In response to an invitation from Bishop Jean Odin of Texas, Mother St. Claire Valentine and three companions founded the first American convent in Brownsville on February 26, 1853. These valiant women soon increased in number and were asked to expand northward. Consequently, the house in Victoria was founded by Mother St. Claire Valentine and five companions on December 21, 1866.
From these beginnings, the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament of Victoria, Texas, now serve primarily through ministries of prayer, Christian education, and health care and their related fields in the Texas dioceses of Galveston-Houston, Beaumont, Dallas, San Antonio, and Victoria, and in Lyons, France, and Rome, Italy, and in Kenya, East Africa.