“S” is for Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy

“S” is for Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy. In 1829 the Catholic Bishop John England founded Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy in Charleston. By the 1840s the congregation operated an orphanage, an academy, and a free school for girls and a school for free children of color. The community expanded its ministries in the twentieth century. St. Francis Xavier Hospital, Charleston, added a nursing school in 1900 and a social agency, the Neighborhood House, in 1915.  In York the Sisters opened Divine Savior Hospital and erected a nursing home. In 1989 Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy transferred the ownership of its hospitals to the Bon Secours Health System and opened a community center to provide education, housing, and outreach services to the residents of James, John's, and Wadmalaw Islands.