STRENGTH IS PERFECTED IN WEAKNESS
On June 22, 1852, at St. Brigid’s Church in the city of New York, Catherine Jane Kelly was baptized, the fourth of the seven children eventually born to John Kelly and his wife, Mary. Mr. Kelly worked in construction and was tragically killed in a construction accident. With her seven children in tow, Mary Kelly boarded a ship to sail around the Horn to San Francisco where her married sister lived. The family struggled to survive. The oldest son, William, and the two older girls, Margaret and Mary, were working when Catherine left home to become the fourth member of the Sisters of the Holy Family at the age of 23 years. When the tiny nucleus of the Community assumed religious names Catherine became Sister Joseph.
Sister Joseph Kelly was never a physically strong individual. The annals of the Community are full of references to “pneumonia; in sick bed; has a cold; under doctor’s care; cough troubling her; taken with severe chill; rheumatism; had a fall; ill; goes to Ukiah (for warmth and a rest); accident; food poisoning; in hospital; and, over and over, great suffering with her teeth.
She had the dubious honor of being the first Sister of the Holy Family to be struck by a motorcycle (in 1915), an accident that caused her great pain with a badly fractured bone.In between the visits to the dentist, the hospital stays and the enforced rests away from the Bay Area, she took charge of the poor of St. Francis Parish, as well as its Sunday School, and was director of St. Francis Day Home for the children of working parents, prepared children for the sacraments in Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, as well as attending and being certified in a course for teaching Kindergarten.
Over her 53 years, Sister Joseph was Assistant Superior for the Community, Assistant Director of Novices, and made business calls for Holy Family from Stockton to San Jose. She had charge of St. Catherine’s Sunday School in Burlingame. She seemed to have been present for the other sisters at every May Procession, First Communion, Confirmation and Sodality event that occurred and still found time to be at the bedside of sisters and benefactors who were ill or dying. This tireless worker entered into her eternal reward on June 12, 1928, another golden soul in Holy Family’s treasury.