Bicentennial Corner—January

A yearlong celebration is planned to mark the foundation of the Sisters of St. Francis and of St. Francis Home 150 years ago.  June 4, 1869, the Feast of the Sacred Heart, was the foundation date, but already in 1867, the pastor of St. Joseph Church in Tiffin, the Reverend Louis Joseph Bihn (1822-1893), began to fulfill a dream, due to the need in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War, to provide a home for poor orphans and a place of retirement for the aged.  That year he bought a 58-acre farm about a mile south of the church for $5000.00.  One of the buildings on the farm was a two-story frame home that became the start of the current St. Francis Home.  Now it is St. Francis Home but it was originally incorporated as Citizens’ Hospital and Orphan Asylum.