Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

In 1876 the congregation answered the request for teachers of Richard Gilmour, the Bishop of Cleveland, and sent six sisters to the United States to begin a new foundation, under the leadership of Xavier Schneider. Sailing from Germany on 7 June, they arrived in New York on 25 June, only to find that the priest in whose parish they were to serve, Edward J. Vattrnann of St. Philip Neri Parish in Dungannon, Ohio (now part of Hanoverton, Ohio),^[5] never arrived to meet them. They then traveled on their own by train to Cleveland, only to learn that to get to Dungannon required a further 4-hour journey by stagecoach. The sisters arrived and found a community living in deep poverty. They often starved, despite the goodwill of the people they served.^[6]

A chance visitor advised these sisters to settle in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to teach the children of the many German immigrants settled in that region. At the invitation of the pastor Hune of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh, they relocated in that parish, where they soon built St. Joseph Motherhouse. As the community expanded, they began to staff parochial schools in the region and eventually became St. Peter's Province, comprised by the sisters in the United States.^[6]

St. Louis, Missouri

The Sisters of Divine Providence first arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1879, just three years after their arrival in the United States. They moved farther west in order to teach, specifically the children of German immigrants in St. Louis. There they staffed St. Francis de Sales School from 1879 to 1903.^[7]

Aloysia Bansbach, the new Provincial Superior of the Province of St. Peter, would visit her brother, who was a resident of St. Louis, Missouri. While on a visit there in 1920 she was introduced to a local priest, Peter Paul Kaenders, pastor of St. Mark Catholic Church in Venice, Illinois,^[8] who had recently purchased a hospital in Granite City, Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from the city. He wanted to convert the hospital to serve the Catholic community of the region, which included a large German immigrant population, and he invited Bansbach to purchase it for that purpose.

The Provincial Council agreed to the sale and in January 1921 six Sisters of Divine Providence arrived at the hospital and assumed responsibility for it. They renamed it St. Elizabeth Hospital, which they operated until 2001 (now Gateway Regional Medical Center). By 1926 the sisters had expanded into education in the area. The community there grew sufficiently so that, on 1 August 1930, they were formed into a separate province of the congregation.^[2]

The Sisters of Divine Providence also staffed many Catholic elementary schools in the Dioceses of Belleville, Illinois, Springfield, Illinois, Shreveport, Louisiana, Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Jefferson City, Missouri and the Archdiocese of St. Louis. They operated Mount Providence School for Boys in Normandy, Missouri, for 64 years, which also served as the provincial motherhouse.^[7]

Puerto Rico

The Sisters of the Province of St. Peter answered a request for help by the Holy Ghost Fathers and established a mission there in 1932. A community of six sisters was sent, who settled in the town of Arecibo and began to teach in the Casino of Arecibo. They also would teach the Catholic faith to the children of the surrounding countryside. In addition to their other challenges to service on the Caribbean island, for ten years they had to share a house with the family from whom they had purchased it.^[9]

The sisters later established a new mission in the town of Utuado.^[2]

New England

The congregation acquired a former dairy farm in Kingston, Massachusetts, in 1946. This served as both a summer camp and the site of Sacred Heart School. Later the sisters founded Sacred Heart High School on the grounds.^[10]

The sisters began to staff schools in Vermont as well. They eventually were all formed into the Province of New England.