St. Anne Shell Chapel

 

In November 1843, Mother Theodore and Sister Mary Cecilia Bailly were on their way back from France, where they had been asking for money to help run the Congregation. They were traveling on a ship called the Nashville across the Atlantic Ocean, and the journey was wrought with extreme storms and giant waves. The passengers and crew were all terrified that the ship would sink!

In their fear the sisters prayed, asking Mary (the mother of Jesus) and St. Anne to protect them. When they arrived back home in Indiana safely, Mother Theodore directed that a chapel be built to honor St. Anne. The first chapel that they built was a small log structure, but in 1875 they built a more permanent stone structure that still stands today.

Nearly all of the shells that decorate the walls and altar of the chapel were collected by sisters from the local Wabash River. The shell mosaics were designed by Sister Mary Joseph Le Fer de la Motte, who spent many days placing all of the shells by hand.