As pastor of St. Joseph Church inTiffin, Father Joseph Bihn saw the need after the Civil War not only to provide a home for poor children, but also a home “of retirement and prayer for aged persons to prepare for a happy death.” The......
Continue Reading
Pictures from our 150th anniversary open house celebration on October 3rd....
Continue Reading
The orphanage at St. Francis closed in 1936. By 1935, the number of orphans being cared for in all orphanages was decreasing yearly, largely because of the provision in the Social Security Act for dependent children in the case of the “absence, incapacity,......
Continue Reading
Clear Night, Bright Star by Sister Jane Frances Omlor is now published and is available to the public. ...
Continue Reading
The celebration began with an opening song and prayer in the St. Francis Convent Chapel followed by a procession out to the cemetery. Following a trumpet call, there was a presentation of flowers in memory of our founders Father Joseph Bihn and Mother Francis......
Continue Reading
Since its beginnings in 1869 caring for displaced orphans and elderly people after the Civil War to the multi-dimensional campus and community it is today, the Sisters of St. Francis are celebrating 150 years of caring for people, the earth and one another.
“Over these......
Continue Reading
Alongside the education of the children of St. Francis Orphanage in school subjects, the spiritual life of the children who came was not neglected. Father Bihn had directed that the orphan children be received and educated “in the Roman Catholic faith and in......
Continue Reading
School was very much a part of an orphan’s life at St. Francis. One former orphan remembered the classroom for grades 1-4 was on the ground floor of the school built in 1890 on the site of the first farmhouse, and that for grades......
Continue Reading
