Gaudet, Frances Joseph (1861-1934)

African American Leader in Prison Reform

In 1861, Frances Joseph Gaudet was born in Holmesville, Mississippi to a mother of Native American heritage and a father of African American descent. Her father never returned from war, which resulted in her grandparents raising her and her brother. Serving as a local preacher, her grandfather helped build the first church for Negros in Summit, Mississippi. He valued education and made it a mission to provide a school for the local children. When she was eight years old, her grandfather relocated the family to New Orleans, where Joseph Gaudet attended a private school alongside her older brother. After the death of her grandparents, Joseph Gaudet moved in with her mother and stepfather when she was twelve years old. She later experienced hardship as the death of her stepfather resulted in her mother assigning her a greater role in supporting the family, which then included three other siblings. The increased responsibility led to Joseph Gaudet experiencing difficulty in completing the schooling she had begun at Straight University. Though her brother left home, she remained until her marriage. At the age of 17 years old, Gaudet married. But, ten years and three children later, she legally separated from her husband due to his drinking problem. Joseph Gaudet credited her call to the mission field and focus on ministry as bringing healing and allowing her to “forget [her] own troubles.”  The beginnings of this mission work led her to what would ultimately mark her in history.

On a Saturday in March 1984, the trajectory of Joseph Gaudet’s life changed. As she made her way to visit a sick member of her church, she witnessed and then stopped for an old woman distraughtly crying about the fate of her son who had been sentenced to a term in prison. The moment impacted Joseph Gaudet. Subsequent to that encounter, she sensed a call from the Lord to help. She experienced multiple encounters that beckoned her to become involved in helping prisoners. While on her knees praying for the distraught mother, she heard a whisper that said, “You must go to the prison and ask the prisoners to pray that God will help them to resist temptation; and tell them to pledge themselves never to.” In church service the following day, the preacher read from Matthew 25:31 and as Joseph Gaudet listened “[she] became more pressed that [she] must take up this work.” She made a promise to God that she would do His work if He would open up the right doors. He did and she yielded.

After meeting the woman on that fateful Saturday morning and answering God’s call on Sunday, Joseph Gaudet earnestly sought to visit the prison in the following days. When she visited, she met a prisoner and shared her desire to “recommend to him a Friend who was his only hope now.” During her first visit and the ones that followed, Joseph Gaudet prayed, sang hymns, and encouraged prisoners with the truths of scripture. She taught the prisoners about God’s character and gave them invitations to ask God for forgiveness. For eight years Joseph Gaudet did prison ministry, which resulted in “over five hundred souls [being] converted to Christ” and “eleven hundred more pledg[ing] themselves to lead better lives.” She took a variety of steps to help prisoners: hosting prayer meetings, writing letters, bringing messages, and providing clothes. Joseph Gaudet centered her ministry and social justice work on prison reform, thereby earning her place in history as the “first American woman to do mission work among Negro prisoners.” By spending time with prisoners and hearing their stories as well as their family’s stories, Joseph Gaudet developed greater awareness of the plight of juveniles within the community.

Joseph Gaudet’s passion for prison reform overflowed into helping fight issues resulting in juvenile delinquency. She took note of juveniles who left, but then soon after reentered the juvenile court system. In response, Joseph Gaudet vowed, “God being [her] helper, to bring about a better condition of affairs to save these helpless children, by building a home for them, and to have them committed to my care.” At the beginning, she took children into her home until it could no longer adequately hold the children. Not allowing the lack of space to stop her, Joseph Gaudet raised $5,000 to purchase 105 acres of land for the Colored Industrial home and School, which would later be called the Gaudet Normal and Industrial School.

The Gaudet Normal and Industrial School was founded with the hopes of providing the necessary preventative skill set to children. Gaudet believed the answer to crime prevention was the combination of school education, manual training, and a trade. She sought to combat idleness asserting that, “An idle brain is the devil’s workshop” and perceiving the commonality of prisoners not having a trade. The school also acted as a boarding school with dormitories and buildings where working mothers could bring their children. Until 1921, Gaudet oversaw the school as principal. Before leaving, she entrusted the school to the diocese of the Protestant Episcopal church of Louisiana. Though the school closed in the 1950s, it reopened in 1954 as the Gaudet Episcopal Home and catered to African American children between the ages of four to sixteen. In 2006, the school closed, but the Gaudet Scholarship Program, Gaudet Community Grants, and Gaudet Fund endeavor to continue to support the educational advancement of African American students. Similarly, the existing social service agency, Episcopal Community Services (ECS), exists in honor of Frances Joseph Gaudet.

Throughout her life, Joseph Gaudet gained a reputation as a preacher, prison reformer, criminologist, legal assistant and writer whose work centered on prison reform, temperance, and juvenile delinquency. She also earned the distinction as an acknowledged saint in the Episcopal Church. Even after her death in December of 1934, Joseph Gaudet’s legacy has lived on and impacted the lives of many.

By JoDeanne Francis

Bibliography

“Gaudet Scholarships.” The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. Accessed July 12, 2021. https://www.edola.org/gaudet-fund/gaudet-scholarships/.

Gaudet, Frances Joseph. He Leadeth Me. African American Women Writers, 1910-1940. New York: G. K. Hall, 1996.

Haywood, Chanta M. Prophesying Daughters: Black Women Preachers and the Word, 1823-1913. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2016.

London, Charlie. The Gaudet School, January 9, 2016. https://fsjna.org/2016/01/the-gaudet-school/.