The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth was founded in the 1870’s in Rome by the Blessed Franciszka Siedliska (1842-1902). The founder always wished that the Society would also be able to work in Poland. In 1882 the Nazaretines set up a branch at Warszawska Street in Cracow. Because of Poland’s complex political situation after the partitions the Sisters had to tread very carefully and in the first years kept their activities away from the public eye. The chronicles of the Nazaretine houses in Cracow and Rome, the letters of Blessed Franciszka Siedliska and other sources have been used to reconstruct the forms of apostolate practised by the Sisters in the years 1881-1931. First of all they took up the catechisation of children and religious courses for women. In the late 1880’s they opened a boarding-house on their premises for girls attending Cracow schools. Between 1892 and 1917 the Sisters also worked in St Jadwiga Institute, a hospice founded by a committee of gentlewomen from the circle round Countess Marcelina Czartoryska. It provided assistance for young working women. During the war 1914-1918 the Nazaretines turned one part of their house into a nursing centre for the ill and disabled with three Sisters permanently in charge of maximum about sixty resident patients. The Society had also opened branches in other Polish cities. Until 1931, when its Polish Province was divided into two, 19 houses were set up in places like Częstochowa, Grodno, Lwów, Wadowice, Warszawa. Each of the new communities ran a school or an educational centre.