The Desorcy family moved to New Bedford about 1917, taking up residence in a Roosevelt Street tenement, in the city’s south end. As an infant Flora barely survived the Spanish Pandemic of 1918. In 1925, the family moved to Acushnet, Massachusetts, to a mill cottage located at 42 Slocum Street. The family set about fixing the house and making it a home. As the eldest child, Flora helped her mother care for her many younger siblings, who remember Flora as a second mother to them.

As a young girl, Flora attended Mass at the newly established parish of St. Francis Xavier Church in Acushnet. Flora also attended the first parish school in the basement of the church. In 1922, St. Francis’s pastor, Fr. Andre Lariviere, requested of the Dominican Sisters, a teaching order, to consider making Acushnet a mission. This was the same year the Dominican Community officially became a congregation in Fall River, with Mother Marie Madeleine Dessaulles as the first Prioress General. Also in 1922, the Captain William Shockley house, located at 221 North Main Street, Acushnet, was purchased and dedicated as the St. Rose Convent of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena. The estate included a whaling era mansion built in 1852, barns and corn fields. The ornate drawing rooms of the house were transformed into the convent chapel. The altar was constructed by Mr. Harbeck. The Gothic design of the house lent itself to its new mission as a convent, Sr. Flora recalled.

During her childhood, Flora visited the sisters on their “farm,” where they produced much of their own food, milk, butter and cheese. One sister even hunted with a shotgun in the nearby woods, providing turkey, pheasant and duck for the dinner tables of the convent, rectory, and many a needy family, Sr. Flora recalled.

Sr. Jean Massias, Sr. Laurent and Sr. Augustine were her teachers. When she was 12, Flora developed pleurisy, which kept her bedridden for months at home. The sisters would visit to check on her progress and bring lessons to her.

When she was in the sixth grade, Flora began to study music with Sr. Herman. Flora soon became a competent pianist and her love of music continued throughout her life. This love inspired her to teach piano to generations of Acushnet children. Sr. Flora also was for many years the director of the children’s choir and was involved in the production of the school’s elaborate Christmas pageants.

For her secondary education, Flora attended Holy Family High School in New Bedford, taking the trolley into the city each morning from Lund’s Corner after the long walk from Acushnet. After she graduated, Flora returned home to again help her family. In 1936, she took a job as a silk inspector at the New Bedford Rayon Plant. But she continued to pray on the vocation of a religious life of service to others, which she so much admired from her childhood years. Her younger sister, Cecile, had already entered the convent and Flora longed to know more.

One day, she worked up the courage to tell her parents of her intentions. Her father protested, she recalled. He said he had already given one of his daughters to the sisters and didn’t want her to go. “Pa, if it’s not my vocation, I’ll know it and I’ll come home. Let me go for one month to find out,” she told him. At the end of the first month, her father called on her and asked, “Are you coming home?” She said, I’m not sure yet; give me another month.” This went on for a few months until she was sure. Her happiness made him accept her decision.

Sister Flora entered the novitiate of the Dominican Sisters of Fall River on September 6, 1939, made her First Profession March 7, 1941, and Final Profession March 7, 1943. Sister Flora earned her BA in education from the College of the Sacred Hearts in Fall River, MA.

The hardest part of convent life for Flora was rising each day at 4:30 a.m. The Mistress of Postulants, Sr. John Augustine, assured her the difficulty would soon disappear if she would offer it up as a sacrifice to the Lord. And it did disappear, Flora said.

Sister Flora taught at St. Anne School in Fall River, MA (1936-44) and at St. Francis Xavier School in Acushnet, MA (1945-49) and (1950-78). She taught at St. Peter's School in Plattsburgh, NY (1949-50). She returned to Massachusetts and was engaged in services to St. Rose Convent and St. Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet, MA (1978-93). She also offered piano lessons in the convent’s music room and directed chorus in the new school’s auditorium.

Retirement from teaching did not stop her active service to the parish, where she continued to serve as a Eucharistic Minister, Sacristan and a bookkeeper for many years.

On Sunday, July 7, 1991, Sr. Flora celebrated her golden jubilee as a Dominican Sister. Holy Mass was celebrated at St. Francis and a large reception in her honor followed at Thad’s Steak House, where family, friends, parishioners and former pupils shared their memories of her many accomplishments.

When the Acushnet convent closed in 1993, Sr. Flora, moved to the nearby Fairhaven Apartments, located in the former Sacred Heart Academy, where she did local volunteer ministry for as long as she was able. Of the residents, she joked, “everyone is very nice to me… perhaps they think I was here when it was Sacred Heart Academy.”

In her later years, Sr. Flora was burdened by acute osteoporosis, the pain from which she offered up as a sacrifice to the Lord. A severe stroke took away her articulate speech and her flawless penmanship. Still she carried on, always interested in the lives of her extended family of relatives and parishioners, keeping them all in her constant prayers.

She often commented that she looked forward to the day of her eternal going-forward. A steadfast teacher, she believed that if she continued to live her life in true prayer and in service, her final day on earth would be her commencement; the start of her celestial graduation, where she hoped that she might be nearer to Jesus. That day came on Sunday, January 25, 2009, on the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul.

Arthur P. Motta, Jr.

(from notes taken in an oral history interview with Sr. Flora in 2005)