in field hospitals and in depots for prisoners of war. The Spanish–American War of 1898 quickly demonstrated the important need for trained nurses, as hastily constructed army camps for more than twenty-eight thousand members of the regular army were devastated by diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid fever, and malaria – all of which took a much greater toll than did enemy gunfire. The United States government called for women to volunteer as nurses. Thousands did so, but few were professionally trained. Among the latter were 250 Catholic nurses, most of them from the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. Reverend Mother Mariana Flynn, head of the Daughters of Charity, recalled their service during the Civil War and said her sisters were proud to be "back in the army again, caring for our sick and wounded." In 1910, the jurisdiction of Emmitsburg was divided into two Provinces with the Eastern Provincial House in Emmitsburg and the Western Provincial House in Normandy, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Contemporary status As of 2019, 14,000 serve in ninety countries, addressing needs of food, water, sanitation and shelter, besides their work with health care, HIV/AIDS, migrant and refugee assistance, and education. In July 2011 the Daughters of Charity merged four of the five existing U.S. provinces – Emmitsburg, Maryland; Albany, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; and Evansville, Indiana. The process of unification began at a 2007 gathering in Buffalo, N.Y. The Province of the West, based in Los Altos Hills, Calif., was not involved in the merger. The newly constituted province is named for St. Louise de Marillac, who founded the congregation in France in 1633 along with St. Vincent de Paul to “serve Christ in persons who are poor.” Administrative offices for the Province of St. Louise are located in St. Louis, Mo. The archival collections of the former provinces will be consolidated in a new facility located within the former St. Joseph’s Provincial House, adjacent to The Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and the Seton Heritage Center, in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The new province covers 34 states, the District of Columbia and the Canadian province of Quebec. In Spain, they have run orphanages, soup kitchens and hospitals. In recent times, they were accused of abusing power in maternity wards run by them both in private and public hospitals, stealing children from their mothers. A particular Sor Maria was