"Nineteenth-century New Orleans was a diverse city. The French-speaking Catholic Creoles, whether black, white, or racially mixed - so different from the city's English-speaking residents - inspired intense curiosity and speculation. But none of the city's inhabitants evoked as much wonder as did the Sisters of the Holy Family, whose mission was to evangelize slaves and free people of color and to care for the poor, sick, and elderly.".

"These women, whose community still thrives, are portrayed in an account written between 1894 and 1896 by one of their sisters, Mary Bernard Deggs, who shortly before her death made it her mission to record the remarkable historical journey the women had taken to serve those of their race.

Although Deggs did not officially join the Sisters of the Holy Family until 1873, she was a student at the sister's early school on Bayou Road and thus would have known, as a child, Henriette Delille, the foundress and first mother superior of the Sisters of the Holy Family, and the other women who joined her."--BOOK JACKET.