Mary Augustine Barber

Jerusha Booth Barber, in religion, Sister Mary Augustine (née Jerusha Booth; also Mrs. Jerusha Barber; Sister Mary Austin; Sister May Augustin; 1789 - January 1, 1860) was a 19th-century American educator and Visitation sister. She entered the Georgetown Visitation Convent in 1818, with her husband entering the Jesuits. She founded a convent of visitation in Kaskaskia, Illinois, in 1836, remaining there till 1844. She taught in a convent in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1844 till 1848, and in Mobile, Alabama, until the time of her death.^[1] Her only son, Samuel, became a Jesuit, and her four daughters entered the convent.

Barber was born in Newton, Connecticut, in 1789.^[1] Her parents were pious Protestants, strict members of their church.^[2]

She married Virgil Horace Barber on September 20, 1807, when she was 19 and he was about 25.^[2] The husband and wife did not precipitately embrace the Catholic religion, but the husband thought Protestantism too superficial, too recent, too worldly and too inconsistent. He had been an Episcopalian clergyman and principal of their academy in Fairfield, New York. He determined to become a Roman Catholic and moved to New York where his mentor, Benedict Joseph Fenwick, received his family into the Catholic Church in 1816. Jerusha was 28 and they had five children: Mary (b. 1810); Abigail (b. 1811); Susan (b. 1813); Samuel (b. 1814); and Josephine (b. 1816).^[3][4][5] For support they opened a school, but after eight months both determined to join the religious life and, under Fenwick's direction, moved to Georgetown in Washington, D.C.^[2][4]

In Washington, D.C., the couple went through the process of separation. Jerusha and her children were placed in a convent while the husband went to Rome to study towards ordination.^[5] In 1818 Jerusha entered the Visitation convent of Georgetown which also housed her three eldest daughters, while the baby, Josephine, was placed in the home of Fenwick's mother. When she thought she was pregnant, she left the community for a short period, but soon returned. On February 23, 1820, husband and wife took their religious vows, she as Sister Mary Augustine.^[6][4]

Mary was a woman of superior education, and the convent and school progressed rapidly during her residence. In 1836 she founded a visitation convent in Kaskaskia, Illinois, where she remained until 1844. She was especially successful in training the younger sisters to be accomplished teachers, and was engaged in this occupation in the convent of St. Louis from 1844 till 1848, and in Mobile up to the time of her death.^[3] She died in Summerville, near Mobile, in 1860. Their only son, Samuel, became a Jesuit, and their four daughters entered the Ursuline convent.^[7][4]

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Goesbriand, Louis De (1886). Catholic Memoirs of Vermont and New Hampshire: With Sketches of the Lives of Rev. Wm. Henry Hoyt, and Fanny Allen. Also with Accounts Heretofore Unpublished of the Lives of Rev. Daniel Barber, Rev. Horace Barber, S. J., and Jerusha Barber, Named in Religion Sister Mary Augustin. Also with Many of Their Letters (Public domain ed.). Press of R. S. Styles.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles George (1913). The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church (Public domain ed.). Encyclopedia Press. p. 287.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Kingsbury, Frederick John (1907). A Narrative and Documentary History of St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church (formerly St. James) of Waterbury, Connecticut: With Some Notice of St. Paul's Church, Plymouth, Christ Church, Watertown, St. Michael's Church, Naugatuck, a Church in Middlebury, All Saint's Church, Wolcott, St. Paul's Church, Waterville, Trinity Church, Waterbury (all Colonies of St. John's) (Public domain ed.). Price, Lee & Adkins Company. p. 31.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Maes, Camillus Paul (1880). The Life of Rev. Charles Nerinckx: With a Chapter on the Early Catholic Missions of Kentucky; Copious Notes on the Progress of Catholicity in the United States of America, from 1800 to 1825; an Account of the Establishment of the Society of Jesus in Missouri; and an Historical Sketch of the Sisterhood of Loretto in Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, Etc (Public domain ed.). R. Clarke & Company. p. 427.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Moulton. p. 353.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John (1888). Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography (Public domain ed.). D. Appleton. p. 162.

• McGuinness, Margaret M. (December 2015). Called to Serve: A History of Nuns in America. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-9557-6.

• Mary Augustine Barber at WikiSource