Changing Hearts, Minds and Lives Since 1908

Rosalie Manor Community & Family Services began humbly, as efforts that affect the course of history often do, in Montreal, Canada, 1845.

Rosalie Cadron-Jette, a 50 year-old widow with adult children, declared her desire that year, “to give shelter and support to women who were single and pregnant.” In 1848, at the request of the city’s sympathetic bishop, Ms. Jette created the order of Misericordia Sisters. She and six loyal companions with little means became midwives to numerous unwed pregnant women in need of compassion.

Two of the Sisters, inspired by the work of their saintly foundress, journeyed more than nine hundred miles to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1908. In addition to a home, the nuns opened a six-bed maternity hospital at 22nd and Juneau, later moving to 22nd and Kilbourn. Eventually, in 1969, they purchased an acreage in Brookfield and began construction on what is now Elmbrook Memorial Hospital.

A residential and outpatient program for unwed mothers continued at the hospital until 1984. Then, in light of changing needs and the advent of new programs to serve these women, Rosalie Manor Community & Family Services relocated to its current Milwaukee address, 4803 W. Burleigh Street.

Today Rosalie Manor is more deeply, actively and widely involved in greater Milwaukee than ever, dedicated to the mission:

Strengthening Milwaukee families by empowering parents to be nurturing and by guiding youth toward positive futures

Rosalie Manor is a non-profit service agency. Under the sponsorship of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and in close association with area schools, churches and neighborhoods, the organization is successfully addressing a number of critical family issues in our community. In fact, Rosalie Manor is recognized as a local leader in the fields of pregnancy prevention and the promotion of positive parenting and healthy marriages.

Rosalie Manor reaches out to young people, single mothers and fathers in Milwaukee through a variety of innovative, powerful, in-home and community-based programs.

While the statistics are still disturbing, an increasing number of Milwaukee area teens are thinking twice before engaging in premarital sex, thanks to the Rosalie Manor message of abstinence until marriage. More young people targeted by this campaign are avoiding the emotional, economical and social consequences of unwanted pregnancies, not to mention the dangers of sexually transmitted infections. They’re feeling better about themselves, their relationships, their physical well-beings...their futures.

Rosalie Manor is there for expectant and new young parents as well, helping them develop the knowledge, skills and caring needed to become responsible moms and dads, loving spouses, and better-educated, gainfully employed, productive members of society.

The parents of teens and expectant young mothers and fathers also count on Rosalie Manor for assistance. They learn the best ways to encourage their children to choose abstinence. They discover how to effectively communicate with their youngsters about making good decisions, staying away from high-risk activities, participating in healthy peer groups, and forming beneficial relationships.

With a depth of understanding and caring that would make Rosalie Jette proud, Rosalie Manor remains focused on the subject of human sexuality...offering a value-based program promoting adolescent pregnancy prevention...helping single parents overcome poverty, the lack of peer and family support, and limited educational and career opportunities.

Rosalie Manor...since 1908, working hand in hand with Milwaukee’s families.

More about Rosalie Caldon-Jette