In 1889 Sisters of St. Joseph from the Diocese of Ogdensburg, New York established a new congregation at Kalamazoo, Michigan. The founding sisters came to Kalamazoo at the request of the Diocese of Detroit and Msgr. Francis O'Brien for the purpose of establishing a hospital, later named Borgess Hospital. At about the same time these first sisters, under the leadership of Mother Margaret Mary Lacy, began an orphanage and a school in addition to establishing their motherhouse at Nazareth on the outskirts of the city of Kalamazoo. The novitiate was transferred, in 1897, to Nazareth, a hamlet founded by the Sisters on a farm.