SCHERVIER, FRANZISKA. - Foundress of the Poor Sisters of St. Francis, b. at Aachen on 3 Jan. 1819, d. there on 14 Dec. 1876.
Of a highly distinguished family, she had as her godfather at Baptism the Emperor of Austria, Francis I. Orphaned of her mother at the age of 14, she undertook the management of the household and at the same time began to help the poor, serve the sick, reclaim fallen girls, assist the parish priest in catechism classes and in the care of the church. Having also lost her father (1845), and having settled the family affairs, on 3 Oct. of that same year she founded, with 5 companions, the new Congregation, which soon gave its first proof of its dedication to the relief of every form of human misery during the cholera outbreak that occurred shortly afterwards. In order clearly to determine the goal to be attained and the path to be followed, she promptly drew up the rules, dividing the foundation into two families: one, smaller in number, devoted to the contemplative life, and the other to the active life, under the patronage of St. Francis of Assisi. She obtained approval of the Rules from the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne in 1851, confirmed by Pius IX in 1870. The foundress, together with her community, distinguished herself greatly in the care of soldiers during the wars of 1864, 1866, and 1870; and she devoted herself with all affection to the unemployed, the homeless, and the sick of every kind, who came to venerate in her “the Mother.” The cause of beatification was introduced in Rome on 9 May 1934.