It includes two subseries – Degrees and Certificates, and Events and Memorials. Series 6 is located in Box 8.

Series 7, Ephemera, includes ephemera owned by Mother Mary Joseph. It includes two subseries, Memorabilia and Scrapbooks. Series 7 is located in Boxes 9-15.

Series 8, Writings About, includes material written about Mother Mary Joseph after her death. It includes two subseries, Articles and Remembrances. Series 8 is located in Boxes 16-17.

Mary Josephine “Mollie” Rogers was born on October 27, 1882 in Roxbury, MA to Abraham T. Rogers and Mary Josephine Plummer, both of Boston. Mollie was the fourth child and first daughter in a family of eight, five boys and three girls.

Mollie attended West Roxbury High School, graduating as the valedictorian in 1901. She then went on to attend Smith College in Northampton, MA where she specialized in zoology, graduating in 1905. She also spent a year at Boston Normal School in a special section for college graduates and received a teaching certificate. After graduation, she accepted a fellowship in Smith’s Zoology Department. She later taught in Boston public schools, at both elementary and high school levels.

While working at Smith College, Mollie organized a small Catholic mission club. Seeking advice for organizing the club, she began corresponding with Fr. James A. Walsh, the then-Director of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith in Boston. Soon thereafter, she met with Fr. Walsh in person and began volunteering at the Society’s office. From 1908 until 1912, she devoted all her spare time to assisting Fr. Walsh in the work of mission education – editing, translating and writing for The Field Afar, a mission magazine begun by Fr. Walsh in 1907, and organizing his mission photo collection.

In 1911, Fr. Walsh and Fr. Thomas Frederick Price, a seasoned home missioner in North Carolina, were commissioned by the Bishops of the United States to begin a seminary to train American young men for the foreign missions, and later that year they went to New York and founded The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, more commonly known as the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

Mollie was not able to go with the first small group of three women, known as the “Secretaries,” who offered their services to the young organization, but in September 1912, when the family obligations which prevented her leaving Boston had been satisfied, she joined these women in their temporary home in Hawthorne, NY.

Mollie was chosen by Fr. Walsh and the Secretaries to direct the women’s group under Fr. Walsh’s guidance, taking the religious name Sister Mary Joseph. She continued in that capacity until 1920 when the group, then numbering thirty-five, was recognized as a Diocesan Religious Congregation – The Foreign Mission Sisters of St. Dominic, generally called the Maryknoll Sisters. At the first General Chapter in 1925, she was elected Mother General.

Mother Mary Joseph was re-elected to that office at subsequent General Chapters until her retirement in 1946 at the age of 64. At that time the Congregation numbered 733 and the Sisters were working in Asia (China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines) and in Latin America (Panama, Bolivia, Nicaragua) as well as with minority groups in the United States. The reverence and esteem for Mother Mary Joseph extended far beyond the community she founded as is evidenced by the honorary degrees which were bestowed on her. The Maryknoll Sisters became a Pontifical Institute in 1954 and the name of the Congregation was changed to Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic.

Mother Mary Joseph died October 9, 1955, at the age of 73.

Diaries
Events
History
Manuscripts
News articles

Repository: Maryknoll Mission Archives

Access Restrictions: Series 1 is permanently closed. The remainder of the collection is open for research.

Related Materials:

Maryknoll’s First Lady by Sr. Jeanne Marie Lyons MM

As One Lamp Lights Another - The Life and Story of Mother Mary Joseph by Sr. Barbara Hendricks MM

To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: The Spirit & Charism of Mary Josephine Rogers by Sr. Camilla Kennedy MM

On the Threshold of the Future: The Life and Spirituality of Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, Founder of the Maryknoll Sisters by Sr. Claudette LaVerdiere MM

MS Creative Works

MS Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Photographs

MS Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Audio

Photograph Collections

Moving Image Collections

MS Diaries

MS Newsletters

Processing Information:

This collection was initially called the “Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Papers”. Upon this collection’s initial accession to Archives, the materials were mainly from Mother Mary Joseph's own office, the Sisters’ Council Secretariat, and contributions from Maryknoll Sisters and some relatives and friends after Mother Mary Joseph’s death. Shortly after the death of Mother Mary Joseph in October 1955, Sr. Jeanne Marie Lyons was commissioned to write her biography. Mother Mary Joseph’s papers were turned over to Sr. Jeanne Marie for her use in writing the book. It took an unknown number of years for the papers to be received in Archives. Sr. Joan O’Hagan first processed this collection in 1991-1992, and at that time the collection was organized as she saw fit.

September 2012 – The original finding aid created by Sr. Joan O’Hagan was converted to Archon format by Cassie Brewer.

September 2017 – 1 cubic foot of materials pertaining to the 50th anniversary of Mother Mary Joseph death added by Elizabeth Peters.

January 2020 – This collection was reprocessed from previous arrangement by Kathryn Spicer.

The collection initially included all material related to Mother Mary Joseph’s life and work, including her time as Mother General of the Maryknoll Sisters. It was decided by Archives staff in January 2020 that the “Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Papers” should be divided into two groups based on the following parameters:

Group 1 – the Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Personal Papers

- Material relating to Mother Mary Joseph’s life prior to the founding of the Sisters in 1912 and her life after her retirement in 1947

- Personal belongings and ephemera

- Commemorations and honors bestowed upon Mother Mary Joseph after her death

Group 2 – the Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Administration

- Material relating to Mother Mary Joseph’s life between 1912 and 1947

- Written works from throughout her life

Material which at a first glance fit Group 1 was segregated and weeded through to discard duplicate material and determine what material actually fit the parameters of the new collection. Material which did not fit the parameters was divided between the following collections. See the finding aid of the former “Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Papers” for exact locations of materials.

- MS Creative Works

- Mother Mary Columba Tarpey Administration

- MS General Assemblies

- Special Collections

- Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Administration

- MS Center Activities

- MS Newsletters

- MS Korea Region

- Artifacts Collection

- Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Audio

- Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Photographs

- MS Legacy and Culture

Three items on the former finding aid were found to be missing from this material.