Odin, Bishop John Mary, Galveston, Texas, to Archbishop Anthony Blanc, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1854 July 8

Father Peter F. Parisot, O.M.I. has just arrived and Odin has learned that Blanc is back in New Orleans. Odin did not write during Blanc's pastoral visits. Odin thanks Blanc for the permission he gave to Parisot and to Father Peter Marie Lacour to make a little collection in Louisiana. Small though the help of these collections might be, they are precious in a country deprived of all resources. The seminary or St. Mary's college is about finished. The plasterers will begin in a few weeks. This building will cost over 15,000 piastres. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate do not want to be satisfied with anything less. Will they help Odin to pay a debt of 6000 piastres which they contracted in their name to finish the work? If they send an intelligent Superior, they will have many students. Next week they are going to begin building a new convent Ursulines . Father Louis C.M. Chambodut 's illness has forced Odin to defer his departure for the Rio Grande valley; he hopes to start out around the 20th. Blanc is to tell Father Rousselon that this morning he received news of the safe arrival of his young missionaries at New York. The telegram came four days before the steamer entered the harbor and Archbishop John Hughes was reading Odin's letter when the young people presented themselves at his house. He put the 4 seminarians at Fordham and the two sisters with the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. Odin will have them come directly from New York to Galveston. Father Anthony Thèves is well and applying himself to the study of English. Last Sunday he gave a little instruction in that language to the girls at the convent. When he returns to Louisiana, Blanc can give him an American mission. :: VI-1-h A.L.S. French 3pp. 12mo.