Excerpt from In the Early Days: Pages From the Annals of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph's Convent, Mount Carmel Dubuque, Iowa, 1833-1887 IN the following pages we attempt to chronicle the heroic achievement of our Founders and our first members, and the not less noble efforts of their worthy and efficient successors, all for the glory of God and the good of souls. Our work will be acceptable we know, and will be a gratification to those who have so eagerly desired this record of the early days. That it has been so long delayed is attributable mainly to the virtue of self-effacement which characterized our revered Foundress of holy memory. The early Annalists faithfully recounted each trial, disappointment, failure and success, but a disastrous fire on May 15, 1849, destroyed these precious records. This, which seemed to be a serious loss, drew only a smile from Mother Clarke, who said God knows it all; that should be enough for us. Nor did she encourage a rewriting. Moreover, she positively for bade all mention of certain matters, supernatural favors. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.