File:First drawing with text Mary of the mountains.jpg

This is a sketch I made of St. Mary's in the Mountains, with 3 Daughters of Charity as they must has looked in 1864 when they begin their mission in Nevada. St. Mary's in the Mountains is the MotherChurch of Nevada and the Daughters of Charity are the first religious Order of women to work in Nevada, starting, the first Catholic School, the first Catholic Orphanage, and the first Catholic Hospital. It all happened in Virginia City, the city of the great Comstock Mining boom of 1864 through 1897. The Daughters were there at the rise of VC and they were there when VC was almost a ghost town in 1897.

The focus on this sketch is on the Church, and on the 3 women who civilized VC--Sister Frederica McGrath, Sister Xavier Scheur, and Sister Elizabeth Russell.