Cleveland, Ohio became the center for the Sisters of Notre Dame in the United States. Within five years affiliations sprang up in Delphos, Toledo, Fremont, Millersville, Napoleon, Norwalk and Peru, Ohio. When the Kulturkampf abated, Mother Mary Chrysostom Heck returned to Germany on May 9, 1887, to re-establish the congregational Motherhouse in Germany. In a letter of June 22, 1888, Mother Chrysostom announced that Mülhausen was to be the Center of the Congregation, and Cleveland, Ohio, the Provincial Motherhouse. (Today the Center of the Congregation is in Rome.) In 1888 there were 264 professed Sisters in North America, ministering in 42 places in three states.