From the archive record
Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Macedonia, on August 26, 1910. At the age of eighteen, she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months’ training in Dublin she was sent to India, where on May 24, 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun. From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta. In 1948, moved by the plight of the destitute and deprived, she devoted herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. She started an open-air school for slum children and was soon joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of her work. Two years later, in 1950, she f