Daughters of Mother Mary

The idea of opening a mission in the region can be traced to an August 10, 1949, letter written by Fr. Yvon Guerin, PME, a former student of Assumption Academy in Campbellton, New Brunswick, Canada, who arrived in Davao in November 1938. It was addressed to Rev. Mother Marie-de-Sion (Estelle Babin), general superior of the Daughters of Mary of the Assumption.

That year, Fr. Maurice Michaud, PME, vicar general of Davao and Father Guerin’s confrere when they sailed to the Philippines before the war, visited Canada on a furlough. Before an interested audience of sisters, he introduced the pastoral works done by the PME Fathers in Davao, and the necessity to establish schools for the educational needs of Christians in the area.

Upon his return to Davao, Father Michaud met with Father Guerin to personally brief him of the status of the request during his visit to the Order’s motherhouse. Nearly two weeks later, Father Guerin, in a letter, clarified that the sisters, upon arrival, would not immediately take over a school in Digos but to immerse themselves for a year in the area by living with the people.

Father Guerin’s intention to assign the sisters in his parish did not happen. Even the offer of Bishop Clovis Joseph Thibault to establish their first campus in Calinan did not fly because the sisters wanted an underserved community. Following the hierarchy of supervision, it was the bishop who invited congregations from Canada to build schools and parishes in the region. The invite, done after the war, opened the floodgates to religious orders to work for Christian education. On May 7, 1951, the General Council accepted the challenge to open a school in Davao.

In 1953, Bishop Thibault visited Canada and lengthily talked of the initiatives the PME Fathers had started in the Philippines. The following year, Sr. Marie-de-Lourdes (Andrina Dube), the general superior, wrote a letter to the bishop, saying the General Council had finalized the acceptance of the offer to open a new mission in the city. Her letter explained that before a mission could be set up, she would personally visit the area along with a councilor so the Order would know the place where the sisters are assigned. The general superior also planned to sit down with the Missionaries of Immaculate Conception in Montreal, Canada, and make arrangements for the hosting of the first sisters in their Davao mission house.

A couple of days later, the letter reached the central house of the PME Fathers in Montreal, Canada. Fr. Edgar Larochelle, PME general superior, responded to the letter days after the General Council accepted the invite. The letter was received just as Bishop Thibault was leaving for the airport to attend the annual meeting in Manila and to join the celebration of the jubilee of the Apostolic Nuncio. He was informed of the letter and delegated Father Larochelle to respond.

On January 30, 1954, Bishop Thibault sent a letter to the general superior of the sisters, warmly telling her of ‘my joy when I read your letter and no better gift of departure to the Philippines would have been offered to me. I thank you most heartedly, and rest assured your sisters are most welcome to Davao.’ Two other letters were exchanged about the opening of the mission.

On January 4, 1954, Sr. Andrina Dube, the Order’s general superior, informed Bishop Camille-Andre LeBlanc of the invitation. The letter centered on the unanimous approval of the congregation’s mission ‘to open a mission in the Philippines in 1954.’ A day later, the bishop of Bathurst wrote a letter expressing happiness ‘to sanction the decision by the Chapter.’

On August 10, 1954, Sister Andrina thanked Bishop Thibault for helping the two sisters who traveled to Davao in April that year, citing the visit as part of the ‘memories which touch one’s life.” In response, the bishop wrote the general superior, informing her the visas of the two sisters were already approved and that he was enclosing ‘the testimonial letter concerning the pontifical approval of your community.’ (22)