Twin Towers Quarterly, Volume 2, Issue 1, January 1959

              20
TWIN TOWERS QUARTERLY
Rush to the Rockies
(Continued from Page 17)
Denver early in December for
Leadville, taking the Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad the
first seventeen miles. Transferring
to a stagecoach they rode until
nine that night, when they
stopped at a wayside inn, the
driver unwilling to trust his
horses in the darkness and deep
snow. The second day in the stage
coach the Sisters nearly perished
with cold in spite of blankets and
buffalo robes. All the stagecoach
passengers spent the second night
at the Bales Ranch, at the crossing of the South Arkansas. The
next morning the snow was so
deep the stagecoach had to be
abandoned and a wagon-bed on
runners substituted in its place;
six mules were harnessed instead
of the six bays of the previous
day. About seven in the evening
of the third day, the sled drew
up near a little church in a pine
grove. The Sisters had reached
their destination.
Founding St. Vincent's
With commendable public
spirit the people of Leadville
generously responded to the Sisters' efforts to raise funds for a
hospital. Sisters Mary Crescentia
Fischer, Francis Xavier Davy,
and Bernard Mary Pendergast
selected a location, then in an
atmosphere sometimes gay, sometimes maudlin, set about the
work of "collecting" to build a
hospital.
Daily they visited the frame
structure in process of erection,
impatient for its completion, so
that they could have the opening of their hospital. But that was
nearer   than   they  knew,   for  as
[858-f958
Sisters of Charity
of Leavenworth
Centennial