Mary MacKillop Mary MacKillop Mary Helen MacKillop RSJ (15 January 1842 – 8 August 1909) was an Australian nun who has been declared a saint by the Catholic Church, as St Mary of the Cross MacKillop. Of Scottish descent, she was born in Melbourne but is best known for her activities in South Australia. Together with the Reverend Julian Tenison Woods, she founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Josephites), a congregation of religious sisters that established a number of schools and welfare institutions throughout Australia and New Zealand, with an emphasis on education for the rural poor.
Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana St. Mary's also expanded. In April 1850, twenty men from the village had left for California in search of gold. Despite this, by 1851, Sister of Providence Sister Saint Francis Xavier wrote, "Now we have quite a little country town... We have in the village a post office, two little inns, three or four stores, wheelwrights, coopers, carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, cabinet makers, etc." A post office was established under the name St. Mary's in 1846. It was renamed to Saint Mary Of The Woods in 1912, and is still currently in operation. Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, often called St.