Mary Odilia Berger

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Mother Mary Odilia Berger (April 30, 1823 - October 17, 1880) founded the Sisters of St. Mary which became the Franciscan Sisters of Mary which established hospitals throughout the Midwest.

Her baptismal name was Anna Katherine Berger. She was born in Regen, Bavaria In 1858 she joined the Poor Franciscans of Pirmasens, founded by Father (Dr.) Paul Joseph Nardini (scheduled to be beatified this year) and was sent to Paris.

In 1866 she co-founded the Sister Servants of the Sacred Heart in Paris with Father Victor Braun, but had to flee Paris when the city was besieged during the Franco-Prussian War. She tried to start an order Elberfeld in the Rhineland but was forbidden the government during the Kulturkampf when Catholic churches feared they would be abolished by the government. In 1872 she got permission to emigrate to St. Louis, Missouri through the connections of a family she had nursed in Elberfield and who had moved to Missouri.

In St. Louis she founded the Sisters of St. Mary. In 1877 the order borrowed $16,000 to open St. Mary's Infirmary in St. Louis. In 1878 a third of the members of the order were sent to Canton, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee during a Yellow Fever outbreak. Five sisters were to die.

Her order was formally recognized in 1880 shortly before she died. The order through SSM Health Care operates 20 hospitals in Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.

She is buried Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.