When the three Drexel sisters visited Holy Rosary Mission on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1887, they were introduced to Chief
Red Cloud and visited with him in his home. Their desire to build a school for the children made a deep impression on the Chief.

In 1889 while Katharine was in the novitiate in Pittsburgh, the Pine Ridge Sioux rebelled and destroyed everything in
the area including the government schools. A letter from the sisters
at the Mission gave her the good news that Holy Rosary School had been spared because Red Cloud convinced the young warriors that “Blackrobes always acted kindly towards the Indians.”

The other chiefs joined Red Cloud and said that if the warriors harmed the Mission, they and their bands would go over to the soldiers and fight against them.

 

 

 

 

 

Francis Drexel died suddenly in 1885. According to his will
the three sisters inherited the income from his estate, not the
principal during their lifetime. The principal would go to their
children, but if no children survived them, the money was to be distributed to the charities he listed.

Msgr. Joseph Stephan, director of the Catholic Bureau of Indian Missions, introduced Katharine and her sisters to the plight of the Native Americans. Traveling with him and with Bishop O'Connor,
the young women visited several remote reservations in 1887
and 1888. They met with tribal leaders and witnessed the dire
poverty endured by the people.

In 1887 and again in 1888, Katharine and her sisters
Elizabeth and Louise Drexel traveled with Bishop
O’Conner (seated) and Father Stephan (beard) through
the Northwest Territories where they visited the Indian
missions and were appalled by the dire poverty
of the Native Peoples.

Katharine began building schools on the reservations, providing
food, clothing and financial support. Aware also of the suffering
of the black people, she extended her love to them. During her
lifetime, through the Bureau of Colored and Indian Missions, she supported churches and schools throughout the United States
and abroad.

White Earth Chippewa Reservation, fall of 1888, one of many places Katharine and her sisters visited with Father Stephan and Bishop O'Connor.