The General Chapter of 1938 had charged the provincial council of St. Nicholas with the task of creating provinces in the United States and Venezuela. After having received the results of the Province of St. Nicholas, the Prior General received the required permission of the Congregation of Religious and that of his Council to establish the new province. It was the 1st of October of 1948. The province was placed under the patronage of St. Joseph and the solemn proclamation of the decree took place in San Millan on the 12th of October of 1948.

At the birth of the province there were a sufficient number of religious and ministries and a sound economy. At the beginning, there were 24 houses, Venezuela (15), Peru (8) and Spain (1); 99 religious of whom 85 were priests, five professed, all Venezuelans, nine brothers, and more than 25 aspirants in Spain and 25 in Venezuela. The Province of St. Nicholas had, at the time, 187 religious among whom there were a large number of the elderly and others who had recently survived the ravages of war.

The first years of the province were admirable. Under the leadership of great talent and conscious of the fact that the future depended upon their discretion, the religious did not spare their efforts to move ahead. Within a few years, the religious constructed a prosperous community with good houses of formation and good ministries.

The first task of the province was the opening of houses of formation; San Millan alone could not fill the needs for vocations. Initially, they looked for vocations in the three nations in which the province was established, namely, Spain, Venezuela and Peru. Seminaries were maintained in San Millan and Palmira, both reopened in 1947. Aspirants were also admitted in the parish of San Pedro de Lluc. The experiment in Peru only lasted a few months and that of Venezuela was also of little duration.