Anne Thérèse Guérin (2 October 1798 – 14 May 1856), designated by the Vatican as Saint Theodora, was a French-American saint and the foundress of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, a congregation of Catholic sisters at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana. Pope John Paul II beatified Guérin on 25 October 1998, and Pope Benedict XVI canonized her a saint of the Catholic Church on 15 October 2006. Mother Guérin's feast day is 3 October, although some calendars list it in the Roman Martyrology as 14 May, her day of death. Guérin immigrated to Indiana from France in 1840, and became known for her advancement of education, especially in Indiana and in eastern Illinois; founding numerous schools including Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana; and for her care of the orphaned, the sick, and the poor of the Diocese of Vincennes, Indiana. Early life and education Anne-Thérèse Guérin was born on 2 October 1798, in the village of Étables-sur-Mer in Brittany, France, to Laurent Guérin, an officer in the French Navy under Napoleon Bonaparte, and Isabelle (Lefèvre) Guérin. Anne-Thérèse was born near the end of the French Revolution, which led to the Reign of Terror and the establishment of the French First Republic. This period of significant change also caused a crisis within French Catholicism, when schools and churches were closed, and many Catholic priests chose exile over death from the guillotine. Laurent and Isabelle Guérin had four children, two sons (Jean-Laurent and Laurent-Marie) and two daughters; however, only Anne-Thérèse and her younger sister, Marie-Jeanne, survived to adulthood. The Guérin sisters were mostly educated at home by their mother and later by a relative who lived with the family. Anne-Thérèse knew from an early age that she would devote her life to serving God. At the age of ten, when she was allowed to take her First Communion two years earlier than the custom of the time, she confided to the priest in Etables that she wished to enter a religious community when she was older. When Guérin was fifteen, tragedy struck the family. Bandits robbed and killed her father as he was traveling home to visit his family. The grief proved to be too much for Isabelle Guérin, who already had lost two children, and she fell into a deep depression. The teenaged Anne-Thérèse accepted the responsibility of caring for her mother and sister, as well as the family's