The institute was founded in San Antonio in 1869, as a sister house of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Galveston, Texas. In 1869, Bishop Dubuis chose three from the Galveston community, Sister St. Madeleine Chollet, Sister St. Pierre Cinquin, and Sister Agnes Buisson to begin a new house in San Antonio and open the first hospital in the area. He named Mother St. Madeleine superior of the new community. Three years later, he appointed Mother St. Pierre Cinquin as her successor, and she remained in office until her death almost twenty years later. In 1870, Bishop C.M. Dubuis erected this new community as an independent centre, on the occasion of vesting the first postulants admitted into the San Antonio novitiate.