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particularly in India.
29 November 1928
Leaves home to join the Loreto Sisters; she travels
to the convent at Rathfarnham near Dublin, Ire-
land.
6 January 1929
Gonxha is sent to India to begin her novitiate in
Darjeeling.
24 May 1931
After two years as a novice, Gonxha takes her first
vows; she takes the name Teresa.
24 May 1937
Sister Teresa takes her final vows in Loreto School,
Darjeeling, India.
1938–1948
Begins teaching geography at St. Mary’s High
School in Calcutta, where she will also serve as
principal of the school.
10 September 1946
Inspiration Day; while riding a train, Sister Teresa
receives her call to help serve the poorest of the
poor.
15 August 1947
India becomes free from British rule; three nations
are formed as a result of Indian independence:
India, Pakistan, and Ceylon.
1948
Sister Teresa requests permission to leave the
Loreto Order to live alone and work with the poor
in Calcutta; her first act is to open a school in the
slum of Motijhil; on April 12, she receives permis-
sion from Pope Pius XII to remain a nun who will
report directly to the archbishop of Calcutta; in
August, she travels to Patna where she works with
the American Medical Missionary Sisters for three
months of intensive medical training; she returns
to Calcutta in December; she will also become a
citizen of India.
1949
Moves in with the Gomes family at 14 Creek Lane
in February; in March, Subashni Das, a young Ben-
gali girl, becomes the first to join Mother Teresa.
7 October 1950
The new congregation of the Missionaries of Char-
ity is approved.
1952
Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity
move to their new motherhouse located at 54A
Lower Circular Road; in August, Mother Teresa
opens Nirmal Hriday, the first home for the dying,
next to the temple at Kalighat.
1953
The first group of Missionaries of Charity take their
first vows; Shishu Bhavan, the first home for aban-
doned and handicapped children, is opened.
1957
Mother Teresa begins working with lepers of Cal-
cutta.
1959
The first houses outside of Calcutta are opened.
1960
Mother Teresa travels outside of India for the first
time since coming there in 1929.
1963
The Missionaries of Charity Brothers is established.
1965
Shantinagar, the Place of Peace for Lepers, is
opened.
1969
The International Association of Co-Workers of
Mother Teresa becomes officially affiliated with the
Missionaries of Charity.
x i v
T I M E L I N E
T I M E L I N E
x v
1979
Mother Teresa is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1983
Suffers heart attack while visiting in Rome.
1985
Receives Medal of Freedom from the United
States, the highest civilian award given.
1987
The Missionaries of Charity establish hospices for
people with AIDS.
1989
Suffers second heart attack; doctors implant pace-
maker.
1991
Prepares to step down as head of Missionaries of
Charity because of poor health; she is re-elected
with one dissenting vote—her own.
1994
Documentary film
Hell’s Angel
is broadcast on the
BBC Channel Four.
1996
Granted honorary American citizenship.
1997
Sister Nirmala elected to succeed Mother Teresa as
leader of Missionaries of Charity; Mother Teresa
dies after having a heart attack at the Motherhouse
in Calcutta.
Chapter 1
SKOPJE
Located in Macedonia, in a region that was formerly part of Albania, the
city of Skopje was a bustling commercial center at the beginning of the
twentieth century. The city, which straddles the Vardar River, rises ap-
proximately 800 feet above sea level. The summers are long and dry, the
winters damp, cold, and foggy. Not large by contemporary standards,
Skopje had a population of 25,000 at the turn of the century.
Founded during the third century
B
.
C
. by the Dardanians, early descen-
dants of modern-day Albanians from Illyna in the western Balkan Penin-
sula and Thracians who lived north of ancient Greece, Skopje, then
known as Skupi, later came under the control of the Romanians. By the
sixth century, the area fell under the domination of a Slavic people
known as the Beregheziti. It was they who gave the city its current name.
By the ninth century, owing in part to the weakness of the Byzantine
Empire, with its capital in Constantinople (now Istanbul in modern
Turkey), Albania came under the dominion of a succession of foreign
powers including the Bulgarians, Norman crusaders from France, the
Angevins of southern Italy, the Venetians, and the Serbs. The Serbian oc-
cupation that began in 1347 was especially hard, prompting huge num-
bers of Albanians to migrate to Greece and the Aegean islands.
A few decades later the Albanians confronted a new threat. The Turks
expanded their empire, known as the Ottoman Empire, to include the
Balkan Peninsula. Invading Albania in 1388, the Ottoman Turks, by the
middle of the fifteenth century, had succeeded in occupying the entire
kingdom. The Turks may have occupied the land, but they had less suc-
cess governing the Albanian people. In 1443, Gjergj Kastrioti, also
known as Skenderbeg, rallied the Albanian princes and drove the Turks
out. For the next 25 years, operating out of a mountain stronghold, Sken-
derbeg frustrated every Turkish attempt to regain Albanian territory. His
brave fight against one of the mightiest powers of the time won esteem
throughout the Western world, as well as securing military and financial
support from the Kingdom of Naples, the papacy, Venice, and Ragusa (a
province in Sicily located on the southwest side). With Skenderbeg’s
death in 1468, however, Albanian resistance gradually eroded, allowing
the Turks to reoccupy the kingdom by 1506, again incorporating it into
the Ottoman Empire. Even after his death, however, Skenderbeg’s legacy
of resistance strengthened Albanian solidarity, kept alive a sense of na-
tional identity, and served as a source of inspiration in the ongoing strug-
gle for national unity and independence.
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