Joaquina Vedruna

Joaquina Vedruna de Mas - born Joaquima de Vedruna Vidal de Mas and in religious Joaquina of Saint Francis of Assisi - was a Spanish professed religious and the founder of the Carmelite Sisters of Charity. First she married to a nobleman despite her desire to become a nun though she and her husband both desired the religious life; the couple bore nine children but she and her children fled after Napoleon invaded the nation to which her husband remained to fight as a volunteer and later died leaving her widowed but free to pursue her religious inclinations.