• Sister Joseph*  (née Esther Pariseau) and four Sisters, left Montreal in November 1856 to begin a month-long journey to Vancouver, in the Oregon Territory.
  
  From Montreal to New York City. Sailing aboard the S.S. Illinois to the Isthmus of Panama. Crossing by train to reach the Pacific Ocean and, finally, boarding the Golden Age to sail to Vancouver.
   
   
• Convinced that she was destined to serve in the Oregon Territory, Sister Joseph was dismayed to learn in 1852 that she was not chosen to go to Vancouver the following year. She was needed in at her post in Montreal. Her ability to care for her fellow nuns as well as the community around her was already widely recognized.
  
  But the team that did leave in 1853 team took a wrong turn and found themselves in Oregon City instead.
  
  Finally, in 1856, Sister Joseph was chosen to lead a group of four nuns to Vancouver. Her skills as a carpenter, seamstress, architect and fundraiser are legend and well documented. But the success of her missions throughout the Northwest Territories came because of her instinctive ability to care for those who worked with and for this renaissance woman. Fundraising for missions: Mother Joseph and the "Lady Blackrobes," as they were nicknamed by the miners, traveled on begging trips all over the Northwest Territories, even as far as Idaho and Montana. Mother Joseph knew the power of packaging, so she always took along one of the prettiest nuns.
  
   
• In 1858, Sister Joseph* was approached to care for John Lloyd (some accounts read Cloyd). The young man was suffering from tuberculosis.
  
  A small cabin, 24 x 16 feet, was to serve as a laundry and bakery. Drawing on her experience at the Sisters' hospital in Montreal, Sister Joseph divided the cabin in half, put in 4 cots, and opened St. Joseph Hospital on June 7- the first permanent hospital in all of the Northwest Territories.
  
  But the first step was organizing the Ladies of Charity. Sixteen women -  Catholics, Protestants, and Jews - worked together to raise funds and to furnish the small hospital. 
    
   
• During her lifetime, Mother Joseph* founded the first permanent hospital in the Northwest Territories, followed by nearly 50 hospitals, orphanages and other institutions from Oregon to Montana.
     
      
• In 1980, Mother Joseph* was declared Washington State's second representative in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. You can see a replica of the statue in Southwest's Heritage Chapel.
  
  In 1999, the Washington State legislature declared her birthday, April 16, Mother Joseph Day.
  
  All this for a woman whose father described as someone who "...can read and write and figure accurately. She can cook and sew and spin and do all manner of housework well. She has learned carpentry from me and can handle tools as well as I can. Moreover, she can plan and supervise the work of others..."
  
  This remarkable woman went on to design and build schools, orphanages and hospitals throughout the Northwest Territories. 

*Sister Joseph or Mother Joseph?

Our sources say the title of 'Mother' is an honorary one bestowed upon a nun who has been given charge of a mission and who has been successful in that mission. Under this definition, she was definitely entitled to the title of 'Mother,' certainly within a short time after their arrival in Vancouver.

However, it is interesting to note that up to the day of her deat, she always signed herself as Sister Joseph. She rests in St. James Acres Catholic Cemetery on 4th Plain Boulevard in Vancouver, Washington. The entrance to the cemetery is at 1401 E. 29th Street, Vancouver.