My husband, Larry Teixeira, is a deacon in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland.  On the first of June, 2003, he was assigned to St. Francis/St. Mary Parish in Brunswick.  For those of you who are not familiar with this town’s location, it is halfway between Frederick and Harper’s Ferry, WV.  It is also fifty miles from our home.

Wanting to become active in the parish, I ran into a major problem - fifty miles of driving.  There was nothing I could become involved in, it was too far away.  So, when I was invited to join the Catholic Daughters, I was excited.   They met once a month and it would be a great way for me to meet the women in the parish.  I was sworn in as a member at my first meeting.  The members welcomed me and made me feel accepted as only an outsider knows when everyone else has known each other for most of their lives.

Even though I enjoyed myself thoroughly and became involved, it was still an hours’ drive to get there. Something had to be done.  I spoke to Msgr. Luca about the possibility of establishing a court at St. Louis.  He was open to the idea and requested information regarding the Catholic Daughters so as to get some background information.  I contacted the regent at Court Mary Francis (St. Francis/St. Mary Parish) and got information to contact the state regent, Debra Williams.   She immediately sent the information needed for Msgr.   He read it, approved the launching of our new court, and everything started to fall into place. 

We inserted a notice in the weekly parish bulletin notifying interested women of an upcoming informational meeting on Sunday, September 10, 2006, and over thirty women attended.   Applications were handed out, filled in and submitted with the required fee and we were underway. 

Our first job was to select a name for our new court.  Thankfully, Court St. Louis won over “Luca’s Ladies”…  Our first and charter board was nominated and elected and are as follows:

Regent:                            Harriett Teixeira

Vice Regent:                    Carol Dunn

Financial Secretary:        Pat Hopkin

Recording Secretary:       Sally Fleshman

Treasurer:                        Barbara Beach

Our first board meeting was held at Ledo’s Restaurant and decisions began.  It’s difficult to describe the decisions that needed to be made, from the most basic questions of where to meet, when, times, who does what job, and millions of smaller and larger questions.  The State was helpful but we soon learned that each court did things their own way.  There wasn’t always a standard to follow.  Our sister court, Court Infant Jesus of Prague was extremely helpful with procedures.  They also presented us with our Catholic Daughters Banner.

God has blessed us with members who are active, motivated and certainly enthusiastic about working to accomplish the annual goals we set – and meet, if not surpass.

Harriett Teixeira

Regent 2006 - 2016