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 Legend has it that Sister Blandina Segale, among her many good deeds, once treated a friend of Billy the Kid’s who had been shot. Billy, the story goes, never forgot. 
 
 Sometime later, Sister Segale was riding in a stagecoach that Billy was planning to ambush and rob. But when he looked in the carriage window and saw the good nun, he simply tipped his hat, spurred his steed and rode off toward the horizon. 
 
 “There was nothing bland about Sister Blandina,” said the Most Rev. Ricardo Ramirez, bishop emeritus of Las Cruces. “She was a firecracker.” 
 
 The story about Billy the Kid was related by Archbishop Michael Sheehan on Wednesday, shortly before he declared open the cause of the beatification, or sainthood, of Sister Segale. From here on out, Sheehan said, she shall be known as the Servant of God, the first step on the road to beatification. 
 
 It’s the first time in the 400-year history of New Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church that a decree opening the cause of beatification and canonization has been declared, according to the archdiocese. 
 
 Sheehan said that on Sunday he will hang the formal petition for sainthood on the doors of the Cathedral of St. Francis in Santa Fe. 
 
 Sheehan, at a news conference in Albuquerque, announced the Vatican’s permission to pursue the beatification effort. He was named the judge for the cause. Ramirez assumed the role of postulator and is charged with proving that Sister Segale is worthy of sainthood. 
 
 She brought public and Catholic schools to Santa Fe and opened hospitals. Some of her ministries continue today. 
 
 But she’s probably not the usual candidate for sainthood. Among her exploits were “calming mobs of armed men from taking the law into their own hands, helping criminals seek forgiveness from their victims, and even (saving) a man from a hanging party by facilitating reconciliation between him and the man he shot before he died,” according to church officials. 
 
 Her defiance of the hanging party was featured in 1966 in the television series “Death Valley Days.” The episode was titled “The Fastest Nun in the West.” 
 
 Ramirez, at the news conference, said the more he learns about Sister Segale, the more excited he gets. 
 
 Many of the issues she concerned herself with back then are “things we’re concerned about today” – health care, immigration, caring for children, he said. 
 
 She was born Rosa Maria Segale in 1850 near Genoa, Italy. She immigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio, with her family when she was 4. 
 
 Her first word, reportedly, was “Gesu,” Italian for Jesus. 
 
 In 1866, she entered the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, and a few years later was sent to the West. She worked first in Trinidad, Colo., then made her way to Santa Fe, where she co-founded Catholic and public schools. She also opened hospitals in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. 
 
 Her work in the western territories is documented in the letters to her sister, later published in “At the End of the Santa Fe Trail.” 
 
 In 1897, Sister Segale founded the Santa Maria Institute in Cincinnati, a facility that serves immigrants to this day. She returned to Albuquerque at the turn of the 20th century and helped start St. Joseph Hospital, now known as St. Joseph Community Health. 
 
 She died on Feb. 23, 1941, in Cincinnati at the age of 91. 
 
 No one can say with certainty how long the beatification process will take once it reaches the Vatican – it could be years, even generations. 
 
 The Vatican must investigate Sister Segale’s work and monitor for any related “miracles,” which could include healings or unexplained occurrences after devotees pray to her. 
 
 “We hope and pray the process goes quickly,” Sheehan said.
– The woman once saluted as the "fastest nun in the West" is on the path to beatification. The cause of Sister Blandina Segale's sainthood has officially been declared open; it's the first time such a cause has been opened in the history of New Mexico's Roman Catholic Church, Archbishop Michael Sheehan tells the Albuquerque Journal. Sister Segale isn't exactly your typical candidate, though. The Italian-born nun was known for "calming mobs of armed men" after she moved to the US and joined the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. In fact, before traveling to Santa Fe, she was even said to have befriended Billy the Kid in Colorado. When one of her students reportedly told Segale a member of Billy's gang had been shot by an outlaw, she cared for the man, even as four doctors apparently refused. When Billy came to town bent on scalping the doctors, Segale talked him out of it, received his thanks, and later visited him in jail, the New Mexican reports. On another occasion when he met the nun in a stagecoach—terrifying her traveling mates—he simply bowed before riding away. Segale also set up numerous schools and hospitals, worked with the poor and sick, and advocated on behalf of Hispanics and Native Americans, the AP reports. But her canonization process could take years—or even generations. The Vatican must investigate the nun's work and monitor any apparent "miracles" that may be related. "We hope and pray the process goes quickly," Sheehan said. (In terms of Billy the Kid, this may be just the second photo of him ever found.)