Fragments of My Life

Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1979. First Edition. Hardcover. Good/good. Signed on title page. 206 pages. Illustrations. DJ has some wear, soiling, edge tears and chips. Front board has some weakness. A journey into Catherine's life, disclosing the mysteries of world events that shaped her; the mysteries of her leadership and her marriage; and, most of all, the mysteries of God's love. With 40 photographs. Intensely personal experiences forged Catherine Doherty s heart and spirit as a child living in exotic places, as a youth caught up in the Russian Revolution, as a young woman struggling as a refugee in foreign lands. Catherine can be said to have done it all but, unlike many, she did it all for Christ and in some of the most unlikely places and ways! How, why and where she did it are breathtakingly revealed in Fragments of My Life. The pace of her life never lets up. The reader meets a woman of joy, humor, suffering and sheer exuberance, who shares, in a conversational and very personal way, her painful, growing experiences as a disciple who attempts to live the Gospel. Fragments of My Life is really a love story the story of young love, mature love; love of God and people, person by person. The telling is itself an act of love, uttered in trust, but not without risk. Catherine Doherty emerges from these pages as a woman to contend with, a heroic Christian example for our times. Ekaterina Fyodorovna Kolyschkine de Hueck Doherty CM, better known as Catherine Doherty (August 15, 1896 - December 14, 1985), was a Roman Catholic social worker and foundress of the Madonna House Apostolate. A pioneer of social justice and a renowned national speaker, Doherty was also a prolific writer of hundreds of articles, best-selling author of dozens of books, and a dedicated wife and mother. Her cause for Canonization as a saint is under consideration by the Catholic Church. In 1932, she gave up all her possessions, lived among the multitude of poor people in downtown Toronto and established Friendship House with its soup kitchen. She gave food to them when she had none for herself - and offered Catholic education and fellowship, too. Ironically, she was tagged as a communist sympathizer and, beleaguered by her own organization, Friendship House was forced to close in 1936. Catherine then went to Europe and spent a year investigating Catholic Action. On her return, she established the Friendship House at 34 West 135th Street in Harlem in 1937. The interracial charity center, in addition to distributing goods to the poor, conducted lectures and discussions to promote racial understanding. In 1943, having received an annulment of her first marriage, as she had married her cousin, which is forbidden in the Roman Catholic Church, she married Eddie Doherty, one of America's foremost reporters, who had fallen in love with her while writing a story about her apostolate.