ARYKNOLL'S FIRST LADY
By
No, I'm not interested in anybody in particular, but I do think I'll have a family someday."" With these prophetic words, Mollie Rogers, who was at Smith College during the era of the Gibson girl, turned away an unsuitable suitor. The idealistic girl had discovered the Catholic mission field while still at college. Her interest never flagged and the organizational ability was always there together with a strong religious motivation. These were to culminate in the realization of Maryknoll missioner priests and nuns active in every corner of the world. American Catholic involvement in foreign missionary activity was just struggling to life in 1907. Secretarial and editorial duties with the first Catholic Foreign Mission Bureau put Mollie Rogers right in the center of these activities. ""She had begun to weave the net in which she would be the first caught."" She became Sister Mary Joseph and the predicted family were the nuns of Maryknoll. This intimate and informal biography follows her from girlhood to her death in 1955.