Teresa Farrell was selected to head a foundation from Naas, Ireland, to Little Rock, in the Diocese of Arkansas, USA.

In Dublin, the newly established diocese bishop approached Mother Vincent Whitty about establishing a foundation.

Unable to find sisters for this mission, Mother Vincent recommended he visit the sisters in Naas. All of the Naas sisters volunteered to go. Teresa was selected to lead the group of three professed sisters and five postulants.

They arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana, in January 1851 and finally reached Little Rock, Arkansas, on February 6, 1851.

Alicia Farrell was born in the 1820s to Christopher and Marianne Farrell in Naas, Ireland. She entered the Convent of Mercy in Naas (founded in 1839) in 1841. In 1841, Catherine McAuley visited Naas, where she met her.

Alicia was professed in 1843.

Mary Jeremy Buckman writes that Bishop Byrne of Arkansas was “searching for sisters who had witnessed physical deprivation and suffering and who were accustomed to prejudice and oppression." He found them in Teresa and her companions.

As Catherine had done in Dublin, the Sisters viewed education as a crucial strategy for addressing the poverty of the people of the Diocese of Arkansas.

Upon arrival, they wasted no time visiting the sick and educating both adults and children.

According to Mary Jeremy Buckman, “The sisters changed their ministries from teaching to nursing during the American Civil War (fought between 1861 and 1865). The schools were turned into hospitals where the sisters provided nursing care to both Union and Confederate soldiers.”.

Teresa must have shown great courage to lead her small group of friends on the challenging journey to Arkansas, a vast region mostly unpopulated by Europeans or others whose customs and culture Teresa would have been familiar with.

She was asked to do a lot.

Within a few years, she sent Sisters to establish a Mercy presence in both Fort Smith (1853) and Helena (1858).

Although education was the primary focus of the Sisters of Mercy at the beginning, they also carried out a variety of works of mercy, similar to the first Sisters in Dublin and Naas.

The initial group made Sisters available to go to Fort Smith, Arkansas, just two years after their arrival, and five years after that, they sent a group to Helena, Arkansas.

In this way, they established an impressive network of Mercy works in the region. Eventually, these foundations became part of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, as they are known today.

Healy, Kathleen. Frances Warde: American Founder of the Sisters of Mercy. United States of America, 1973.