The history of the St. Francis de Sales Association and how it has spread to various locations is a topic most associates never tire of hearing. Since our organization is based upon and expands by means of one-on-one relationships, which were even referred to as mother and daughter in the early days, one could trace our spiritual family's history like a genealogy, through the people who present the association to others in the form of a "family tree". Connecting one of the larger branches to such a tree would be Delphine Madill, who brought the association to the United States. This woman's life (1905-2003) was entirely devoted to serving her fellow human beings in their quest for a deeper union with God. (Photo-50th Anniversary of SFdS Consecration)

Delphine Madill was well connected to the roots of our association. She used to tell the story of meeting Miss Helen Tonery, an English associate who lived in Paris, where she entered the society and had enjoyed the privilege of having Canon Henri Chaumont as her director.  Miss Madill went to see Miss Tonery, who had returned to England just before World War II, and was greeted with enthusiasm, "An American! You are the answer to our Founder's prayer. We always prayed that the association would be established in the U.S."   As a result, Miss Madill used to tell the associates in the U.S., "Remember, if you ever get discouraged and want to give up, Fr. Chaumont is undoubtedly praying for you now in heaven, especially as you are the result of his prayers on earth."  

Delphine Madill was born early in the 1900's in St. Louis, Missouri, a city she loved and where she lived most of her life. However, her family traveled quite a lot for the day and when she was sixteen they went to live in France for several years. She once said that she never knew the nature of her father's occupation and did not know if that is what took her family to Europe.  

Delphine Madill - In Her Own Words

Miss Madill tells it best in the transcript of a session in 1982, when she reflected on the history of the Society in the U.S. to a group in southeast Missouri:

"Since you want the roots of the association in the U.S., I have to talk about myself. After about five years of wondering what my vocation was, my mother and I made a novena. We were at home in St. Louis on a visit and it was the days of the great novenas, back in 1931.  Great crowds used to attend the one to Our Lady of Perpetual Help at the Redemptorist's church on Grand Avenue (in St. Louis). They even had to run extra street cars because of the tremendous crowds! I was praying for my vocation, and mother was praying for a fur coat!" 

"I didn't get my answer at once. We were leaving St. Louis to return to Paris and stopped in New York for a couple of weeks as we always did. While there, I saw my spiritual director, who belonged to a small French community, the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales. At that visit, he told me that when I got to Paris to buy a book on the life of the Venerable Madame Caroline Carre de Malberg and to see what it said to me. That was all he said, but I suspected there was more to it than that. Needless to say, I bought it on arrival in Paris and was thrilled from the beginning to the end. It was a large biography which gave many details. I had not imagined that there could be anything as well thought out (I almost said as perfect) and as inspired for people in the world as this association was. But then, I had to find the address of the association."

Days of Secrecy

"In those days we were very secret. I do not know how many of you know that. In the beginning, you see, we were the first association of our kind in the Church. We were criticized, misunderstood, looked down upon, and all sorts of false notions circulated about us. So the association more or less went underground. Until after WWII, we had to have special permission even to speak of the association to someone else. Well, finally I went to the chapel of the Fathers of the Assumption where I sometimes went for confession, and in confession I asked the priest if he knew the address of the Association of St. Francis de Sales. He asked me to wait a minute and went into the rectory. I suppose he looked in some directory, for he returned with the address."  

"As soon as I could, I went over to what was then our center and had been since before the death of our Foundress. Like all those old Paris houses, it had huge, heavy wooden doors which look very forbidding when closed. The whole place looked pretty grim and gloomy to me, and I had a big temptation to run! However, with a prayer, I rang the bell and was admitted by somebody who I knew must be a Daughter by her sweet expression and smile, until I startled her by announcing that I wanted some information about the Daughters of St. Francis de Sales. Her whole expression changed. You can imagine; a foreigner walking in like that when they were so secretive! She shut me in a tiny room by the door while she went to call someone to cope with the unusual situation. It was Mlle Lefevre, to whom I owe the greater part of my formation in the association. I got the information I wanted while I answered many discreet questions. There had to be correspondence between Mlle and Fr. Mordinisi, my director, but finally I was notified of my acceptance for the Aspirantship."

"I was invited to come to the center on December 2, 1931, for the departure ceremony of some of our missionary Sisters leaving for India, and to receive my aspirantship material. As my mother, my sister and I were also leaving for India and Ceylon, when the priest in his homily said, "Go in peace, go joyfully," I felt it was meant for me. After the ceremony, I met my companion and did indeed go in peace and joy! The first letter I received from my companion explained that in the association we had special devotion to Our Lady under the title of Perpetual Help. That settled it. Had I had any doubts; that would have ended them."

"I spent a good part of the two years and half of my formation in Paris, but when it was time for Consecration, we were in the United States. My companion wrote and told me I could choose any feast day in August that I wished. There were some tempting ones: Our Lady of the Snows, the Transfiguration, the Assumption, St. Jane de Chantal, the Immaculate Heart of Mary and St. Louis, which I chose, asking him to start the association in St. Louis, Missouri. He certainly did, and so far we are the largest U.S. Group."

A Desire To Share the Gifts of Salesian Spirituality

"After my Consecration, I was longing to share the treasure with other women, but I was terribly handicapped because, at that time (1934), I could not just go around and talk about it, not even to priests. But my longing to share kept growing. Leanore A., a close friend, knew some French and was everything one could wish for in a Daughter. So I got permission to speak to her about the association. She willingly accepted, but when I told her she would have to correspond in French, she said that was beyond her; she could not possibly do that. So that closed that avenue, although eventually the first Consecration ceremony in the United States was her Consecration. I suppose I kept writing about the spiritual need for the association over here, but our material would have to be translated first. At last, I was told that if I found five women who were seeking a life of perfection in the world and who could read and write French, I could have permission to start translating. To try to find five women seeking perfection in the world and knowing French seemed a hopeless task!"

"About that time, World War II broke out. When the Germans went into Paris, I was completely cut off from contacts with my companion and the center. However, some time before that, having been very attracted to our missionary branch, I had been given permission to consider Salem in South India as "my" particular mission and to correspond with them and to feel that I belonged to them. Mother Emma, a Belgian, was the Superior and was a very wonderful woman. She belonged to one of the most aristocratic families in Belgium and was both very gifted and very holy. Toward the end of her long life, she was even decorated by the Indian government for all she had done there. So I wrote to Mother Emma and asked if she would act as my companion since communications with Paris were completely stopped, and she agreed. In those days we had to contact our companion every month. So each month, I would sit down and write Mother Emma and when she received my letter, she would answer. There was no air mail as there is today, and surface mail to India during the war took about six months. It was a year before I would receive her answer to my letters!"

"Just before the war, I had also joined the Legion of Mary. Our Founder had taught that we were to be the humble auxiliaries of the priest and were to do any work, diocesan or parochial, which we could undertake without interfering with the duties of our state in life.  Therefore, the Legion was the perfect answer. In the Legion, I met a young Austrian girl, Gretl R. She was in the U.S. for a year's visit to her mother and when the war broke out, she could not return to Austria. She was made to be a Daughter! I knew our material had been translated into German so I was able to get permission for her to start her Aspirantship, which was six months in those days.  But when she was ready for her first year, it was impossible to get that material for her because for sometime after the war it was forbidden to send any printed matter out of Germany, nor could it be sent from Austria where we had a couple of Groups of the Society. The Daughters in Switzerland were asked if they had any of our things in German, but the answer was no. So, at long last, I was given permission to start translating."

"It has always fascinated me to see how Our Lady combined the Legion of Mary and the Association of St. Francis de Sales in my life. In 1947, just at the time I received permission to start the translation, the Legion asked me to go as Legion of Mary envoy to French speaking Canada to start it there. I remember I took the train to Chicago and had about a three hour wait before catching the train to Ottawa.  I sat down in a hotel writing room (which all good hotels had in those days) and started translating. It was the most wonderful Thanksgiving evening I have ever had!  As the Legion was slow to be accepted in Canada, I had most of my evenings for some time for translating! So it was thanks to an Austrian that we started in the United States. About a year later, Gretl R. entered the Visitation convent in St. Louis, but much later left the convent. After she was more settled and had opened a Montessori school in Dayton (Ohio), she asked to return to the association and we rejoiced to welcome her. She made her Consecration in 1977."

"Lenore A., whom I mentioned a few moments ago, came into the association as soon as the formation was in English and made her Consecration on August 15, 1950. Hers was the first United States Consecration ceremony, as I had made my Consecration privately in New York in 1934 and had renewed it solemnly in Paris in 1936. Leanore's Consecration was the end of her long years of waiting, praying, efforts and frustrations. The next three Consecrations were in Louisville, Raleigh, and Boston, in 1952. All three had come to the association through the Legion of Mary."

The Association Spreads in the United States

"The first group to be established after the St. Louis Group (1954), was Chicago (1967), and the first two associates came down to   St. Louis to make their Consecration on July 26, 1958. The first Consecration in the Springfield group (which was started by Bishop Helmsing with members of the Legion of Mary) was in August, 1959. The first Consecration in the Puerto Rico group and in the Dexter-Poplar Bluff group (in Southeast Missouri) was in 1963. The three who were the nucleus for the future Washington, D.C. and Virginia groups made their Consecrations in 1969. We do not spread very quickly because this is really a very special call which is not given to everyone."

It is interesting to note that the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau in southern Missouri is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2006.  Its first Bishop was Charles H. Helmsing who had served as an assistant at St. Louis Cathedral, and had also become spiritual director for Delphine Madill. With his move to the Episcopate in Springfield, he and Delphine took the Association of St. Francis de Sales to Springfield and later to Kansas City when he became Bishop of that Diocese in Missouri. We should make mention also of a recently deceased priest of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Joseph E. Gosche, who served as Chancellor of that Diocese under Bishop Helmsing. When the former was transferred to Cape Girardeau, he fostered the beginnings of a group in southeast Missouri with the help of Virginia B. and Delphine Madill.

During the formative years of the association in the state of Missouri, Delphine traveled to each group frequently to consult her spiritual director, conduct meetings and visit with her "charges" of which she had many! Springfield Missouri became a group in 1967 and Kansas City a few years later in 1973. Puerto Rico became a group in 1970. The frequency of the visits declined as the groups matured and age and health slowed her activity. 

She returned to India more than once after the trip mentioned in her account and also visited Puerto Rico and Haiti many times in her work with the Legion of Mary and the association. In 1969 she accompanied Mlle Jeanne L., Assistant General Directress, on her five week visit to the various and scattered members of the association in the United States. Miss Madill met Mlle Luxemberger in New York; then they traveled to Washington, D.C., Louisville, Kentucky, Puerto Rico and St. Louis as well as the other groups in Missouri. 

Crosses were not absent from Delphine's life, and true to her Salesian spirit, she accepted them graciously. For several months, perhaps a year or more, she suffered from an ailment of the hip that required her to use crutches, although she recovered quite unexpectedly.  Anyone who has used crutches knows how cumbersome it is to operate a car and have to use them as one exits the automobile to walk; nevertheless she continued her journeys to visit the groups.

It seems her deep devotion was unique in her family, judging from mention of her mother praying for a fur coat while she was praying for guidance in her vocation. She also told the author at one time that she could not talk about spiritual things to her sister, even as she was dying of cancer. That was no doubt a source of great pain to one so immersed in bringing a life of prayer and Christian commitment to many others in several locations in the world. 

Miss Madill continued to translate virtually all the material used in the United States until well into the 1980's. This included the probations, the "Lien" (the Bond, in English), the Novenas, directories for Probatrices, Group and Regional Directresses and the material for future companion formation. After she relinquished her position as Regional Directress for all of the U. S. in 1979, she continued to mentor her two replacements and their successors with gentle care until she had to enter a retirement home. As long as she was able, she continued to serve as companion for dozens of members by correspondence or visits.

Establishing the association in the United States required her complete devotion and attention for 40 or more years! Her love for it and her determination to bring this wonderful "way" to other women was an inspiration that motivated her. She certainly saw it as her vocation and "duty of state." She showed tremendous perseverance and obedience in continuing for 13 years to ask for permission to translate the formation materials to English, after her Consecration in 1934 until it was granted 1947. She did not hesitate to give gentle correction, even in her last months after she could no longer speak, reminding a serious visitor of the Salesian expression, the smile, by gently pushing up the corners of her mouth.

In anticipation of the General Assembly of 1979, Delphine wisely and generously saw that the association in the U.S. was getting so large she needed assistance and that others needed to learn how to administer it. To that end, the United States was divided into two regions, East and West, with the Mississippi River as the dividing line. Beth M., who did her formation in Chicago, moved to the Washington D. C. area when her husband took a judicial appointment there. Beth became Regional of the East and Kathleen G. of Springfield was named Regional of the Western Region. Liz Q. followed as Eastern Regional in 1991 and requested it be divided into the three Regions we know today, at the 1997 General Assembly. The West continued as one Region under the direction of Mary Rita P. until 1997 when Martha S. followed her. The west was divided into two Regions in 2003. By that time there were several hundred members in the United States, all of whom are "leaves" on our "spiritual family tree" because they have a connection to their "grandmother," Delphine Madill.

References: 
- Madill, Delphine,  "Reflections on the History and Traditions of the Society of St. Francis de Sales," 1982, transcript.
- Madill, Delphine, "Archives," private transcript dictated to Rosalie F. 
- Personal correspondence with the author.