Sister Blandina Wellness Gardens

Adjacent to the Holistic Health Center is Sister Blandina Wellness Gardens. In keeping with our commitment to provide first-class accommodations, Sister Blandina Wellness Gardens offers a lovely outdoor sanctuary for the many activities and events sponsored by Mt. Carmel. In addition to wellness walks, public and private events and spiritual reflection, the Gardens offers a sanctuary reminiscent of the formal gardens of bygone eras. The Gardens not only serves as an urban oasis, but also as a memorial to the dedicated religious men and women – priests and nuns – whose names are recorded and memorialized on bronze plaques – and who worked tirelessly and selflessly to build schools, educate the young, minister to the ill and provide support and guidance to a population in search of its identity and most of all, its God.

Who was Sister Blandina?

Maria Rosa Segale was four years old when her family immigrated from northern Italy to Cincinnati in the United States. Her life’s path took her at age 16 to becoming a nun with the Sisters of Charity of Ohio and, subsequently, to a mission assignment in the untamed American southwest, specifically, Trinidad, Colorado. In Trinidad, Sister Blandina, her chosen religious name, utilized her many talents of entrepreneurship, persuasiveness and determination to establish School District 1 as well as the school adjacent to Holy Trinity Church – St. Joseph’s Academy – Holy Trinity School - organized medical support and political effectiveness that eventually led to the transformation of Trinidad from a wild, untamed frontier town to a prosperous community and popular stop on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail.