3 10 108 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/ab76f29bc899b3a91b5da0d652b26ec1.jpg caae724956d9a8dd69098604ea1bbc02 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/49f799a682a8b90ecd138eed4331e3a6.jpg c65bfe77d4e14ded10be44b6f1a99522 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/74945eb0952e23d9aa11b003a68b79eb.pdf 7cb13f180e22e3d321c3591f139353cb PDF Text Text Around 1937, Sister Raphael Creagh wrote her memories of Virginia City. I received the Holy Habit for St. Theresa’s day, October 15, 1889. When I went to see Mother Marianna, I was told I would leave the following week with her and Sister Mathilde Comstock. They were going to New Orleans and I was to go with them to within a few hours of St. Louis where they would change cars, but Sister Magdalene Malone had received word to meet me in St. Louis. I was to remain there in the old insane asylum in the downtown district from Thursday until Sunday evening when sister would see me off for St. Mary’s School, Virginia City, Nevada. The following Sunday Sister Magdalene took me to the station where two very fine gentlemen, railroad officials, met her. After much formality and diplomacy, they bid us adieu -- but here is where my troubles began. I was given an interminable number of railroad tickets with all kinds of fine print on the back, which I thought was not necessary for me to read since I had received verbal orders from the two railroad officials. I was told the first change would take place at Denver, Colorado and not to worry until I got there, but it was at Kansas City the next morning that the trials began. On our way out from Kansas City the conductor came around for my ticket accompanied by a brakeman. The conductor must have been an A. P. A. [American Protestant Association] who were in great power in those days. He seemed to ignore me for what I was and said, “Why didn’t you have your ticket exchanged in Kansas City?” I told him that I was not instructed to that effect. “Well, I’ll have to put you off if we do not hear by the time we reach Topeka as to whether or not you can continue,” he said coldly. I said, “Couldn’t I pay until we reach Denver since the officials in St. Louis said the first change would be made there?” Then he said angrily, “We’ll see!” We reached Topeka in time and waited there twenty minutes. When the train started again I felt relieved for I thought then that they had heard I could continue, but much to my surprise when we were three miles out of Topeka, he came to say that I must get off and wait for the next train which would arrive there at midnight. It was then twelve noon! I was forthwith put off the train and found myself in the middle of a Kansas prairieland. Nothing could be seen but the barren earth, the clear sky and the railroad ties on which I was to walk to get back to Topeka. My heart stood still when the brakeman got off with me. He was the same man who had accompanied the conductor. I had visions of being killed by this man on this lonely waste of land and thought how awful it would be -wearing the habit of the Sisters of Charity. The community was in no way to blame for my presumption in traveling alone, for Mother had asked me if I thought I was equal to the trip. Being too smart in those days, I boldly said, “I can travel anywhere while I can talk.” But God took care of me even if I was bold. The brakeman proved to be more of a gentleman than the conductor, for he left the car evidently just to care for me. He began by saying, “Don’t be afraid of me, I’ll go back to Topeka with you. I have a sister who went to school to the Sisters of St. Joseph at Kansas City and my mother and she helped the church and sisters whenever they had a bazaar.” I was so full of fear that I wasn’t even polite and when I got normal again I 1 �thought of his great kindness and have often wondered if any good fortune came his way from my poor prayers that only God knows I said for him. We finally reached Topeka. My heart was in my mouth. The brakeman took my long list of tickets to the ticket window which was in an old room in the shamble that seemed to be used for every kind of purpose. When he told the ticket agent what had happened he glared at me and said, “Couldn’t the d - fool read?” The man in the hotel office treated me more kindly and took me to the reception room on the second floor. I don’t remember seeing the brakeman again to even say “thank you” to him. Another episode happened here. I think all the people in Topeka had been notified that a one-man circus had come to town and to come and see the great curiosity at the hotel. These good people walked around me and seemed to view me from every angle. They brought me some supper about six o’clock, but I was too heart-sick to eat. I doubt whether I thanked them. About eight p.m. I had some real wild west experience. In one of the adjoining rooms, some men began to play cards. I could hear their talking through the transom, and, believe me, I never heard the like language before or since. At eleven fortyfive I heard the train whistle and the nice man in the office came to tell me that the train was coming. When I got downstairs, I said, “How much do I owe you?” He said, “Nothing!” I am sorry this has happened.” Another episode. When I boarded the train, I saw a porter and when he saw me, I know he thought I came from another world. I said to him, “Where is my berth?” He had to get over his fright before he could answer. He pointed to a berth that a man was just getting out of and said, “Get right in thar.” I said very coldly, “After you have changed the linen.” There was no sleep for me that night, but when I got settled for the day, I found the conductor quite different from the one who put me off at Topeka. The next stop really was Denver. This was the first time I had breathed freely for days. We changed there to the Rio Grande Route which went to San Francisco. I just got seated when a lovely young woman about forty came in and said, “Oh, you darling sister, I went to school to your sisters in San Francisco. My two little girls are going there now.” She asked me where I was going and in order to be friendly, I related my experiences. She was more than indignant. After telling me that her father was chief-ofpolice of San Francisco, Captain Douglas, he happened in. They had attended a police convention in Chicago. When he heard what had happened in my regard he said, “Sister, you’ll have no more such experiences if I have to take you to Virginia City myself.” The Captain visited around in the train and after a while came to me with a young man, Mr. Ferguson, who was said to be an assayer in the mines and was just returning with his bride from Boston. I became acquainted with the young bride and discovered that she had gone to school with some girls in Boston who were friends of mine. They had gone to the school of Notre Dame Namur. This, of course, brought up a new interest and the couple assured Captain Douglas that they would take care of me until they landed me at St. Mary’s School, Virginia City. I had to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson in Reno over night until the next day when the train left at noon. We reached Virginia City at three p.m. It seems that I had been promised, or some sister, three months before. As the arrival of the only train that came to the city was always an event, all the senior girls would go down to meet the anticipated sister; 2 �but after three months had passed and no sister came, there were but three girls about seventeen years old at the station the day I arrived. They seemed wild with delight and one of them joyously remarked -- “Oh, welcome Sister Expectation.” I didn’t make them any wiser to my name. The fact is, I didn’t have one. The girls took me from the Fergusons and brought me to St. Mary’s. The sisters were also delighted for they had been expecting me for months. “What is your name,” they asked. I told them Mother said I would get a name when I reached my mission and that if anyone asked me my name while I was on the train, I was to say, “Sister Mary.” It was a worthwhile thought, for if I had had to give my family name, I would be spelling it yet. Having arrived on November second, I nearly got Most Honored Father’s name whose feast is nearest to November second, but the sisters said not to give me Charles Borromeo because the children would be calling me all kinds of names. They looked back in the prayer-book to October twenty-fourth and said that I should be called Raphael in honor of the guide of travelers for he surely got me there. When the sisters heard how I got there, Sister Angelica O’Hallaron considered me a special charge and said, “If you are not all you should be some punishment will come to you for I told Sister Phillipe Berry (an old sister who had gone to Emmitsburg to end her days) to follow the Seminary Sisters every time they went out and tell the Lord to send [us] the one destined for Virginia City. From then on when a reprimand was in order, I was reminded of Sister Phillipe. As I look back on the first few years spent in Virginia City I remember when I went to bed at night the food I had for serious reflections -- often thinking, “This is the way I’ll be when dead!” All the work was done in the bowels of the earth and when the children were dismissed from school everything was as still as death -- absolutely nothing doing above ground. After rising at four and attending to little duties, we climbed the mountain side to go to Mass -- no paved roads as we enjoy in these days! We had to go out to Mass every day in the week with the exception of one or two days when we had Mass in our Chapel. For about six months in the year we ploughed through snow up to our waists. When we reached the church, we would shake our clothes which were perfectly dry owing to the dryness of the climate. It never rained in summer for we lived above the clouds the second highest point in the United States, I believe -- eight thousand feet above sea level. When we returned from Mass which was usually said about seven, we ate breakfast sometimes in the shadows in order to see the sunrise over hundreds of mountain peaks -- the like of which I have never seen elsewhere. The school was one of the finest we had in those days. The children had very bright minds, being the sons and daughters of university and college graduates who came west to seek their fortunes -- real adventurers! While I didn’t reach Virginia City in Hey Dey, the slogan was even in my time, “Go west, young man, go west.” Many had made and many had lost their fortunes. We had three girls at the school whose mother was matron at the poor house, and she told us they had thirty-three multi-millionaires who all boasted of great wealth in their day. ‘Twill be always so where money is concerned. 3 �I was appointed to teach the seventh and eighth grade boys and as I said before, they had such fine minds and were of such sterling character. I have not met the like anywhere else. It was my duty to answer the doorbell after three p.m. when school was out. On one occasion Sister Baptista Lynch (R.I.P.) who was Sister Servant at the time said to me, “There will be a gentleman here today -- a Mr. Mackey who is a great friend of the Community and to whom we are much indebted for what the Sisters of Charity have here in Virginia City.” Anyone who knew Sister Baptista can imagine just how I was instructed. I was told to be most cordial and if he offered to shake hands with me not to refuse. I was to invite him in and say, “I shall get the sisters here right away. I’m sure they will be so glad to see you.” John arrived about three-thirty and while he was polished and cordial, I would never have taken him for a millionaire, although I had never come in contact with one until I met Mr. Mackey. He was well dressed of course, a man of about sixty-five years old -- had gray hair then but it must have been somewhat sandy in his early days. His face was well freckled, but as I said, he was polished for all of that. I ushered him into our little parlor and went to get the sisters. Most of them had never met him before like myself, but as a matter of courtesy inquired about “Madame” Mackey and the Princess… The hospital in Virginia City, which was one of the finest, as well as the school were gifts of all the miners, but especially the successful ones who made their money there. The hospital had an eight or ten acre lot with a fine iron fence all around it. It was a four story brick building. The school was a two-story building with a basement. The sisters lived in a frame cottage on the same grounds as the school. It was said that many of the finest minds were developed out of St. Mary’s School and its financial backing helped many poor when sickness or death overtook the families. Mr. Mackey paid for all the drinking water used in the hospital and school. The water used in operating the mines was obtained from the melting snows of winter and conducted through flumes over the hundreds of mountain peaks to the mines. The drinking water was brought by pipe from Lake Tahoe on the border of California and Nevada and seemed in those days as valuable as diamonds. Indeed ‘twas said that God never intended that man should live there, for it never rained. It was no place for man to live and God threw in the silver in order to give him some reward for ever attempting it. There was absolutely no vegetation except the sage brush. A few Chinese who made an attempt at gardening had to do so by irrigation. If it didn’t snow, and that copiously, there would be no work for the miners when summer came. I can recall when the boys would rush in and say, “Sister, Mr. Coleman asked for the sisters and children to pray for snow.” He was the Editor of the Virginia City Chronicle. On one occasion I remember our prayers were more than answered, for it snowed so much the children could not get near the school for days. Mark Twain was the first editor of the paper, but this Mr. Coleman was not far behind him in intelligence. I recall the last verse of a poem he wrote after being snowed in. It read thus: “The snow on the roof is six feet high, And that in the yard is ten, And now, O Lord, if you’ll only let up, We’ll never say “snow again!” Our dear Sister Gertrude Dooling, who died here at St. Mary’s a few months ago, immigrated with her family in the early fifties from Albany, New York, to seek their fortune 4 �also. She came to the Community when sixteen years of age while Virginia City was making its history. Her family figured in the making of it. Her brother, Maurice Dooling, I read recently, was the greatest Supreme Court Judge San Francisco ever had -- so much so, that his son, Sister’s nephew, was appointed to replace his father when he died. An uncle, her mother’s brother, Rt. Rev. Patrick Manogue figured in the history of Virginia City, too. He arrived there when sixteen years of age, and since, as I have said before, no law or order existed in his day, ‘twas said that whenever he came on the scene, his dignity and personality accounted for so much that all disputes, whatever they may have been, ceased. He dug the earth as the other miners did, but the engineers wanted him with them, so they made him one of them in short order since he had such a good mind. This brought him seven dollars a day. Then the assayers wanted him to join them and they taught him their line of work. This paid him ten dollars a day. He made some investments as well, and one day he surprised all his friends by telling them he was going to study for the priesthood. He spent his money in studying at Paris, Innsbruck, Louvain and finally went to Rome where he was ordained and returned to America for the San Francisco Diocese. He was sent to Virginia City later while many of the miners were still there. Through the genuine love these miners bore him, they erected a church, St. Mary’s of the Mountains, which equaled any of its kind in Europe. After twelve years, the San Francisco Diocese had attained such proportions that it was considered well to make a new diocese to be called the Sacramento Diocese and he was appointed the first Bishop. He was ever after called the “Miner Bishop” and he seemed to glory in that title. He came to see us here at St. Mary’s on one occasion. I found him to be all I had heard of him -- the personification of dignity and a genuine priest. I remember he said, “My sisters are the nearest to heaven in America, and I’m sure will some day merit their reward.” There were others among the multi-millionaires who figured in the history of these days, the Fairs whose two daughters went to school at St. Mary’s and later married and played their part in New York society, the Sutros, Floods, and O’Briens who lived in California. Another rich man was “Sandy Bowers of Washoe Valley” who is said on one occasion, when celebrating some gala feast, to have thrown green-backs from the second floor piazza of the International Hotel into a mob of people in the street below who scrambled fiercely for them. He built a residence for himself and wife in Washoe Valley a few miles from Virginia City and was said to have had so much money that the doorknobs of the house were made of gold. It was related too, that an interior decorator accompanied him and his wife to select the furniture for the new house. I do not know whether any of the gold knobs and fine furniture still remains but I do know that Sandy lost his great fortune; and after God took him to Himself his wife was telling fortunes for a living and was advertised in San Francisco as “The Seer of the Washoe Valley.” By degrees the mines were being worked out. Day and night men were employed in working them. Even on Sunday the work went on and some priest remarked, “There will come a time when they’ll have no work Sunday or Monday.” That time came a few years after I was sent to Santa Barbara. Whole families of six or eight children would take their departure for Montana or Colorado where they were working lead and copper mines. Finally, the hospital and school were closed. I never heard what use was made of them, if any, after the sisters left. 5 �This wouldn’t be a tale of the past unless some of the pupils, those grand characters, intelligent lads, figured in it too. Every Saturday, the school holiday, they’d take their burros and start out “prospecting.” I had to listen to each one in turn Monday morning before the opening of classes and seem intensely interested in the veins in the mountain peaks and their great value which they could determine as well as any assayer. When our school closed in the latter part of June, we had classes every morning during the summer for the public-school children to instruct them for their First Holy Communion. The first morning some boys ran in breathless to tell me that [Cory] was outside. Everybody seemed afraid of him, myself included, and I had to do some fast thinking on disciplining before he came in. Among other things, they told me that he shot at the teacher in the public school the week before but struck the clock over her head and sent the teacher and pupils flying out of the room. I decided to put [Cory] in the front row of seats right in front of my desk in order that he couldn’t see what was going on in back of him. When it came to reciting [Cory], of course, had never studied Catechism, but by the time he finished, which occupied the two months of school vacation, he knew more that when he began. I had him repeat the answers after I had said them first, then he would look around at the boys as much as to say, “Didn’t I do well?” All the time I was teaching that first day, I was trying to think out what to do with him when school was dismissed. A bright thought came to me, and before I dismissed the class, I said, “[Cory], these children are a perfect nuisance the way they stay around and annoy the sisters nearly all day instead of going home. Will you please see they do not loiter around and that the grounds are cleared as soon as they are dismissed?” The venture proved a great success. [Cory] saw to it that there were no loiterers around the school until the instruction school closed for that summer. I told him too that if he would chop some wood for the sisters, we would give him his dinner. We burnt no coal - it was too expensive. From then on, he chopped all the wood. True to his reputation, however, he still had the “wild west” in his make-up. On one occasion when two sisters went to do some shopping and the street was blockaded. [Cory] was attacking a driver of a big mule wagon, but when they saw the two sisters they said, “Cheese it, [Cory], the sisters.” When he heard this, he flew and the poor driver jumped up on his seat and drove away not from fear of the sisters, but with fear and dread of [Cory]…. I have often reverted in memory to those days and know from experience that the boys were the soul of honor. They had no such dissipations as the boys who lived in cities. The school was visited daily by a Priest who possessed every quality of a model priest. He volunteered when ordained in Ireland to come to the “wild west.” I can recall the time when he would come into the room and say, “[Lawrence], what were you doing on your way to school this morning?” Lawrence would answer, “I was ‘rocking’ Jimmie McMurchey’s cabin.” Even in my time, old miners lived in old shambles on the mountain side, for there were no women they could marry in mining days and preferred to remain bachelors till the Lord called them to Himself. “Why were you ‘rocking’ the cabin”, the Priest would say. “I’ll tell you, Father. When he sees us coming, he comes out and curses and swears at us.” Father would turn his back on the class and face my desk and with a suppressed smile would say, “Don’t forget Lawrence, you’ll be old yourself some day.” 6 �And again, [Pat], whose forebears came from the land of saints and scholars, was absent one morning from school, much to my surprise, for he was a regular attendant. When he finally came, he said, “Sister, I was sick this morning”. I took it for granted he was telling the truth, but later he came to tell me that he had told me a lie. Instead of coming to school in the morning he had gone into the tunnel to enjoy a smoke and fell asleep. When he woke up it was too late for school. I commended him highly for telling the truth, but added, “Do your parents know that you smoke?” He said, “No”. “Well,” said I, “God was good to you for you might have been brought home to them mangled to pieces when they supposed you were in school”. The tunnels had but one track used for dumping the earth after the ore was extracted. I’m sure he believed me and never tried it again. I took care of my own classroom but was never permitted to sweep it when any of the boys were around. On one occasion I complained of papers on the floor and appointed a monitor to make a list of the delinquents. One day my own name headed the list. I called the class to order, made a most humble apology and told them I hoped it would never happen again. “Them days have gone forever.” I know there were many sisters who preceded me who, if they were still living, could write more than I ever could of those days spent in Virginia City, Nevada. While I was never down in a mine, I think I knew quite as much as if I had been for I had to listen to everything that interested the boys. May those days ever be a lesson to me in many ways, those days when I lived so near to God and my duty. [Editor’s Note: On page 4, Sister Raphael writes that Mark Twain was the first editor of the Virginia City Chronicle which seems inaccurate; but he was definitely a writer for the Territorial Enterprise. On page 5, she indicates that Father Manogue had been a miner in Viriginia City; he had been miner in California.] 7 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Daughters of Charity, Province of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Creagh, Sister Raphael D.C., "Memories of Virginia City", Memoir Subject The topic of the resource "Creagh, Sister Raphael, D.C. Virginia City, NV Silver mining St. Mary’s School and Orphan Asylum Manogue, Reverend Patrick St. Marie Louise Hospital Silver kings Mackey, John Description An account of the resource In October of 1864, three sisters left San Francisco and journeyed by steamer, train and stage to Virginia City, Nevada Territory where they founded St. Mary’s School & Asylum and later St. Marie Louise Hospital in 1875. After more than three decades, the sisters withdrew from these works in Virginia City and left Nevada only to return in the 1950s to found St. Theresa’s School in Carson City. In her 1937 memoir, Sister Raphael Creagh shares her memories of Virginia City. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Creagh, Sister Raphael, D.C. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Daughters of Charity, Province of the West Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1937 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Gainey, Sister Margaret Ann (Editor) Marca, Nicole (Editor) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource "Copyright 2020 Daughters of Charity Seton Provincialate Los Altos Hills, CA" Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Paper PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DCLosAltos_Memories of Virginia City by Sister Raphael Creagh.pdf Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Virginia City, Nevada 1891-1897 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Education https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/09366338ffce47c4f163096984974ecb.jpg d47ab2a4dd55c1a6eed50a7e90ab8e0b https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/44840e0dd065b28b50b74dba0e57ae7f.jpg 7c72be6058fcef629a10e17e4500120c https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/cc3a6732f8c227e5d0881844fe0eb400.pdf 57cd28526e13e6b18dd84960c376473c PDF Text Text REMEMBRANCE OF MY YOUTH by Sister Angelita Mombrado I was born in the village of Rippoli, the diocese of Bick, Province of Barcelona, Spain on the seventh of August, 1833. I was baptized in St. Maria’s church on the eighth of the same month and confirmed the following week. My parents were born and married in the same village. My father’s name was John Mombrado and my mother’s was Margarita Castain. My father was a confectioner by trade and that was his favorite occupation. He had a special affection for his little family. My parents were good and industrious Christians. God blessed their marriage with a family of three sons and four daughters. I was the first daughter and when scarcely eighteen months old used to give a great deal of trouble by going up and down the stairs and running over to see my grandmother who lived right opposite our place. One day while going down the stairs I fell and was seriously injured. I was very sick for some time. My parents were much grieved for they thought I would die. Every thing was prepared for my burial; and here I am today at the age of eighty-three a long way from my country. I remember my mother used to tell me it cost a great deal of gold to save me and that I was cured by a miracle. I often think how grateful I ought to be to God for having given me such good parents. After my recovery I would not sit any place but on the floor. They used to buy every kind of char and fancy stool for me to sit on, but I would not, for fear I would fall. When I was able to walk again and my mother saw I was growing strong and healthy, she put me in a school with the Nuns. The first lesson they gave me was in knitting stockings; that is the custom in Spain. The Nuns kept school in a private house because the persecutors had burned their convent. They used to iron the Church linens beautifully and I watched them instead of knitting. I was then about four years old. My mother was very pious. It must have been her prayers that obtained my cure. She used to take me to Mass every morning. One day she took me to see the ruins of the Nuns’ convent, so that I would remember it when I grew up. Very soon there was a war of the Carlos party in Spain and I remember a great many people came to our house to place themselves under the protection of our Blessed Mother, as we had an oratory. I was at this time about five years of age. The troops of soldiers came into our house ready to shoot anyone they met. My mother was confined to her bed with an infant three days old. The soldiers threw her out of her sick bed and injured her so badly that she was never well again. My dear father was hidden down in the cellar behind some barrels. The soldiers went down but did not find him. If they had 1 �found him they would have killed him. My mother, with all the invalids was taken to the church. My sisters and I were with our grandmother. After three days one of the good officers of the army approached my mother, asking her if he could do anything for her. My mother said, “Yes you can do something for me, but will you do it?” He said he would. Three times she asked him the same question, for she feared he would not do it. Then he said, “I give you my word.” My mother then said, “My husband has been in the cellar for the past three days and nights, bring him to me.” The officer went and called my father from a window opening on the street. As my father did not answer he called him by name, saying, “Come out I know you are there, your wife sent me for you.” My father came out wrapped in a black cloak and said, “My life for the love of God.” The officer led him to the Church pretending he was an invalid. Then my family left the city and went to a village to live with a family who were our friends. My mother was so ill that she has no nourishment for the infant and when passing over the river on the way to the village she dipped up some water in her hand and gave it to the baby. They were unable to find out what happened to the other four children. My brother was stripped of his beautiful velvet suit and left naked in the street; some of the soldiers wanted to kill him but the others said, “No we have what we want.” My sister and I were with our grandmother. In passing through the streets we saw the dead bodies of the victims lying about in thick streams of blood. My father’s store which was one of the finest was entirely destroyed and he was never able to recover it. When we all got together again we went to Barcelona. Every little while war would break out and we would be obligated to leave the city in order to save our lives. My mother put me in school but it was of no use; the war would break out and the teacher would tell us to run home. So I had very little opportunity to continue school. I was hardly eight years old when my mother died. Already capable of feeling this sacrifice, it seemed to me that our Lord had some special design upon me. When I was about twelve years of age, I made my first Communion in the church of St. Augustine, in Barcelona. It was the day the children of the Parish made their First Communion. I went to confession and the pastor asked me if I had made my First Communion. I said, “ No Father.” He took me into the sacristy and after examining me told me I could make my First Communion. I was delighted and my father was very much pleased and relieved. He would always remind me to go to Confession on my Feast Day and to go to Catechism in the Church. I remember when in Catechism class my name was very often called for a premium but I was too proud to go for it for fear it was not my name as they never spelled it correctly. Oh, my Saviour it makes me tremble when I think of what my parents went through during the persecution in Spain. My father must have suffered much for the sake of his family during the time he was hidden in the cellar. He loved our Blessed Mother very much and it was on the feast of her Immaculate Conception, at the age of sixty-two, 2 �that he died. My brother wrote me that my father’s last words were, that he died happy to leave one of his children consecrated to the service of God. That makes me think that he is in heaven praying for me. He passed through so much; how great is my sympathy for my parents! They were obliged to leave our native village and go to a strange country. As young as I was (five years old) I remember when we arrived in Barcelona we had no shelter for my poor sick mother. I do not recall if we had anything to eat during our journey. At last my father found a lady whom he knew and who had lived in our village. She gave us hospitality until my father found a location. Some time after that, wars broke out in Spain, especially in the city of Barcelona. Once a bomb fell on our house while we were at dinner and we had to run to the stable to save ourselves. Sometimes we were obliged to leave the city and got to some hole in a brick yard. We could see the bombs flying to destroy the city. Oh, my Divine Saviour, what calamities I have witnessed in my unfortunate country, constantly in trouble. Often we had to climb to the mountains for safety. After my mother died my father’s health began to fail. As I was too young to take care of him, he married an excellent lady, who was very good to him. I was put with a lady who kept a private school so I could learn something useful. My father was not able to pay but the lady kept me and I took care of her little boy. She was very good to me. I was with her five years. From her servant girl, who was very good and pious, I learned much about Nuns. I liked to listen to her; it recalled the days when I went to school to them and watched them iron the linens. I thought I would like to be a Nun after hearing so much of them from the servant girl. I used to dress like one in my play. I began to have a great esteem for Religious and it was my delight to hear them sing Mass. I took many a long walk just to pass the convent in the hope of seeing them. My father also liked to hear them sing the Mass; he was a musician and taught me vocal music when I was at home. The servant girl made a deep impression on me. She was instrumental in discovering my vocation, for after that I had no other desire than to be a religious and give myself entirely to God. I knew that in order to become a Nun it was necessary to have a large sum of money. My father could not possibly give it to me; but I trusted in Divine Providence. I began to pray that I might know how to communicate my desire to my father. My opportunity came on the twenty-eighth of August, Feast of St. Augustine. It was Sunday and my father took me for a walk along the seashore. We were conversing about the beauty of the sea. I had a great horror of the sea, and my father knew it but he said, “I want to take you to a beautiful place across the water.” I replied, “Oh, no, no, papa, please.” Then changing the subject, I asked, “ Papa would you like to have one of your daughters a religious?” He looked at me then said, “Yes I would on condition that she would be faithful in corresponding to her obligations.” He was acquainted with the duties of Religious, most of his friends being Priests. His answer made a deep impression on me but I replied that I thought I would be faithful if I were to become a Religious since God would help me. He said no more but we continued our walk. After a while I asked him to take me to a convent that I might speak to a Superioress. He took me and I told the Superioress my intention and the difficulty concerning the money. She 3 �made me sing; I sang the Immaculate Conception hymn, and she was much pleased with my voice and told me to learn to play music then I would be received. A friend of the Nuns was to take care of all my needs. But the Divine Master had other designs. I was trying to learn music but I feared it would take too long, so I thought I had better apply to the Sisters of Charity. The Sister Superioress knew me as I had visited her before with a friend who had joined the Community. I told her my desire and she said she would write to the Provincial House in Madrid. I waited anxiously for the answer. When I thought it had arrived I returned to the Sisters’ house but it happened that the Superioress was paying the nurses and sent word for me to come back the next week. O, my Saviour this was the Will of God. It was my first trial but I was not discouraged. I lived in hopes that Divine Providence would enlighten me. I continued to study. The priest who instructed me was a zealous religious and relative of ours. One day he told me that Bishop Amat had arrived from Rome and was in the city looking for students to take with him to California. In fun I asked, “ Is he looking for girls too.” He said, “Oh, I do not know about that.” What did he do but go and tell the Bishop what I had said. The Bishop told him to send me to him. The next day when I went for my lesson he told me Bishop Amat wished to see me. I said, “Oh, no, I do not go to see Bishops,” but he insisted, urging that he was related to us. I still refused but he continued to insist until I finally yielded. As soon as the Bishop saw me he asked if I would like to go to California with him. Without thinking I said, “ Yes if my father and my confessor will consent.” I did not think he was in earnest. My father was very sick, so I told him I could not ask his consent just then. The Bishop went through the country looking for students and I continued to wait for a reply from Madrid. When he returned he sent for me and asked me again if I would like to go with him. He had two other girls so that encouraged me. My father was better and I began thinking how I should ask his permission, as there was no time to lose. At last I took courage and asked, “ Papa will you permit me to go with Bishop Amat to California.” He said, “No what are you thinking about? Do you think going to California is like going to Gracia (a place to which we often walked) – you must go by sea.” I told him I was no longer afraid of the sea but he still refused. I went to ask my confessor and he said the same, arguing that I could do good in my own country. I pleaded that I was very anxious and that I felt a hand pushing me as if our Lord wanted me to go. Then he said he would give me three days to think it over, but the Bishop was to sail in two days and I told him so. Then he said, “I see that you are determined.” Then he gave me his blessing. I went to see my instructor and told him that my father would not consent. He went to see him and told him not to prevent me for it might cause him sorrow later. My father called me and said, “My child I cannot give you my consent, neither can I prevent you from going. You will have many trials, contradictions and sufferings, then you will blame me for letting you go.” I do not know where I got the strength to answer him, but I told him that whatever sufferings came to me I would take as coming from the Hand of God and never blame him for them. He could say no more but began to weep. He came with me to see Bishop Amat and the good Bishop encouraged him, telling him not to fret 4 �about me, I would be all right. He told me we were to leave after Mass at which he would give us Holy Communion. It was too much for my dear father to see to my passport so I asked my cousin to attend to it. As for myself, I felt very brave. It was the Hand of God that supported me. Very early the next morning, which was Sunday, my stepmother, my sister and my brother accompanied me to the Bishop’s residence. The good Bishop said Mass immediately, after which we had a cup of chocolate and started off. My folks wanted to enter the vessel but I would not let them. My father did not accompany me as he was too much grieved. We left the city of Barcelona on the twenty-third of April, in the year eighteen fifty-five. It was the second Sunday after Easter and the feast of the Translation of Relics of St. Vincent de Paul. It was the year that Spain celebrated the Dogmatic Proclamation of the Immaculate Conception. The celebration in our parish Church took place the day I embarked so I did not have the happiness of assisting but I was able to attend the service in some other churches and they were all very grand. I no longer had any fear of the sea but we had hardly entered the vessel when I began to be seasick. I did not know what was the matter with me as I had never been in a boat before. The Bishop soon perceived that I was sick and asked me if I wanted to go back. I told him my sacrifice was made already and I was going to continue the journey. Then he told me that if I died at sea I would be thrown overboard and be eaten by the fishes. I asked him if it was not the same to be eaten by fishes as by worms. He laughed and told me I was all right. I thought God would take care of me and if I should die I would be a martyr and go to heaven. Oh, how grateful I should be to God for having given me courage, for what would have become of me if I had not listened to His voice. When we arrived in Marseilles the Bishop went to arrange for the celebration of Mass. He took us to the English Consul who asked us if we were being forced to go; we told we were going voluntarily. In the evening we left for Lyons. From Lyons we went to Havre, where the good Bishop took us to the Sisters’ house. They were just taking the children to the Parish Church for May devotions, so we went with them. When we returned the Sisters gave us our supper and then we went to bed and had a good rest. The next morning the Bishop said Mass in the Chapel. We spent the day with the Sisters. They very kindly showed us the building. In one class room I saw about three hundred little children, one of them just three years old, and only one Sister teaching them. Little did I think I would be doing the same after some years. Later in the day we started for Paris. We spent the night on the train. I dreamed I saw a very pretty Sister of Charity. I had never seen the Sisters with the Cornette except in pictures; for in Spain at that time they did not wear the Cornette. I have heard they do now. We arrived in Paris at half past five. We were in a hack and as we drove through the street we saw a Sister of Charity. The Bishop told me she was going to see the Superiors. The Bishop took us to La Maison de la Providence and the pretty Sister I had 5 �seen in my dreams opened the door for us. I did not see her again although we stayed sometime in that house. Our Bishop went to St. Lazarre to see O.M.H. F. Etienne to ask him where it would be best for us to make our Seminary. O.M.H. F. told him in the U.S. as we could learn the English language. We remained in Paris to begin our postulatum until our Bishop was ready to sail. One day when the Bishop came to see us a Sister was in the parlor counting vestments. The Bishop remarked how busily she was working for the Missioners and told me to pay attention for I might have to do the same some day and so I did. During our stay in Paris I began to understand the French sermons and I was wishing that we might remain there. But the good Bishop had brought me from Spain to go to California so I had to keep my word and follow the designs of God. On the sixteenth day of May we started for the United States in company with the Bishop, Father Surrentin [Sorrentini], and the students. The previous day the Sisters had Forty Hours Devotion, and I asked to be allowed to stay up all night but they wouldn’t let me since I had to travel the next day. We had a frightful storm. The ship was nearly upset. I was very sick but not discouraged. I thought of nothing but the Holy Will of God. It was May and I am sure Our Blessed Mother protected us and enabled me to survive the long journey. Oh! how grateful I should be to God for what would have become of me if I had not listened to his voice. The good Bishop thought I was going to die. I passed ten days without eating or drinking anything. One day a student came to see me and told me they had had beans for dinner. I said, “Oh, you had beans for dinner; bring me some.” They brought me the beans and from that time I began to eat and to regain my strength. We arrived in New York on the Wednesday of Ember Week. The good Bishop took us to the Spanish Hotel and told us to eat our breakfast. The young Students made fun of me because I ate such a good breakfast. I told them not to bother me as I had been fasting long enough. After breakfast the Bishop sent the Students to the Seminary in Germantown. We girls remained in New York all day with the Bishop. In the evening I was sitting by the window and I saw a church all illuminated. I thought I would like to go to the church for a little while. I asked Father Surrentin [Sorrentini] and he went laughing to the Bishop to inquire of him what kind of postulants he had brought – they wanted to go to the Protestant Church. 6 �We next went to Philadelphia. Bishop Amat took us to Sister Gonzaga. She received us very kindly. Sister had known the Bishop as he had been many years in Philadelphia before he was consecrated. He left us with the Sisters and went to stay with his friend, Mr. Lopez, a Spanish gentleman who had married an American lady. The Lopez family wished us to take dinner with them, so on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity the Bishop asked Sister Gonzaga to send us to St. John’s Church for Mass and afterward they took us to their home. It was the feast of the Most Holy Trinity and we had a grand dinner with our Bishop, Father Surrentin [Sorrentini], the Pastor, and the Lopez family…. As soon as we were ready Bishop Amat came for us and we started for Baltimore. Sister Euphemia received us kindly and gave us dinner in the parlor with our good Bishop. In the evening Sister sent us to Mount Hope Retreat to spend the night. On the morning of the third of June we left for Emmitsburg. Very Rev. Francis Burlando, our beloved Father, and Mother Regina received our good Bishop and us very kindly. On the fifth of June we entered the Seminary. Sister Valentine, Directress, was extremely kind to us notwithstanding our inability to speak English. During my Seminary I was often sick due to the change of climate, but I was never discouraged; I felt happy to be in the Community. Before our Bishop left he gave us an instruction on perseverance. I am the only one of the three who persevered. I thank my dear Lord and I hope it will be so to the end. I kept the words of our dear Bishop and I remembered that he told us that when he was a novice he had a temptation to leave and he went to the Superior to tell him. When he knocked at the door the Superior did not hear him so the Bishop went away and the temptation left him. He never thought of leaving again. The Bishop was Spanish and a true son of St. Vincent. He had to leave Spain on account of the Revolution. We received the Holy Habit on October thirteenth, in honor of St. Therese. Sister Directress said I told her I had a sister named Therese. We remained only a short time in the Mother House as the Bishop was anxious to start for his diocese. We started early on the morning of the eighteenth of October. There were five of us – three Spanish sisters and two of the three American sisters whom the Superiors had generously given for the California Mission. They were Sister Scholastica and Sister Ann. Sister Corsina was already in San Francisco. The whole Community was at Mass. The Sisters sang “Soldiers of Christ Arise.” After Mass our lamented Father Burlando gave us his blessing and to each Sister, an umbrella. We had to go to New York in order to take the Steamer for California. When we arrived in New York Bishop Amat met us and took us to the hotel where we met thirteen 7 �nuns who were to travel with us as far a Panama. They were going to establish a school in Chile. Three Jesuit Fathers were also coming with us to California. We encountered a very bad storm at sea. The steamer was packed and all of the people were sea sick, even the sailors. I threw myself in a corner and lay down – Cornette and all. When I was able to rise a man offered me some brandy and I refused it. On our arrival in Panama the Nuns found they had missed the steamer for Chile. It distressed them very much to have to remain in Panama for the next steamer as they feared the Yellow Fever. We were fortunate enough to have to wait only a few hours. On the Pacific we had a dreadful time. They put us on deck with a crowd of people. It was so hot we could scarcely breathe. Dear Sister Scholastica went to the Bishop and asked for another place for she feared we would get sick. The good Bishop obtained from the captain a nice place. He also lent his own room for Mass. We had Mass and Holy Communion on Sunday. We made our Confessions sitting beside the Bishop in the midst of the crowd. The stewardess, who was a Catholic, was very kind to us and told us to ask for whatever we needed. Every afternoon she brought us a pie. We arrived in San Francisco at five o’clock in the morning on November fifteenth. Father Gallagher came to meet the Jesuit Fathers and kindly took us to the Sisters. They were just going to Mass so we went with them. Father Gallagher took the Bishop to see the Archbishop Alamany. Sister Francis McEnnis received us and when we came from Mass we had our breakfast. You can imagine what a sight we were after being one month at sea without changing our clothes. We did not wear the Cornette during our journey but only the bonnet and hoods. When the children saw us they did not think we were Sisters of Charity until we came down clean and dressed up. Bishop Amat brought the Archbishop to see us. Our Bishop brought the Pallium to Archbishop Alamany. Bishop Amat was consecrated in Rome on the eleventh of March, 1854. Our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX, had given him the body of St. Viviana for his diocese on condition that he would build the Cathedral in her honor. A number of Bishops had asked for this body but it was in the designs of Divine Providence that Bishop Amat should have it for he had not even asked for it. He brought it with him from Rome to Paris, where he had it fixed with wax. This Saint came all the way to California with us. Her body was first taken to Santa Barbara where the people received it with great pomp. It remained there for some time and when the church in Santa Barbara was burned, the body was removed to Los Angeles and placed in the old Church. The Cathedral was consecrated on the second Sunday after Easter, April thirtieth, by Archbishop Alamany, who came from San Francisco for that purpose. Bishop Amat being then too feeble. In the afternoon of the same day the Translation of the Saint’s body took place. There were enough people to form a procession from the old Church to the Cathedral. 8 �The building of the Cathedral cost Bishop Amat and Bishop Mora many anxious moments for it was not an easy undertaking to raise money in Los Angeles in those days. Mr. Mesmer offered himself and generously went from house to house begging for money. He succeeded and the Cathedral was finished and the debts paid. Now I must continue about our journey. The Bishop left us in San Francisco and went through the Diocese to find the best location for us. He saw that Monterey was not much of a place so he went to Los Angeles and decided that was the place for us and for him. He then wrote Sister Scholastica telling her he had found a place for us in Los Angeles. The steamer which could take us near Los Angeles sailed only once a month. It was ready to sail on the second of January. We were so anxious to begin our work that we left San Francisco without waiting to be told. The steamer brought us to San Pedro but as there were not public conveyances of any kind at the time we did not know how we were going to get to Los Angeles. Fortunately a lady who had traveled with us was met by a man with a wagon. She offered to take us with her and we were very glad to accept. The ride was splendid but as we neared the Los Angeles River the wagon stuck in the mud. There was nobody to pull us out. There were eight of us in the wagon, six Sisters, the lady, and the driver. We were there a long time, when some travelers came to our aid and we at last arrived in Los Angeles on the fifth of January, 1856. Our Bishop did not expect us until the next steamer, that is not for another month; so there was nobody to meet us. We did not know where to go. There were no streets, no people were around and only a few houses could be seen here and there…. The house was quite small. The people from whom we bought the place had brought it from London. They left a little furniture, but one afternoon, they came for it and we were left without anything. Sister Scholastica told Mr. Moran, our neighbor, that we had no beds. He said there was nothing he could do but go out to the carpenters and fill some sacks with shavings. Sister said that would do. We slept on those sacks for some time. I used to complain that they were awfully hard but Sister would motion with her finger to say nothing. Later a good lady gave us some wool to make mattresses. It took us some time to clean the wool. The carpenter made six beds and then we were grand. The children brought their beds and put them on the floor. We had to walk on them to go up to ours. In the morning they rolled them up and put them in the summer house as we needed the room for school. Some of the ladies used to come to the school with their children. Their servants would bring their lunch and they had their table in the yard. The room where the children slept was used as oratory, classroom, sewing room and parlor. Only God knows what we went through but nevertheless we were happy. In all kinds of weather we had to cross the [Zanja Madre] in a small boat to go to Mass. We were in great danger of falling in and had to hold each other’s hand to balance ourselves. 9 �The first Mass we heard in the old church was chanted by the Indian boys, who were taught by a Brother of the Sacred Heart. The old parish priest resigned and Father Blasé Bao [Blas Raho] took his place. The church was in ruins. Father Bao [Raho] repaired it and did a great deal of good for the people. He was made Vicar-General of the diocese. Father was very good to us and to our works. He thought we should build as the children were beginning to come and the house was too small. While the new house was being built we had to rent one in which to keep school. The corner stone of the new building was laid on the twenty-ninth of June, Feast of the Saints Peter and Paul. Father Bao [Raho] gave the children and us a little feast. He was very devoted and whenever he was given anything he would send it to us. One day Father came to the house and said he had a very sick man for us to take care of. Sister Ann said, “Father where can we put a sick man? We have hardly room for ourselves.” He said we must find a corner as the man had to be cared for or he would die. Sister Ann said there was a place near the gate where the gardener kept his tools and we could take them out and put the man in. Father brought he man and he got well. That was the beginning of the hospital in Los Angeles. Father Bao [Raho] wrote to St. Joseph’s for some Sisters for Santa Barbara and some for us. Father bought three pieces of white [linen] to make dresses for the children so that they would look nice on Easter. It kept us busy but they were all dressed up on Easter Sunday and the people admired them very much. He also gave us a picnic. He wanted to surprise us and said we were going to a funeral. We went to San Francisco in a stage expecting a real funeral. What did he bring but a stuffed sheep for us to eat! Father Burlando sent two Sisters for Santa Barbara. We were expecting two also but three came, one to take my place. I was sent to Santa Barbara to make a third there. The Sisters for Los Angeles got there on the second anniversary of our arrival so they found something done. We were just moving into the new house but I did not get a chance to sleep in it as they sent me immediately to Santa Barbara. I arrived there on the eighth of January 1858. The other sisters were Sister Mollain [Mullane], who was Sister Servant, and Sister Andrea. We began the Mission. The house had been lent to us for five years. We had the wealthiest children in the town in our school. Sister Andrea was teacher. The Sister Servant and I had to keep house but she was sick all the time. I had to do the cooking. I never liked kitchen work but Sister Servant said I should stay in the kitchen until I did like it. I tried my best and on days when Sister Servant was in bed I had to bring her a little of everything that I cooked so she could see if it was well prepared…. I had to wait on the children and take my meals with them. Sister Andrea was very generous. She attended to the supper and made the bread three times a week before going to class. At recess time she would put it in the oven. On Saturdays I took 10 �care of the children and Sister Andrea kept house and washed the clothes. I also kept the sewing class. With a bucket and rope we had to draw from the well all the water we used. The kitchen had to be moved outside on account of the smoke. I was nearly blinded by it. Some days the Sister Servant would have to go to her room and ask our Blessed Mother to make the fire burn and to keep the smoke down so that I could get dinner ready on time. One day I was not able to hold up my head I felt so ill. There was no one to get the dinner as the Sister Servant was sick in bed. The dinner hour came and everything was cooked. It was cooked by Divine Providence; I really did not do it and there was nobody else there. The same day after supper the Sister Servant told me to take the children for a walk. I had to tell her that I could not walk. Then she told me to finish the rest of the ironing. I felt so sick I thought I would drop dead. I often think now that I should have done as I was told, even if I had died taking the children out. I slept in the large girls dormitory. We went to bed at the usual time but I did not get up at four o’clock. Sister came and made me get up. I heard the girls say it was cruel for they knew I was sick. That Sister Servant was only one year in Santa Barbara. She was in the last stages of consumption. She worked as hard as any of us. She would clean the store room which was a very dusty place, and the rats and squirrels made plenty of dirt. The place was very old and damp. I wrote a letter one day and when I went to get it the next day it was all wet. It was even very hard to keep a fire burning for the sick Sister Servant. We had to cross the wet, muddy yard to get what we needed for cooking. Once there was a great flood and our whole place was filled with water. Fortunately, there was, at the time, a regiment of soldiers in town and the doctor asked the colonel to send some of them to open a place in the wall so the water could escape. They had no sooner done so than the water flowed out and we were saved. After that, the soldiers came to our well for the water as they couldn’t get it any place else for the other wells were dry. Then ours used to get dry after the wash was finished since the soldiers drew so much. Sister Andrea and I worked together and were happy in the midst of trials and inconveniences. I had a great trial and thought of leaving the Community. I was far away from home and would have had no place to go. I recommended myself to the prayers of the children without telling them my intention. Our Lord heard their prayers and the next morning, I had no thought of leaving and have not had any since. How grateful I ought to be to God for giving me courage to persevere in my dear vocation after many trials and difficulties. Our Sister Servant had gone to Los Angeles. She thought she would get well there but she died in a short time. It was more than a month before we learned of it as the mail came by the steamer which made only one voyage a month. 11 �We were only three young sisters, not one of us had made the Holy Vows yet; so dear Sister Frances McEnnis sent us an older Sister – Sister Polycarp O’Driscoll. She was made Sister Servant and we liked her very much. She made many improvements in the house and school. My health began to fail due to the dampness and over-work. Sister Polycarp took me out of the kitchen and put me in the school. I knew I was not capable of teaching but I fulfilled my duties in obedience and was very devoted to it so our dear Lord helped me. I had a good voice so I used to sing with the children in church until we got a teacher. When everything was going nicely our Lord sent us a cross. That year was so dry that the people lost everything; even the cattle died. They were not able to pay the tuition and we began to feel real poverty. The house had ben lent to us for only five years and we thought that at the end of that time we would be able to build, but we were not. It happened that on the very day that the loan expired, Mr. Aguire, the owner, wanted the house, so we had to leave it. Fortunately Dr. Den gave us a Ranch in Cinegites [Cieneguitas], so we went there and took the orphans with us. The house was very small but we made it larger by boarding it all around. We made an inner room for the children, a clothes room, a wash room and a little parlor. There was also a small kitchen and a very tiny attic out of which we made a dormitory. I slept up there and the roof was so low that I had to stoop in order to get in bed. Once in bed I could not turn over without bumping my head. There were holes in the wall and I was often visited by rats. In the morning I sometimes found them drowned in my wash basin. Oh! it was terrible. The foxes howled all night trying to get the chickens. I couldn’t sleep for fear that they would climb up, as we had made steps leading up to the attic and had turned one of the windows into a door. It had to be kept closed all night on account of the tramps so that left only one window for air. We had Mass only on Sundays and not then if it rained. The church was a small one that the Indians had attended. It was a long distance from our house and it was usually one o’clock before we got home and had our breakfast. If it happened to rain, we got home all wet and muddy. Sometimes our clothing was so drenched that we had the whole house wet. The house was on a hill and in order to get water we had to go down to the creek with buckets and carry it up. We did this every day after dinner and supper. There was no way of washing the clothes so Sister took some of the larger girls and went to a distant creek to wash them. They would bring them home in the evening all dry and ready to iron. We were given two hundred sheep. Sister gave me two little lambs to care for. To feed them I would dip my fingers in a basin of milk and they would suck the milk. They began to be troublesome as they grew so Sister gave them to a little boy who was always around our house. His mother had the lambs killed but the boy would not eat any 12 �dinner. He went to his aunt and then to his grandmother and found they also had some of the lamb. So he ate no dinner that day . I was not very well. My Sister Servant wanted to send me to San Francisco. I said, “Oh, no Sister do not send me away, let me die here.” Sister said, “I do not want you to die, I want you to get well but here we are so crowded. Let us see what Sister Scholastica will say.” Sister Scholastica told Sister to send me to her. I was delighted to go to Los Angeles, to my dear first mission. I arrived there in Holy Week so I had the good fortune of assisting at the ceremonies of that week. I gained a little strength and after one month I was sent to San Francisco with a band of five young sisters who had just received the Holy Habit. We had the Seminary in Los Angeles at that time. Sister Scholastica was Directress and Father Smith [Asmuth], Director. He did not live long. Father McGill succeeded him. Father Smith [Asmuth] was in San Francisco when I got there with the young Sisters. He sent them to different missions. Sister Frances McEnnis kept me with her. I was not well so she sent me to Mount St. Joseph’s. I got a little stronger there and was just beginning to feel at home when I was sent to St. John the Baptist's. They needed someone who could speak Spanish. I was there eighteen months. Then they sent me back to Santa Barbara. We only had one Mass a week there and I found that very hard. At one time we did not have Mass for several weeks, from the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to the last of January. No priest could get to us on account of the floods and heavy rain. The little adobe church that we attended was a long distance from our house. Sometimes we were caught in the rain. When we got home I would have to put the children to bed for fear they would catch cold. Sometimes it was two o’clock before we could get our breakfast. I used to say, “Oh, dear Lord surely my sins must be forgiven.” I was an angel for the children. They gave me a great deal of trouble because the Sister who had had charge of them let them have their own way. The Pastor and his assistant took turns to say Mass. When it was the Pastor’s turn, he would hear our confession and the children’s before Mass. The large girls received Holy Communion once a month and the little ones went to confession every three months. We would send the horse to the priest’s house on Saturday afternoon, by anyone that we could get to take it. When the priest got back home, he would take off the saddle and say, “Now George go home.” When we wanted to go to the town we had to go in the stage. It was very convenient as it passed near our place morning and evening and we did not have to pay any fare. 13 �Our big feast days we took the children to the Mission in our big wagon but not all could go. It was the greatest penance I could give them to keep some of them home for being bad. They would try very hard to be good for the next time. I remember once I punished one of them and kept her home on Ash Wednesday. While we were at church, she went to the kitchen and blackened her face with ashes from the stove. When we came home she said, “See I had ashes too.” After leading this kind of life for three years I told the Sister Servant I thought we should be in the city among the people and not out among the cattle. I suggested that we beg for money to build. We went to the city to beg and got enough money to build a small house. When it was finished, we left the ranch in Cinegites [Cieneguitas]; I never saw it again and I am not sorry. We kept school but found it hard to keep things going. Sometimes we had very little to eat. One day when I had the children out walking, we passed a garden, one of them said, “This is my uncle’s garden, let us go in and he will give us some vegetables.” We went in and he was glad to see us and gave us plenty of vegetables. After that he sent vegetables to us daily; God bless him. We then got along very nicely. We went to the parish church every day for Mass. On Sundays and holidays we had Vespers. Some days we had a second Mass. On those days we took turns to stay at home. We had charge of the choir. I used to sing with the children. My singing days are over now, and it is about time at the age of eighty-four. After a long time, I was sent back to Los Angeles. When I had been forty-seven years in California I was sent here to El Paso. It broke my heart to leave the children in California. I love children especially the orphans. I had left my country to come to California and I nearly died of grief when I was missioned. Besides my dear old Sister Servant had been in bed sick for three years. When I went in to say goodbye to her, I said, “Dear Sister Scholastica we came together to Los Angeles and I thought we would die together but now we are to part.” I felt very bad but I tried hard to keep back the tears. I paid for it later, for when I arrived in El Paso I became very ill. I turned as yellow as gold; the doctor told me I was in danger of being robbed. When I got well, I went on duty in the Chapel. I have had that duty for the past forty years, fourteen of which I have spent here in El Paso. I do not know how long I will remain here. My wish is to spend the rest of my days in Santa Barbara, because there is not one of the Sisters of the first band that went there, buried there, and I am the only one of them living. Yet I am satisfied to do the Holy Will of God and of my Superiors. Now I must say more about Los Angeles. The first house was built on Alamany [Alameda] Street. The corner stone was laid by Very Rev. Blasé Bao [Blas Raho] on the twenty-ninth of June, feast of SS. Peter and Paul. It was not a very large house and was situated in a public place, for which reasons we sold it after some years and bought a place on Boyle Heights. The digging of the foundation was begun on the tenth of February, 1888. Bishop Mora laid the corner stone. On September fourteenth, 1889, we 14 �moved in and our moving was great trouble. I had thought I would cry my eyes out when it came time to leave the old house, but I had no time for that. I was kept busy arranging things for the Chapel. I put them all into a trunk but could get no one to take it to the new house. Mrs. Workman was going to take Sister Scholastica to the new house in her buggy. I wanted to go with them but it was getting late and I had to see the trunk off. At last I got a wagon from a nearby store and was so happy at my success that I rode home in it. Then the driver took the trunk to the new house and I went in Mrs. Workman’s buggy. It was very late when I arrived. The altar had been brought from the old house and we were to have Mass the next morning, so I had to arrange for it. The Sisters said their night prayers and after they finished they put the candle out and I was left in the dark. I did not know where to go. I had no supper after working hard all day. Fortunately Sister Lucy Coleman took me by the arm and led me to a bed in the infirmary. There were no covers on it but I lay down without taking off my clothes and slept soundly all night. After Mass and breakfast, I straightened the Altar and as there was little water in the new house I had to go to the old house for some days to wash the Chapel linens. The first Sunday we spent in the new house, I intended after Mass and Benediction and my morning prayers to go to bed and rest. I was worn out after the long walks. But I was told to go to Mass in the city. I felt as if I would drop on the way but I went, through obedience, and nothing happened to me. We were many years in California before our Superior came to see us. In 1875 Mother Euphemia came to visit us. Some of the Sisters who had been exiled from Mexico were with us at the time and I thought I would be missioned. Mother Euphemia told me that she had not thought of it but that I had put the thought in her mind. I asked her if she remembered the nice dinner she had given us with Bishop Amat. Sister said she well remembered the trouble they had to get it. Bishop Amat told us that he was going to give us three Vincentians. They arrived in San Francisco on the ninth of March, 1864 and came to Los Angeles the eighth of May to open a college. We were delighted to see them. Their names were Father A. Smith [Asmuth], Father Rubi and Father Becker [Beakey]. They lived in an old house opposite the old Church. Later Mrs. Chaills [Childs] gave them a place and they built a house and began the college. We had to send them their meals for some time, that is, until they were settled. Father A. Smith [Asmuth] died and Father McGill came to take his place. A little later our Superior General, Father Etienne died and Father McGill was sent to Assembly and did not return. Then Father Richardson took charge of the college which was then on Sixth Street. Father Richardson and Father Landry built a very pretty place. Some time after Father Meyer was sent to replace Father Richardson. He was obliged to sell the old 15 �place and bought a new one on Grand Avenue. Father built a college and a church to which he gave the name of St. Vincent de Paul. At that time the place was considered to be very far away, now it is in the best part of the city. Before the reservoir was built the people use to carry the water in buckets from the [zanja]. They washed their clothes, bathed and emptied refuses in the same place. I remember when the first train passed near our house; the children were all excited and I had to open the window to let them see it. President Lincoln passed on the train and he asked the conductor who lived in our place. When he was told that the Sisters of Charity lived there he said, “Oh, they have a nice place.” That was the old place on Alamany [Alameda] Street. Oh, those happy days in California. The long walks on dusty roads that charity and duty required us to make were a great pleasure to me. I remember the first act of charity that we performed in Los Angeles. A poor Indian who had worked for our neighbor, Mr. Moran, died. Mr. Moran begged us to come to his funeral. The coffin was put on a wagon and we walked behind it. It was a very long walk over a dusty road but that was the only way to bury the dead in those days. The Indian boys, who were taught by a Brother of the Sacred Heart, used to sing the Mass. We had charge of the school and later of the choir also. Sister Corsina was a good singer, so she taught the children to sing the Mass. Sometime after Theresa Fox, a young girl from San Francisco came to be our music teacher. She was the first young girl to leave from California for St. Joseph’s to join the Community. I do not know if she is living now or not. In the afternoon, after school, Sister Scholastica would send us into our garden to pick strawberries. We grew enough of a variety of fruits to be able to sell some, and thus obtained money to buy flour and other necessary things. We also had a large vineyard. 16 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Daughters of Charity, Province of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mombrado, Sister Angelita D.C. "Rememberance of My Youth", Memoir Subject The topic of the resource Mombrado, Sister Angelita, D.C., California, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Hospital, Orphanage, City of Angels, Amat, Bishop Thaddeus, C.M., Spanish Revolution, Catholic Diocese of Monterey, Los Angeles Orphan Asylum, Institucion Caritativa, Memoir, St. Vincent's Medical Center, St. Vincent's Institution Description An account of the resource In the fall of 1855, six sisters left Emmitsburg (three of whom had been recruited in Spain by Bishop Amat) and journeyed to California, one destined for San Francisco and five for the Diocese of Monterey. The sisters journeyed by steamer to Panama and crossed the Isthmus eventually arriving in San Pedro on January 6, 1856. Five of the sisters traveled on to Los Angeles where they founded an orphanage, school and infirmary. In her memoir Remembrance of My Youth, Sister Angelita Mombrado looks back on her years in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mombrado, Sister Angelita, D.C. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Daughters of Charity, Province of the West Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1917 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Gainey, Sister Margaret Ann (Editor) Marca, Nicole (Editor) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright 2020 Daughters of Charity Seton Provincialate Los Altos Hills, CA 94002 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Paper PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DCLosAltos_Remberence of My Youth by Sister Angelita Mombrado.pdf Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Spain Los Angeles Santa Barbara 1833-1917 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Education Healthcare Social Service https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/f3b5feb194f2f78146fc374d5318cb8e.jpg c24f906c5358365988a04b8cfad59a07 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/1c02a297cfb98d3431125075a9bdfff7.mp3 278b27ba24d9e9d11b5f575bd2b032a0 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/85eda9283204976c29e3a91d0a80b2f5.pdf 1b7234a25d10498afaf9791b0a6100f6 PDF Text Text 1 ORAL HISTORY OF SISTER NANETTE GENTILE, D.C. INTERVIEWED BY SISTER HELEN BREWER, D.C. RECORDED JULY 2019 I am Sister Nanette Gentile. I was born September 10, 1933 to Sarah and Peter Gentile. I am the oldest of three girls, Kathleen who is now Mrs. Ed Sheridan and Patricia who is now Mrs. David Hurst. A threeyear-old boy was born after me and he died of meningitis so that was a sad time in our family. So, tell us a little bit about your childhood. You have no living brothers; you grew up with sisters. I grew up in a very happy household. My mother and dad were always there for us as were my grandparents. We lived with my grandparents and we did things together and had fun together and I remember even taking a long trip to New York for the World’s Fair. I was in an organdy dress – that was not comfortable, but I remember it. [laughter] You remember the dress and then you ended up wearing the big hat! Do you have other childhood memories that you can think of? My mother had a very large family. She had three sisters and four brothers and I grew up with them. At every holiday we celebrated together. At Christmas time we played poker until the wee hours of the morning on New Year’s Eve. We danced together. I learned to dance at every Italian wedding there was. I felt like I had a very happy childhood, very grateful for it. Imagine the Italian weddings. Were there other Italian customs and things that you grew up with that were particularly important? Well, I remember at Christmas time, at the end of Advent – because we always fasted – we had certain rituals. Before midnight Mass, we would have little panini with little fishes in them, and then after Midnight Mass, we had meat in them. There was always something special that my grandmothers made. My grandniece got married a year ago and at her wedding, I said, “Where’s the pecans, the covered pecans that the Italians always had?” She didn’t have those. So we had all those little rituals. It was good. Some are being carried on in the next generation, some, not all. What about your vocation story? How did you meet the Daughters and were you young…?” Well, I went to a public school for my first six years of education. Then I transferred to St. Philip Neri School [in St. Louis] for seventh and eighth grades, and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet taught at that school. I enjoyed school, and I enjoyed my family. We’d go to Mass at St. Philip Neri on Sunday, and the Daughters of Charity taught at a high school near us, Labouré High School. They would come to their second Mass at St. Philip Neri ,and I would see them in the cornette and say, “I would never be caught dead wearing that!” I went to Labouré High School, I joined the Legion of Mary, and I did my service projects going with the Sisters to visit the chronic hospital in St. Louis, and I learned that there were very poor people. So I wanted to give my life to helping people. I became a postulant in 1951 and I was at St. Philomena’s in St. Louis. In December – in those days we had a very short postulancy – I transferred and became a Seminary Sister at Marillac Provincial House. �2 Did you come to the Daughters right after high school? I came to the Daughters in August, right after high school. So you went to the Seminary… And spent a year as a novice. And then at the end of that, I was asked to study to prepare for getting a college degree. So they sent me to my very first mission, St. Patrick School in LaSalle, Illinois and I taught the fourth and fifth grade. And you didn’t receive your degree yet? You went right out to teach. Is that correct? Right. I was in the process of getting the degree but didn’t have it yet. And in fact, after two years they sent me to St. Vincent School in Perryville, Missouri, so I could ride on Saturdays to St. Louis so that I could take courses at Marillac College. Quite a few Sisters did that as well as well, I think, did they not? Yes, I always had company in the car. One of the older boys of the parish drove us every Saturday, very faithful to picking us up and bringing us home. In Perryville I taught fourth and fifth grade but also the eighth grade boys. The custom was in Lent on Fridays we would take the kids to the seminary church which was down the block and go to Stations [of the Cross]. Well, I began with maybe thirty boys and ended up with five, because they would all run away! [laughter] I loved my missions and I loved both places. Eventually I became a full-time student. They sent me to Montreal to study French and then I also studied Spanish at St. Louis University, and I taught at Marillac College for twelve years. Why did they ask you to go into languages? Because they needed a language teacher, and I happened to be good at it when I was taking my preparatory courses at Marillac College. At home I heard Italian. I didn’t have an academic knowledge of Italian, but I heard it, so I was comfortable. I had an ear for languages. I remember one funny event, it wasn’t so funny then, in Montreal. The people weren’t used to the Sisters. There were a lot of Sisters – it was a Catholic population – but they weren’t used to the cornette. I had to take four buses to get to the University of Montreal and they would call me Sputnik and Dumbo the Elephant. I remember that. I learned a lot because the Sisters only spoke French. I feel like I’m more fluent in French because I really had to navigate. I had to do it. After that, when I came back, I was still studying at the University and I was named to be the Seminary Directress. That means being in charge of our recruits, our novices. I did that for six years, and while I did it, I commuted to Perryville, Missouri where I taught languages to the Vincentian seminarians. That was a delightful experience because I was the first woman to accept that position. It was a groundbreaker. Yeah, and they tested me at first, trying to throw little paper airplanes until I told them, “OK, boys, this is the end.” [laughter] This is not fourth grade! �3 But it was fun. After Directress, I went to San Antonio, Texas where I worked in a Mexican-American parish as a DRE [Director of Religious Education]. I loved it there because the people were so intent on doing the right thing for their families. Unfortunately, I did not stay there long. I was named to be a Provincial Councillor and after that, I became the Visitatrix of the Province. Did you pick up more Spanish when you were in San Antonio? When I was in San Antonio, I used Spanish more. I finally got my degrees around 1972 and then later in 1974 when I got one in French and one in Spanish. But never in Italian? Never in Italian. But, I was Seminary Directress and also Provincial Councillor, they sent me to the varied congregational meetings that we had in Rome and also in Paris and in Toronto. I had to do Italian the first time because they didn’t have an Italian translator. So I did do it. A lot of times I listened to the French and then translated it into Italian. They only asked me to do that one time. Generally, I translated from French and Spanish into English. That was just a very meaningful experience in my life. And a lot of work, I bet. And a lot of work. Now when you were Councillor, those were the days when they were specialized. I recall health, education… I was Formation Councillor. I had been Seminary Directress, so I continued to work with the Sisters who were preparing for vows and also preparing programs for continuing formation for all of the Sisters. So I worked with teams, all kinds of committees, went to many intercongregational meetings in St. Louis and elsewhere to work with others in formation programs. Then you became the Vis. Then I became Visitatrix. How was that? How was that? I enjoyed going to all the missions and seeing what the Sisters were doing and how many services they were giving to the poor, no matter where they were or what they were doing. The Sisters always evinced a great passion for their service, and that kept them going and kept the province going. I felt like we were very healthy because the Sisters were responding to our newer call to be who we are. So that was a great gift. That was a great gift. I learned a lot from the Sisters. I remember with one of the Seminary Sisters, she very frankly told me that they were not fifth graders and so I was to talk to them like adults. [laughter] Good point! �4 I learned much from the people I lived with and also the ones I visited interactively. It was an awesome time as Visitatrix because it was a time when we were beginning to discern should we keep this large Provincial House that serves 200 people and we’re not getting that many recruits. Can we continue the upkeep and the expense? So we had to go into a two year discernment with the whole Province. Fortunately, the folks from UMSL, the University of Missouri in St. Louis, wanted to expand their campus, so they were really eager to buy the Provincial House. We were so fortunate. Very lucky. It’s a very healthy operation now – still education – and for the lower-income folks getting degrees. That was just such a great blessing, and I’m grateful for that. One more item while you were Visitatrix and you talked about your formation. One of the things that I remember is the LIM [Loyola Institute for Ministry] Program for the young Sisters. I think that was a big piece of what you installed as well. Do you want to talk about that? We worked with Loyola in New Orleans. They had a program where they taught trainers, and trainers worked with the attendees in the local areas. We had our young Sisters there but we also invited folks in who were more experienced to dialogue with them because it wasn’t just a head program, it was a heart and service program. It was an opportunity for them to hear the experiences of other people. And I think you were part of that [points to Sister Helen]. I was and that’s why I was in touch with it. But I think it was an excellent program because one of the things was many of the younger Sisters didn’t have a lot of theology in their training so it helped out. Yes, definitely. OK, so you weren’t Vis forever. What happened next? Then I went to the Seton Family of Hospitals in Austin, Texas. I worked in the Education Department for a long time. I learned how to do my-- I could fax things myself, I could copy things myself. I didn’t have a secretary, so I learned all these wonderful, practical skills. Then they put me as the Vice President for Mission Integration, and I worked in leadership formation, almost like a spiritual direction individually with the executive staff. Oh, the executives mostly. That was a good opportunity. Then I was asked to come to St. Louis and be Sister Servant of one of the groups here at the Sarah Community, the Assisted Living Groups. Well, that’s what I thought, and then they gave me all the groups! That was a trick! [laughter] I did it for four years, but just walking from one end of the building to another was enough of a challenge for me to say, “That’s really all I can do!” But I love the Sisters, and when I think back on my ministries – working with the children, they were spontaneous and fun. You never knew what they were going to do. Especially with eighth grade boys. �5 Yes. With the Mexican Americans, I always admired that they would do anything for their families. They worked very hard. In the health care, the executives wanted to be people of integrity because they wanted to serve the mission and the poor like the Daughters. They were very sincere about that. In the international level, there were so many diverse people who had all kinds of ideas and ways that we should be serving the poor, and I learned from them. I was always appreciative of all the people that I worked with. So, when I think back, I always said if I had stayed as a good Italian-American girl, I would have married and had ten kids, and that would have been OK. But I feel that in the community, I have been given much in the way of education, in the way of opportunity, in the way of grace. I’m a person right now, thank God, who is very grateful. So when people say, “How are you doing?” I say, “I can’t complain about anything.” That’s a great gift. I’m just going to say, I think you missed one thing; when you were in Austin, you also worked with the Ladies of Charity, one of the very special groups. Yes, one of the Mission Integration person at Providence in Waco asked me to work with the Ladies of Charity in Harper Heights. Oh my! What a diverse and loving group. I did that, and then I worked with other-- the Vincent de Paul Society in Austin and also another group of Ladies of Charity. I loved every minute of that, too. They were a great group. Yes. Is there anything else you want to add for history’s sake? Do you think you’ve covered it? I think I’ve covered it. I want to continue to learn from the people I live with. I think because I was in leadership for a long time, the tendency was working with people. But now I’m not in leadership so I want to be more with people and learn from them. I do that by praying to the Holy Spirit all the time. One of the things I think here is, now that you’re at Sarah, we’re at Sarah, and you mentioned diversity a number of times. The whole idea that we are here at the Sarah community, not just with Daughters, but with other communities, and lay people. Even men are here, so what is your response to that experience that we are having now? That’s a great gift. I think so, too. It’s a great gift. Again, I learned from the experiences of all the ninety-year-olds that are here, whether they are lay or religious and what they experienced, and how they lived, and what they lived through. And then our staff. It’s such a delight to be in the dining room in the evening and have our food served. But to be served by young people who are just beginning, and who, in a sense, look to us for support and we give it. I mean our ministry of prayer is so filled with opportunity that can’t begin to pin it down. Right. So, God is good. God is good. I agree. Thank you, Nanette. This was excellent, very inspiring as well to hear. Thank you. �6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Daughters of Charity, Province of St. Louise Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Brewer, Sister Helen, D.C. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Gentile, Sister Nanette, D.C. Location The location of the interview St. Louis, MO Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:19:18 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gentile, Sr. Nanette, D.C. Oral History Subject The topic of the resource Gentile, Sr. Nanette, D.C.,Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, Language and education--United States Description An account of the resource Sister Nanette Gentile discusses growing up in an Italian-American family in St. Louis, studying different languages, and her life as a Daughter of Charity. She served as Visitatrix from 1989 to 1998, closed the Marillac College campus, and became the first woman to teach at the Vincentian Seminary in Perryville, MO. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gentile, Sr. Nannette, D.C., Brewer, Sr. Helen, D.C. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Daughters of Charity Archives, Province of St. Louise, Emmitsburg, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-08 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Keefer, Scott (Transcriber) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission for any type of publication of archival materials, including text, photographs, video, or audio must be secured from the Daughters of Charity Communications Director before publication. Contact archives staff for appropriate forms and contact information Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio/mp3, Application/pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gentile, Sister Nanette Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1933-2019 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Education Sister Leaders https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/1a0a02ae8321afae5a46c49205796823.jpg 97c4ef393ed2027b0b9c8f20864a50f4 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/6379a8f53047c1076384acd299bd3f8f.mp3 941cbf4d91db64c2e7f447934191b920 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/fb5cf7ac97c2707abbe71d86548fb1b7.pdf ffe3cc9ff88fe7dcbfb7753fec6ca9e1 PDF Text Text Name of Sister: Sr. Dorothy Marie Hill [Excerpt] Format: Audio-Cassette (35-TC; #712) Original Recording: August 26, 2003 Interviewer: Sister Elaine Wheeler Transcriber and date of transcription: Elissa Armater, December 3, 2005 Which Daughter of Charity seemed to impress you most and sort of led you into the Community? No one Sister had any major influence. I applied. When I finally came to the Community, I finished college at St. John’s [University], and I don’t know why I became a Daughter of Charity. My ambition as I was finishing college was to be a cloistered nun, and I approached in very tentative ways both the Carmelites and the Trappestines. I really can’t at this length of time pin down why I became a Daughter of Charity. I remember looking at the time. There were no Sisters [referring to the Daughters] in Brooklyn or in New York. The whole difficulties between the black caps [Sisters of Charity of New York] and the white caps had kept them away. I remember looking up “Daughters of Charity” in the Catholic Encyclopedia and reading that St. Vincent’s telling them that “The Poor shall be your Office.” One of my great ambitions was to recite the Divine Office in choir as the cloistered sisters did, which was one of the reasons I wanted to be a cloistered nun. And that saying, which I have never seen any place else except that article in the Catholic Encyclopedia, impressed me very much. I joined the Community on September 8, 1951 as a postulant at Emmitsburg. We were the first band that made our postulatum at Emmitsburg and there were 38 of us. Postulatum was extremely disappointing to me. I had a very good time, but I felt as if I was in boarding school with a whole bunch of young kids because I was a mature woman at 21 and they were all 17 or 19! The seminary was more satisfying. My father was in awe of the whole thing, but my mother kept saying what a peculiar outfit this was. And she meant not just the clothing, which she found very peculiar, but the entire outfit. Everything about it struck her as funny or horrifying. I received the habit in January of 1953 and went to Seton High School very soon after that as my first mission. I spent 25 years teaching high school at Seton High School, at Bishop England High School in Charleston, South Carolina; in Portsmouth [Virginia; Portsmouth Catholic High School], in Syracuse [Cathedral Academy], in Petersburg [Virginia; St. Joseph’s School], and in Emmitsburg [Maryland; St. Joseph’s High 1 �School]. My 25 years of teaching were a delight. I enjoyed the subject matter, I enjoyed the children, and I think I was fairly successful. What subjects did you teach? Mostly English and later Religion. I had other things, as we all do, but those were the subjects I was prepared in and enjoyed teaching. I gave you a list of places I was, and they were all high schools. Most of them, either the Sisters aren’t teaching in the school anymore, as in Bishop England High School, or the school is closed. When I was thinking about saying all this, I began to think about how trendy my life has been. The closing of the schools that I attended and the schools I was taught at is one of the big marks of the history of the Church in the United States during these years, the 20’s through the 60’s. It certainly has affected my life but whether it has been for the good of the Church or for its loss, we’re too close to to really come to any well thought out conclusion, but my own history certainly does prove out. One of the great turning points of my life came right about the time that I finished thinking about teaching for 25 years. I went to Seton High School actually three times on mission – my first mission and then in the 60’s again. When Vatican Council II was just coming to an end – I think it ended in ’59? I think it’s closer to ’62. Sixty-two. At that time, when it was still in session, but very close to an end, I was at Seton High School teaching English. Sister Enrica Federal was the principal, and Sister Enrica, an innovator and very impulsive sort of person, and she decided it would be good to institute a real religion department as an academic unit rather than as a frill, which it was up to that time. Every Sister that had a home room taught religion, which meant that you really had no professional religion teachers. She decided that it would be good to make it an academic department and get a few people trained in the new trends that would be coming with the end of Vatican II. She went around, and she asked people if they’d like to study religion or theology. I had the sense to say yes, and three of us went. It was very delightful experience and a soul changing, life changing experience. Three of us from Seton High School in Baltimore went every Friday night by train. We went up to New York City, stayed at Kennedy [Child Study] Center [where Daughters were missioned], and on Saturday morning went up to Fordham [University] and took a course with the Novak Brothers [Joseph and Vincent Novak], who were Jesuits who were trying to form a Vatican II curriculum for high school religion departments. Every Saturday morning for a semester, we went up there and listened to the Novaks. One of the high points, one of the magnificent things that happened, one Saturday morning, Vincent Novack brought in the New York Times for that morning, and he read to us the unofficial translation of the Vatican document on the Liturgy. We were sitting in the back of the classroom, because we were still were wearing the cornette, and I sat 2 �and listened to Vince Novak and cried like a baby because it was so – it fulfilled all the aspirations and yearnings that I had had about Liturgy and what Liturgy should mean in our lives. That was only one of the great excitements. And sure enough through the next couple years, the religion classes at Seton became the equal of all the other classes and we had a religion department with a faculty and tried to form a modern Vatican II curriculum. Those days of the Council and of the post-Councillor changes – I don’t like to call them changes because it’s a more profound conversion than just changes – were probably the most exciting and hopeful optimistic days of my whole life because so many of the wishes and dreams and ideals that were hardly expressed or hardly recognized began to become true. Sister Cecilia Geary and I in I think it was 1964 went out to St. Louis to the liturgical conference, and it was the first time in the United States that a congregation, an assembly, at Mass had recited the Our Father in unison in English. With a huge stadium type meeting hall in St. Louis, so you had thousands of people all as excited as I was about Vatican II saying the Our Father together. Again, it was this exciting high point in individuals’ lives and in the life of the Church. For me, one of the big effects of all of this Liturgy and Bible study – that’s when I got into the Bible. I went to Catholic University for a couple summers in the religious education department and had a few Bible courses and just fell into Bible study. I didn’t go to school enough. I would have liked to have gone more, but I was not permitted to. But I’ve been able to follow on my own Bible study, and I must say, it has so enthralled me that, I’m more disciplined about Bible study than about any studying that I’ve ever done in my whole life. One of the effects of all this was that I came to the conclusion that I should not teach in high school any more because the service of the poor became more and more important and primary in my life. High school became more and more expensive so that the service of the economically poor was almost impossible. That’s when I decided that I would try change my ministry. I was lucky enough to come to the Northeastern Province where Sister Mary Basil [Roarke] at the time was the Provincial. She looked very kindly on those sorts of aspirations. So without too much ceremony, I was able to go to St. Mary’s Parish in Troy [New York] to become a Parish Associate. I went to St. Mary’s – I forget the year [1973-74 school year] – but it was the year St. Mary’s School closed, which was extremely traumatic on everybody because St. Mary’s for the Community was such an old mission. Sisters had been teaching there for 150 years or something since 1848. That hundred and more years had become so traditional, and for the Parish, the institution of the school was one of their great prides. They gave it up not just with reluctance but with hostility. That year in which the school closed was very traumatic, but it was a very happy year for me, because we had priests in the parish at the time who were very anxious to form a team ministry and to share ministry not just among themselves but with the whole Parish. We formed a team ministry of priests and sisters and lay people, seven people all together. I remained at St. Mary’s for six years. It was, for me, a very happy experience. 3 �Because of the freedom of that team ministry and the members of the team, I was able to minister in very untraditional ways. We did the traditional things. One of the joys was that I taught the First Communion class. I became sort of a a paralegal, an advocate for people on welfare, food stamps, SSI – Social Security – what have you, to help them negotiate those systems. These were the poorest of the poor, and Troy was rich in poor people. Again, it was a turning point in my life to discover the poor and to discover the joy. St. Vincent said, “The poor are my burden and my sorrow,” and I found that to be true, but I also found it to be true that the poor were my joy and my delight. As that period of my life ended, I was missioned to Boston to Laboure Center in South Boston. I was supposed to work there, but somehow I just didn’t fit in. I didn’t fit into South Boston, and I didn’t fit in very well to the work of Laboure Center. Just by accident, truly – I’m sure not accident, but providence, but it seemed very casual at the time – I met a group of people who were interested in serving the homeless, and we became friends, and eventually just very sweetly it worked out that we started a shelter for homeless families, the fist shelter for homeless families in Boston. Sister Adele Waters was part of the circle, and the other four founders were a Jesuit priest and three young graduate school students all in their twenties, very wise, very charming young people [According to the National Jesuit News, the three other founders were Father Andrew Sedensky, S.J., Patti Muldoon, and Mike Whelan]. By guess and by gosh, we managed to find the money to find a building, a parish rectory in Roxbury in Boston and to start Sojourner House. S-O-U-J-O-U-R-N-E-R, Sojourner. It was named for Sojourner Truth, one of the great heroines of the abolition movement and of Women’s Rights in 19th Century America. It was also named in honor of the Biblical concept of the Sojourner. In the Book of Deuteronomy, it speaks of the Sojourner in your midst that Israel must always look out for the Sojourner and take care of the Sojourner and not oppress the Sojourner even though that Sojourner is far from being an Israelite. That again was another high point in my life because we were penetrating further into the depths of poverty and into the depths of the wealth of the poor and the straights to which poverty can drive people. We finally, I think it was the fourth year of operation, when we realized we had a budget of $150,000. Up to that point, we had a few small grants, but mostly it was free will donations. I might mention here that both the Jesuits and Daughters of Charity gave the services of their members free. The Daughters of Charity never demanded any kind of salary or compensation and neither did the Jesuits for the work of the Jesuit priests. I spent six years working without a salary at Sojourner House. Actually, I asked to be missioned, because I knew if I stayed there much longer I wouldn’t be able to leave. What kind of people came to Sojourner House? 4 �Homeless families. Generally women and children. The husbands and fathers were either non-existent or were very shy about coming to live in a family shelter. So in general, it was women and their children who came. We did have a couple of fathers in the course of the years. These were people who were... At the time, the homeless problem in Boston was growing by leaps and bounds. The rental housing was becoming exorbitantly expensive. There was a great deal of gentrification of parts of Boston that had been low income. The rate of vacancy in rental housing was estimated at one percent, which meant that actually there wasn’t any. So that there were many, many families who were either doubled up with relatives or friends in horrible circumstances or actually living on the streets. We had one very beautiful young woman who came to us who was unmarried and had a child about 18 months old when she came to our house. When I asked her how long she had been homeless, she told us she had been homeless since she left the hospital with the baby. I said, “What did you do with a newborn baby and no place to go?” She said, “Oh, I left her here and there.” We had another woman who had two small children who was in somewhat the same straights. She used to leave her children at McDonald’s. She would go in and buy food and then leave them there and go about whatever business she had. One of the problems with being homeless is that, at the time, it was very hard for people to get welfare if they were homeless because the welfare system in its wisdom wouldn’t give them rent money because they were homeless and therefore they didn’t have to pay rent! So they ended up with literally nothing. To negotiate the ins and outs of welfare is a full-time job. These were the sorts of people that were referred to us. What happened was that we came to know the workers in the welfare department, and they would refer people to us that they were not able to help. So it was the lowest aspect of the welfare system were the people who were referred to us, and they were treated in exactly that way, as the lowest kind of human being. Sojourner House was a residential shelter in that we stayed open all the time. Nobody had to leave at 8 o’clock in the morning or anything like that because they were children, or the vast majority. We could only accommodate only six families at a time. We had part of a very old large old rectory, St. Joseph’s in Roxbury. People had all their meals there. When we finally managed to help them to get on welfare, they would give us a portion of their welfare money, which we banked for them so that they would have some kind of seed money when they were finally able to find a place to live. Our hope was that people would stay about three months, but it ended up that they had to stay six months or more because of the shortage of rental housing. I went from Sojourner House in Boston to Syracuse and really didn’t find a niche in Syracuse either. I lived in Syracuse and commuted to Cortland [New York], which is about 25 miles south of Syracuse and worked in a soup kitchen. I was part-time for the soup kitten and part-time for Catholic Charities food pantry. That was satisfying, but it was sort of a comedown from Sojourner House because it wasn’t as – nothing was as acute as the homelessness that gave rise to Sojourner House. 5 �Is Sojourner House still functioning? Sojourner House is still functioning. There are no Sisters or priests involved in the administration any more. It’s become totally lay. It’s independent. We incorporated, so it’s Sojourner House, Inc., and it’s independent. As far as I know it’s still functioning. I haven’t had any contact there in three or four years. I stayed at Cortland for about six years. The soup kitchen was in the Episcopalian Church in Cortland and I was fortunate enough to become very good friends with the rector of the Church and his wife [The soup kitchen was called “Loaves and Fishes.” It was located at “Grace & Holy Spirit Episcopal Church.” The rector of the church was Rev. William James Greer II]. They were very, very dear people. One of the high points of my stay in Cortland was that we formed an ecumenical prayer group. There was a Lutheran minister, a bachelor, and myself, and for a while one of the priests of St. Mary’s Parish in Cortland, and a few other people. We tried to meet once a month for an hour’s prayer session, which was very delightful because we all came from such different prospectives and were able to pray together and talk together in very intimate ways. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Daughters of Charity, Province of St. Louise Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Wheeler, Sister Elaine, D.C. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Hill, Sister Dorothy Marie, D.C. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Cassette Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:34:11 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hill, Sr. Dorothy Marie, D.C. Oral History [Excerpt] Subject The topic of the resource Hill, Sr. Dorothy Marie, D.C.; Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; Church and social problems--Catholic Church--History--20th century; Homelessness--Religious aspects Description An account of the resource Sister Dorothy Marie Hill describes the changes that took place in the Catholic Chuch and the Daughters of Charity after the Second Vatican Council and her work combatting houselessness in South Boston. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hill, Sr. Dorothy Marie, D.C.; Wheeler, Sr. Elaine, D.C. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Daughters of Charity Archives, Province of St. Louise, Emmitsburg, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003/08/26 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Armater, Elissa (Transcriber); Keefer, Scott (editor) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission for any type of publication of archival materials, including text, photographs, video, or audio must be secured from the Daughters of Charity Communications Director before publication.ÿ Contact archvies staff for appropriate forms and contact information Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio/mp3; Application/pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Hill, Sister Dorothy Marie Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1951-2003 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Social Service https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/25d3dd9328625f9c3898496f36920ac2.jpg bec48ceaae19ccd943b27f48615ebfe1 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/ced00b80ad088706dd5c11d604f1e09a.mp3 5d7e67b0a432be7a2ef71e0a424a152e https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/afadc5d2afd676cbac4a4512dbe5b25d.pdf 5d153251234da657aab6ccc8c8e60db3 PDF Text Text INTERVIEW WITH SISTER ROSA DALY CONCERNING THE VISIT OF DAUGHTERS OF CHARITY HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATORS TO THE WHITE HOUSE AND CAPITAL ON MARCH 26, 1974 Interviewed by Sister Eleanor Casey July 7, 2005 Proofed by Scott Keefer, May 18, 2020 Sr. Eleanor: Today is Thursday, July 7, 2005. This is Sister Eleanor Casey with Sister Rosa Daly who is recounting her experiences on Capitol Hill in 1974, when she visited Senator [J. Glenn] Beall and Vice President [Gerald] Ford and also went to the White House. Sr. Rosa: Okay. As far as I can remember. Yeah, okay. We assembled in the White House to talk to—and the gentlemen's name is in your folder there [Dr. James H. Cavanaugh, Deputy Director for Operations of the Domestic Council for President Richard M. Nixon.], someone in charge of economy, and we were all assembled in a conference room in the White House. And then we went to Vice President’s, Ford's office and had our picture taken and met Vice President Ford, and then we went to Senator Beall's office and had a picture taken. Then he took us by the little car that goes from his office to the Capitol, and we had our lunch at the lunchroom for congressmen. The most thrilling experience was, he reserved a table right inside the door so that he would sit and watch the people coming in the door. As they came in, he'd say, "Oh, here comes [Senator John] Tower from Texas. Anybody here from Texas? What's your name?" And he would say, "Senator," he said, "got one of your constituents here, "he said. "We've just been meeting for so-and-so and so-and so, and she wants to tell you about that bill that we're contemplating." So sister would talk to him. Then he'd go, "Anybody here from Louisiana? Here comes so-and-so from Louisiana. Senator, one of your constituents here." It was really interesting to see the way he behaved to get his point across, you know. We read about these congressmen, and you say, "Oh, yes, they're, you know, big power". But really, he was so interested because he appreciated the number of hospitals we had in that time, and what this Taft-Hartley exemption was gonna' mean to our hospitals and to tell you the truth I don't remember what the outcome was, that’s the worst part.1 1 Research by Mr. Michael Riley, provincial CFO, shows that the meeting probably concerned whether hospitals sponsored by the Daughters of Charity might find it advantageous to administer their individual pension plans as a group. On September 9, 1974 congress enacted the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) which codified federal law pertaining to employee pension and welfare benefit plans. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Daughters of Charity, Province of St. Louise Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Casey, Sister Eleanor, D.C. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Daly, Sister Rosa, D.C. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Cassette Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:03:00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Daly, Sister Rosa Interview Subject The topic of the resource "Daly, Sister Rosa, D.C.; Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; Daughters of Charity National Health System; Ford, Gerald R., 1913-2006; Beall, J. Glenn (John Glenn), Jr., 1927-2006 Description An account of the resource Sister Rosa Daly, D.C. describes meeting with Senator John Glenn Beall and Vice President Gerald Ford in 1974, along with other Senators, regarding hospitals operated by the Daughters of Charity. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource "Daly, Sr. Rosa, D.C. Casey, Sr. Eleanor, D.C." Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Daughters of Charity Archives, Province of St. Louise, Emmitsburg, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005/07/07 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Keefer, Scott (Editor) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission for any type of publication of archival materials, including text, photographs, video, or audio must be secured from the Daughters of Charity Communications Director before publication.ÿ Contact archvies staff for appropriate forms and contact information Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio/mp3; Application/pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Daly, Sister Rosa Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1974/26/03 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Healthcare https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/a2f9521faeae8d6edff5002daa0d4e59.jpg 633d62d78b9e85d0940bc24f5c524bdc https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/80c884d8321070fd4b18ac46e9dd10b4.mp3 bcf879a0b2324744218cac952bb522a1 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/f7e44eb863425cb0825d2b723f458067.pdf d886fb5d81b32f8c938a8c7396b3ed7b PDF Text Text SISTER CYRILLA VERHALEN [Excerpt] BIOGRAPHY INTERVIEW BY SISTER JOSEPHINE TARQUINI JANUARY 21, 1988 Sr. Cyrilla: Today is the very day that I left the Seminary to go out to San Francisco. Sr. Josephine: And when was that Sister? Sr. Cyrilla: It was the Feast of St. Agnes, and it was during that dreadful year when everybody was having the flu [The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic]. Sr. Josephine: 1918? Sr. Cyrilla: 1918. And it was the funeral day of that dear Sister who came from California [possibly Sister Agnes McEleney]. She was the biggest, the strongest, the healthiest looking Sister, and from the very beginning the doctor said, “No earthly power can save her.” So she died, and she was being buried on her name day but in the general, big cemetery [Calvary Cemetery], because they didn't have any cemetery yet at the Marillac. Sr. Josephine: Sister, you are not exactly sweet sixteen. When were you born? Sr. Cyrilla: I was born in 1894. Sr. Josephine: And what was your birthday? Sr. Cyrilla: The third of August. Sr. Josephine: The third of August 1894. When that date comes around, you'll be how old then? Sr. Cyrilla: I'll be 94 years old. Sr. Josephine: Ninety-four. Isn’t that wonderful. [Jump in excerpt of recording] Sr. Josephine: You entered at the Marillac, Sister? Sr. Cyrilla: Yes. Sr. Josephine: Who was the Visitatrix then? [Sister] Eugenia Fealy? Sr. Cyrilla: That was her. 1 �Sr. Josephine: And who was your Directress? Sr. Cyrilla: I have to think of her name. She was the first Directress of the whole Province. Sr. Josephine: Was that [Sister] Madeleine Morris? Sr. Cyrilla: She had a brother who was a bishop. Sr. Josephine: That was Sr. Madeleine Morris, and then she went over to France and was a Secretary [Sr. Madeleine became General Secretary for the English-speaking provinces in 1945]. Sr. Cyrilla: She really knew French so well that she could translate it right through and just read French. Sr. Josephine: What did you think of the Seminary? Sr. Cyrilla: Sister, I was too sick to think of anything. Do you know what I had when I was three weeks right after Thanksgiving while I was at St. Anne's [Asylum] a postulant? I got sick and was having a high fever, and it lasted for three weeks, and the doctors didn't know what was-- What is it? What’s the matter? What am I getting? And jaundice! Yellow jaundice. And Sister, imagine getting out of bed of yellow jaundice and going to the Seminary and then handfuls of chocolate. [Portion redacted from transcript] Sr. Josephine: Well, then you got the habit Sr. Cyrilla: And we were stuck there with the flu, the terrible flu, and they kept us there. This is a funny thing Sister. We were kept over so that we wouldn't get the flu. Sr. Josephine: And, of course, you got it? Sr. Cyrilla: And you know how we got it? The Sister sacristan, not knowing how dangerous it was, went to visit the man that scrubbed the floors. Had the flu. She brought it home, and all these young, new Sisters who had received the habit were helping in the chapel, and we all got it. On Christmas Day, one after the other got sick, and so the doctor said, “Sister, take the temperature of all of them.” I was a goner, because I knew I had a terrible night. I didn’t want to go to bed on Christmas. Sr. Josephine: When you got over the flu, then you went out on mission, where did you go? Sr. Cyrilla: To Sister Caroline. 2 �Sr. Josephine: In San Francisco. Sr. Cyrilla: St. Vincent's School or the St. Patrick's Parish [Her first mission was St. Vincent’s High School]. Sr. Josephine: And how long were you there? Sr. Cyrilla: I was there until 1932 I think it was. 3 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Daughters of Charity, Province of St. Louise Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Tarquini, Sister Josephine, D.C. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Verhalen, Sister Cyrilla, D.C. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Cassette Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:04:31 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Verhalen, Sr. Cyrilla, D.C. Oral History (Excerpt) Subject The topic of the resource Verhalen, Sr. Cyrilla, D.C.; Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; Influenza Epidemic, 1918-1919 Description An account of the resource Sister Cyrilla Verhalen discusses her time in the Seminary of the Daughters of Charity and her first mission in Perryville, Missouri during the outbreak of the Spanish flu in 1918 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Verhalen, Sr. Cyrilla, D.C.; Tarquini, Sr. Josephine, D.C. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Daughters of Charity Archives, Province of St. Louise, Emmitsburg, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1/21/1988 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Keefer, Scott (Editor) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission for any type of publication of archival materials, including text, photographs, video, or audio must be secured from the Daughters of Charity Communications Director before publication.ÿ Contact archvies staff for appropriate forms and contact information Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio/mp3; Application/pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Verhalen, Sister Cyrilla Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1918 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Healthcare Religious Formation https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/7bde5a59bf81f01299af512f2f3f2e5f.jpg 206fd96999ba91e0fe2d07a27e47a7bf https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/6a9c13d9f77a8a328db2f216ddb86f6a.mp3 e0469ef54a0112ce7ac93044d278623e https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/8f9cc42c6d84cc61646583a78618ef27.pdf 98a6c75b1b4772540b3fcd9d0ee1d753 PDF Text Text 1 ORAL HISTORY OF SR. HELEN BREWER INTERVIEWED BY SISTER CECILE MATUSHEK, D.C. RECORDED JULY 2019 My name is Sister Helen Brewer. I’m a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. I was born in Perryville, Missouri on November 24, 1934, and I was baptized the following Sunday on December 2, 1934 at the Church of the Assumption. My parents are Stella Ann Bass Brewer and Edward Louis Brewer, and I’m the fifth of seven children. Three of my siblings – Louis, Maura, and Dorothy – are deceased. The other three are Victoria, Dennis, and Albert. The four of us are able to visit regularly as they live relatively close to where I presently live in Missouri. I have 23 nieces and nephews. The Daughters of Charity and the Vincentian priests have always been a part of my life. The church of the Assumption was also known as St. Mary’s of the Barrens. My parish church was also the chapel of the Vincentian seminarians studying for the priesthood. Long before I was born, the seminarians built a grotto honoring Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. The Vincentians established near that time the Association of the Miraculous Medal. The Daughters of Charity arrived in Perryville in 1907. Actually, the first establishment of the Vincentians was in Perryville in the St. Louis Archdiocese in 1818. So, they were there many years, and then the Daughters came in 1907 and established the St. Vincent’s School. They taught there for 95 years before it was necessary to leave because of assignments. I was taught by the Daughters of Charity the 12 years of my grade and high school education. The church, and the grotto, and the Shrine, and the Seminary, and the parish Catholic school are all a part of my education and formation. When I think about those times of my youth, my growing up, they were special times that my family was together and those were – like the Christmas Novena, and the Stations of the Cross, and the triduum before Easter, and the May procession and the Corpus Christi procession. We went as a family. And of course the Seminary picnic. You had to go to the Seminary picnic. [laughter] Of course. I love the Seminary picnic. Me too I loved to be around the Daughters of Charity, helping them around the school. Clapping the erasers was an important thing to do, and cleaning the chalkboard, and decorating the bulletin boards. Several of the girls in my class when we were about the third and fourth grade, we would race up the sidewalk to the sisters’ house as they came back from lunch, because we had to be the first one to be able to grab sister’s hand and hold her hand back to the school. Sisters Regina [Henley] and Aurea [Ayler] and Blanche [O’Malley] and Clotilda [Landry], and Helena [O’Shea] and Frances Mary [Rutt] and Frances [Proffitt] were all sisters that I remember closely. They were a special part of my life. And they made a part of the decision that I made to be a Daughter of Charity. Principally because they seemed happy, and they enjoyed what they were doing. One of my significant memories of the possibility of becoming a Daughter took place when I was completing my junior year in high school. I had asked one of the priests of the seminary if they would �2 provide a reference for me to take into St. Mary’s Hospital in St. Louis. I was applying for a summer position between my junior and senior year to serve as a nurses’ aide. He agreed, but as I was turning to leave, he called out to me and said, “Don’t let them get you.” I really stopped in my tracks because it was the first time I think that I realized that I should seriously consider what I was going to do after high school. He was talking not about the Daughters, but more about the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, who operated the hospital in St. Louis to which I was trying to be a nurses’ aide. It really was the first of my thoughts with regard to becoming a Daughter of Charity. When I remember some of my childhood memories of growing up, in addition to the church and school activities and living with six brothers and sisters, one of the major memories of my life has to do with the Second World War. I remember coming home from seeing an afternoon movie and finding my parents concerned about what they were listening to on the radio, learning that what was happening was the destruction of Pearl Harbor, and the President of United States was declaring war. The Second World War was part of my growing up. I was seven years old when the war started. Both of my older brothers served in the war in the Navy. One brother was in the Atlantic, and the other was in the Pacific. My mother used to help with the American Red Cross, and my father, as a member of the American Legion, used to assist families when their loved ones did not come home. One of my most vivid memories at the end of the war was going to church and thanking God with all of the rest of the parishioners and the townspeople. It was a very moving moment. When I think about my vocation, I have to think about it in terms of my classmates in high school. It wasn’t unusual for more than one classmate to join a religious order of priests or sisters, and in my particular class, there were three of us who joined the Daughters of Charity this year – this is one graduating class. One of our classmates joined the School Sisters of Notre Dame, and one of the boys went into the seminary toward the priesthood. I joined the Daughters of Charity, and I entered postulatum on June 16th, 1952, and I served my period of postulatum, or preparation to become a Daughter, at St. Philomena’s in St. Louis, which was a daycare center and a social service center in midtown St. Louis. After a period of I think about three or four or five months, I went to Marillac Seminary in St. Louis, and on November 25, 1952, a day after my 18th birthday, I became a member of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. Following that time or that year in the seminary, I was given the habit of the Daughters of Charity on the Feast of the Miraculous Medal in November 27, 1953. In that time in our history, the sisters did not just first get a college degree and then you were sent on mission. Actually, you were sent on mission while you were studying and working for your college degree whether that would be in summer school as you came back from one year to the other or evening classes and Saturday classes at colleges where you were. I want to talk a little bit about my missions and my ministries. I’ve divided my many missions and ministries into several time periods. First, what my ministry was, and then to share some of the thoughts I had at several of those ministries. The first 10-15 years of my being a Daughters of Charity, I spent as a teacher at the elementary school level. I was first assigned to Mobile, Alabama; and then I was at Salt Lake City, Utah; and then back to St. Louis. Part of coming back to St. Louis was to finish my Bachelor’s degree. �3 The second 10 to 15 years I spent as a teacher at the elementary school level and secondary level at the Labouré High School teacher and Ritter High School principal and vice principal. And there I was in San Francisco, and then Dallas, and again back into St. Louis. The third 10-15 years, 1976-1988 I served as the Director of Religious Education and pastoral ministry programs and diocesan level Director of Religious Education and the director of Renew. I’ll talk about those things later. I was located in Springfield, Missouri, and I was located in West Plains, and Willow Springs, and White Church, and Thayer in Southern Missouri. The next 10 years from the late 80s through 1998 were a different kind of ministry. It was a 10 year period. It felt like a longer period than that. I was a docent in Emmitsburg, and then I served as a Director of Religious Education in a parish in St. Charles, Missouri. The next thing that I did in that same period of time was I was assigned to be vice president of Mission Integration at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Ft. Worth, and then, following that, I served in the mission leadership position at our National Health System in St. Louis and then a ministry councilor for the Daughters of Charity from 1995-98 here in St. Louis. That takes care probably of about the first 40 years of my ministry from a teacher to a principal to a director to a leadership position. When you were on the Council, was that the days when we were health, ministry, and social work [positions]? Mm-hmm. And so you were the health...? No, no, no, I was education. Education on the Council! Ok. Actually, when I looked at it, it looked like—It just says “Ministry.” In my head... but it was in education. I wasn’t in the healthcare. I don’t know if that’s how we were. That’s what I was trying to remember myself. At St. Joseph’s, what was interesting was that was not one of our hospitals to begin with I recall. It was the St... I think it they were St. Joseph’s Sisters, because you and I would get together... Yeah, St. Joseph’s in... Ft. Worth. In Ft. Worth was a hospital of the Sisters of Incarnate Word of San Antonio. We purchased it from them. They had had it for almost 100 years, and then they were not able to continue it. So those were challenges I guess? It was a challenging time for sure. I’d like to just take a couple of experiences to share some thoughts that I had. One of them was my first mission in Mobile, Alabama. It was a period of the time in which schools and parishes and everything at �4 life was to be integrated. It was a period of integration in the 1950s. Several of my experiences—One had to do with the procession that was held annually in the Diocese of Mobile at Corpus Christi time in which the celebration was to take the Blessed Sacrament through the city of Mobile and bring it to the center of downtown Mobile. In that particular year, the schools were to be lined up according to the year in which they were founded. In that particular year, a school with black boys and girls, with black children, was placed in front of St. Vincent’s School of Mobile, the Daughters’ school. My experience was that at one point, as the procession was starting, when the families found out that the black children were walking in front of the white children, the parents came and removed their children from the procession. Took them out. It was a shocking thought for—I was twenty-one years old. It’s shocking still isn’t it. Right, shocking still. I also remember times when I would see women who I knew were waitresses or housekeepers walking instead of riding the bus, and also to know that, in the church, in St. Vincent’s church, the people who were black sat in the last pews, and there was a rope that was hooked to the wall and the pew, which was an indicator that if you were not white, that you should not go beyond that rope in church in church in St. Vincent’s Church in Mobile, Alabama. Was that the time of the bus boycott as well and the boycott as well of the bank industry? Yes, it was the time of the bus boycott as well. That’s why all of those people were walking toward their work because they didn’t... They were not going to ride those busses at that point. When I was at San Francisco at the girls’ high school... This was the period of time in history when Haight-Ashbury was the most dominant part of what was happening in the drug scene, and we would have some of our high school girls disappear in the maze of the Haight-Ashbury district. Cathedral High School was located not too far from the Haight-Ashbury district. One of the most memorable moments for me was when one of the high school girls in class just burst out in tears and she said “Why do they have to keep killing our leaders?” She was referring to Dr. Martin Luther King and the Kennedy assassination as well. You meant Bobby? Bobby. Yeah. All of that was occurring in similar time when I was missioned in the San Francisco Cathedral High School for Girls. Another one of the experiences that I wanted to share was when I was in Springfield, Missouri working with the diocesan religious education programs as well as working with the Renew program. This was a time following the Second Vatican Council in which the expansion of the opportunity for people to participate more actively in the life of the Church was taking place. One of the memories has to do with the enthusiasm that occurred surrounding the opportunity when families could more actively participate in activities of the church but also in the development of their own spirituality through the participation of Renew. Renew was the name that was given to a small group family-centered discussion, school centered and family-centered opportunities to learn more about sacred scripture, learn more about their faith. And that was part of the Second Vatican Council’s expansion of activities for the Church to be more fully among the people And that was very new for the Church at that time wasn’t it? �5 It was. You were there. Right. In the midst of it. Right in the middle of it. Trying to spread that message of the active participation of people in the Church. When I was in Austin, Texas-- Mobile; San Francisco; Springfield, Missouri; Austin, Texas—I arrived in Austin at the time that the federal government was initiating the Children’s Health Insurance Program [CHIP]. I got into it right at the very beginning because, when I first went to Austin I was serving as an advocate and a person lobbying for issues surrounding the state capital, the issues in the state of Texas. Part of that energy that I had at the time was my participation in the development and the acceptance of the CHIP program for the state of Texas and also distinguish the eligibility programs of whether the child was eligible for Medicaid or whether they were eligible for the CHIP program. So I did some lobbying, and I actively engaged with some of our Senators and Representatives at the time. It was a great experience. Those were big days for that. Yes they were. They were the big days. I spent probably the last 20 years—a little less than 20 years of my ministry, I was in Austin, Texas. During that time, the expansion of health care services in the Central Texas area, and I was really blessed to be a part of that expansion, part of that growth in Central Texas. I served as a member of the board, and also as chair of the board for some time. It was a big lesson for me. Was that the time that we took over the city hospital in Austin, when we acquired that as well? Which was mammoth. Yes, it was. The City/County Hospital – Brackenridge Hospital – was a major, wonderful tradition, but unable to sustain the cost of maintaining the City/County hospital. So Ascension and Seton Hospital-Ascension took over and developed a relationship with the City/County hospital. It was very very difficult because it entailed the birth and... All of the above. All of the above areas abortion and birth control that would have been possible had it been a public hospital, but now it was coming under a Catholic hospital system. It had to do with the directives for health care... The big directives. We were dealing with Rome, and we were dealing with the Catholic Dioceses of the United States. So yes, Brackenridge was a big party. And Bishop [John E.] McCarthy was so good. Yes, he was. Bishop McCarthy just recently died, and he was a great help too. In order to serve the poor. And it’s still going on I believe. �6 Yes, it is. With a new one, a whole new hospital. Yes, it is. Children’s. Yes it is. That’s great. When I look back... When I was preparing for this, I was 67 years of service as a Daughter of Charity, and I look back at it, and it’s been an honor, it’s been a privilege, and I see it with gratitude and with thanksgiving for having had numerous opportunities to serve. Actually, I forgot a couple. As I concluded my ministry in Austin, I also had the opportunity to serve in Gould, Arkansas; and also in El Paso, Texas; and in Nashville, Tennessee, either as a board chair of the health ministries there or as a committee member in St. Thomas Health in Nashville. And I also had two other areas, including ministries, were in Nashville and in Perryville. Going back to Perryville, I served on the board of the Association of the Miraculous Medal for a period of time. That was full circle from your very beginning? Yes, it was full circle from the very beginning. I look back at my life and I see special opportunities over and over again of many times when I was encouraged to grow both spiritually, physically, and emotionally. I was encouraged to develop those qualities that would bring me closer to the people and closer to God, and when I was looking at the material and answering the questions and working through those, I came to the realization that I had not said about my sister companions, the sisters that I lived with. When I looked back... There’s a bunch of them. I lived in community all of those—My sisters in community, I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did if I didn’t live in community with the companions—There’s a song “Companions on my Journey,”and definitely I recall those many missions that I had, included in those mission is my relationship with all the sisters. So, I lived with them, I worked with them, I ministered with them, I agreed with them, I disagreed with them, I grew beside them, and I am grateful for all those who were part of my life. Sister Helen, you’ve shared a lot about how you were really present for a lot of the big major moments both in our country with the Civil Rights and with the assassinations and then also with the church with the Vatican Council. I wondered if you’d take a couple minutes if you would to reflect on life now, here, where our biggest thing is reading the paper or watching the news. How do you feel about living here [The Sarah Community in Bridgeton, MO]? It’s not all Daughters. We live with other communities. We live with laypeople. You’re experiences would lead you this direction I would think, but, do you have any thoughts on the life now as your ministry here? First of all, I’m very happy to be here. Yes, me too. I’m very happy to be living here. I find it very welcoming place. I often tell people that it feels very much at home. I feel good about being here. People are not nosy. They’re very helpful if you need help, but they’re not nosy. So you have the opportunity to be in your apartment and be in the chapel �7 and have the opportunity for Mass. It’s a great blessing. It’s a great blessing. I’m trying to learn how to role. I’m trying to learn how it is that this is my life now. However long God gives me, for the rest of my life, the opportunity to not have such a rigid schedule or so many opportunities that I can’t just sit back and say, “Well, maybe I can do that tomorrow. Or maybe I can do that the next day.” I’m very grateful to be here. You talk about there are widows and widowers, there are couples, there are sisters of various congregations. All of us live in a sense in community, but at the same time, there’s a privacy and there’s a community that comes together very easily. Very easily. I really do love it here. Me too. It’s great. And we have time for prayer. Oh, yes. We were so busy in our apostolic life. Not that we’re not apostolic. Yes, very much. Well thank you so much. You’re welcome. That was wonderful. I learned a lot from you myself. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Daughters of Charity, Province of St. Louise Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Matushek, Sister Cecile, D.C. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Brewer, Sister Helen, D.C. Location The location of the interview St. Louis, MO Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:31:40 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Brewer, Sr. Helen, D.C. Oral History Subject The topic of the resource Brewer, Sr. Helen, D.C.; Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; School integration; Children's Health Insurance Program (U.S.) Description An account of the resource Sister Helen Brewer discusses her education by the Daughters of Charity, her decision to join the community, her family life during World War II, desegregation of schools in the South, teaching in San Francisco in the late 1960s, and the challenges of expanding health service at Seton Medical Center in Austin, TX Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brewer, Sr. Helen, D.C.; Matushek, Sr. Cecile, D.C. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Daughters of Charity Archives, Province of St. Louise, Emmitsburg, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-07 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Keefer, Scott (Transcriber) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission for any type of publication of archival materials, including text, photographs, video, or audio must be secured from the Daughters of Charity Communications Director before publication.ÿ Contact archvies staff for appropriate forms and contact information During the lifetime of the interviewer and interviewee, permission must be secured from the individuals directly. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio/mp3; Application/pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Brewer, Sister Helen Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1934-2019 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Education Healthcare https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/fc1d6851bbb4acd5755f489def241bf8.jpg d711de357aa34cd2e52f8280659317b4 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/075698177be15bd1b60fb27dfa92ac2a.mp3 1f78816089e45053af2c2de103578b36 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/2763a244558e212ca0fcffe794eb113d.pdf 99e663593ccc53e010fa447be5d2213f PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY OF SR. ANNINA SCHARPER, D.C. INTERVIEWED BY SR. MAUREEN SCHMALZRIED, D.C. APRIL 21, 2017 TRANSCRIBED BY SCOTT KEEFER, JUNE 2019 Sister Annina, welcome! Thank you Tell us about your life. “My soul magnifies the Lord.” When God breathed the breath of life in my soul in my mother’s womb, she did not know that I was there. I tried to tell her, but she was busy baking bread and washing clothes for my dad and the other eight children in my family. Soon she felt me growing. Then she said, “This child will be special.” I have always felt this as a blessing. “Holy is his name.” I was born on Friday, March 7, 1924 at 6 am, the ninth and last child of my parents, Marie Louise and William Albert Scharper. I had six brothers and two sisters. Louise – that was Sister Dolores [Scharper], our oldest sister – shared with me the story of the morning of my birth. My father told the children that they had a baby sister which did not make them very happy. Then my father, who was not a Catholic, suggested that they get ready to go to Mass because it was the First Friday. They announced to him that they were not going to Mass. Whereupon he consulted my mother. Returning with the message, your mother said, “You are to go to Mass.” They complied although reluctantly. My Baptism took place on March 16, 1924 at St. Dominic Church in Baltimore. I was given the name Mary Nina. Nina, not because I was the ninth child, but after my godmother who lived with us, my Aunt Nina. When I was three years old, all the other children were in school, so my mother had to take me wherever she needed to go. I was probably the youngest person who ever made Our Lady of Grace Novena at St. Ignatius Church. My mother and father loved each other very deeply and if they ever argued, it was never in front of the children. I went to Corpus Christi School and was taught by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, excellent teachers. My sister Ann was only two years older than I and she was my role model. I thought that everything she did was the right way to do it. When Ann graduated from grade school, she won a scholarship to Notre Dame of Maryland. I thought I would do the same. However, although I took the examination, I didn’t win a scholarship. So, I went to Seton High School. I did not like my first year at Seton because I was disappointed about being there. After I recovered from that, I loved Seton. I loved the Daughters of Charity and the care they had for each other, the attention they gave to each student and the good curriculum. It was during my sophomore year that my father died. He was laid out at home. Some of my teachers came to the wake and funeral. I was very touched by this. This is what he told my 1 �mother, that he wished to become a Catholic. This was a great blessing for our family. In my senior year, Sr. Mary Agnes Barry, my homeroom teacher, talked to me about vocation. I knew that God was calling me to be a Daughter of Charity and I was convinced that I would not be happy unless I answered that call. I graduated from Seton in May 1942. I worked at Glen Allen Martin airplane factory and the blueprint department for three months. I made a lot of money! But I knew that I had to follow my call, so my mother was very happy to have the money. I applied to the community through Sister Mary Louise Doyle, Sister Servant at Seton. After acceptance, on September 8, 1942 I was sent to St. Joseph School in Martinsburg, West Virginia for Postulatum. Here I taught English to the high school seniors until I left for the Seminary. I spent a year in the Seminary learning about the community and learning about myself. My first mission in February 1944 was St. Ambrose School in Endicott, New York where I taught the third grade for two years and then was asked if I had any aversion to nursing, to which I responded negatively. I spent four years studying nursing, graduating from the Catholic University in 1950 with a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. St. Mary’s Hospital in Troy, New York welcomed me as supervisor of obstetrics and a teacher of the students at the college of St. Rose in Albany. From 1955 to 1959 I was on the school of nursing faculty at St. Mary’s Hospital, Saginaw, Michigan where I taught medical surgical nursing. Here I gained new insights into curriculum, faculty requirements, and clinical supervision of students. With this helpful background, I was asked to go to DePaul House of Studies in Jamaica [Queens, New York City] to study for a master’s degree in nursing administration. An internship at St. Vincent Hospital in Greenwich Village, operated by the New York Sisters of Charity, proved to be an excellent experience for me. In January 1960 I was missioned to DePaul Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia to be the Director of the School of Nursing. This was the first in a series of four Directorships: Sacred Heart School of Nursing in Pensacola, Florida; St. Vincent School of Nursing in Jacksonville, Florida; and Director of the Psychiatric Affiliation Program at Seton Institute in Baltimore. I felt it was a special privilege to encourage these young women to reach their potential and to become excellent nurses. While there I was Sister Servant with a wonderful group of Sisters, very dedicated to the patients, full of community spirit, and we all worked very well together. I will always be grateful that during my years at Seton Institute, I had the opportunity to visit my dear mother. She was at Jenkins Memorial Hospital. I loved her very much and I thank God for the positive, grace-filled influence that she had on me. A gentle woman, she guided all of us by her example and her words of wisdom. She died at the age of 93, gently slipping away to heaven. When the decision was made to close Seton Institute, I was missioned to minister to single moms at Catholic Charities in Raleigh, North Carolina. This was followed by a return to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola as Director of Nursing Services. Then at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, I was Hospital Education Director. Then I fulfilled a desire I had for several years: I volunteered for the missions. I volunteered in April of 1982 and was not accepted until November of 1983. I was accepted with an assignment 2 �to Taiwan. Sister Dorothy Folmer and I left for Paris on March 10, 1984 to spend two months at the Mission Center where we were assigned to take care of two sisters in the infirmary. I was the nurse and Sr. Dorothy gave all the directions in French. So we were a very good couple. We were able to start our Chinese classes while still in Paris. With joyful anticipation, we left for Taiwan in April with our first assignment to attend language school – quite a challenge! After a year and a half of study, I was assigned to St. Mary Hospital in Taitung where I was Sister Servant and I was Nursing Educator. I loved St. Mary Hospital and I loved the staff. It was an unforgettable experience to work with an entirely different culture and to learn to appreciate and participate in their life and culture. It was also a beautiful experience to live and work with Sisters of different cultures. When I returned home, I had several short stay missions: Martinsburg, West Virginia as Parish Nurse, DePaul Medical Center in Norfolk as Pastoral Care and also as Sister Servant, a docent at the Shrine of Elizabeth Ann Seton, Coordinator of Support Services and Sister Servant at St. Ann’s Infant Home, Executive Director of Mother and Child Ministries and Sister Servant at St. Louise House in Macon, Georgia. St. Vincent Medical Center in Jacksonville, Florida gave me the opportunity to serve as a Pastoral Care Chaplain. I came to Villa St. Michael on April 15, 2004 having made the decision to retire while I was still active, 80 years old, and could be of service to the Sisters. Some of my services were: to accompany the Sisters to the doctors’ appointments, massage ministry, relieving in the Villa Gift Shop, delivering laundry and household supplies. I thank God that I can do these services and I did these services, and I thank God that the Sisters have been an inspiration to me. Sister Annina, one thing I was wondering about. In the beginning of your life, were you born in the hospital or at home? None of us were born in the hospital. My mother wouldn’t even think about that! I was born in my mother’s bed with her. And at the foot of the bed this cat was sleeping. He didn’t bother either one of us during this process of being born. But it’s always caught in my mind because I guess, this is when I first started to like cats. And you have liked cats ever since! I have. And I think they like you, too [laughter]. And maybe that’s why – you’ve been bonded since the beginning! That could be. We always had cats in our family at home. Never had a dog – always cats. Never more than two. 3 �Your mother had so many kids, she could only handle two cats. Good, you had a wonderful story and you told it so well. Many, many different experiences filled your life. As you look back now, what closing statements would you like to say? I would like to say that I have had a wonderful life. I think when you listen to the things I did and the places I went and the services I had, I think you will agree that I had a very - not really integrated experiences – but I look at them now and see where they were part of the whole. And one built on the other. Yes, even though they were different places and different activities, I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to have all of those various experiences. Like going to Paris, and going to Taiwan, and I never really. … my nurses in the hospital in Taiwan, they didn’t know much… they had had English taught to them every year that they went to school but they never used it. So, I made them use it. And they helped me to do a little Chinese, too, so it was reciprocal. What I liked about my experience in Taiwan was that the Chinese people would bring their patients to the hospital. The people that lived up north in the mountains, they would bring their mothers and their fathers to the hospital. And they would just leave them there and never come back to see them. So we would take care of them until… most of them were borderline dying and we would stay with them. But I really felt it was special for me because I would sit with them. If we had any patient that we knew was going to die, I would sit there with the patient til the very end. That was very special to me because I did not want them there by themselves. And the nurses – they wouldn’t go. That wasn’t part of their service. That was a wonderful experience for me. Thank you very much and thank you for sharing your beautiful life with us. It has been beautiful and I’ve loved every minute of it. And I thank you, my Sisters, you’re all part of my life now. So I’m very grateful to you for supporting me and being with me. Amen. Amen! 4 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Daughters of Charity, Province of St. Louise Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Schmalzried, Sister Maureen, D.C. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Scharper, Sister Annina, D.C. Location The location of the interview Emmitsburg, MD Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:17:26 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Scharper, Sr. Annina, D.C. Oral History Subject The topic of the resource Scharper, Sr. Annina, D.C.; Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Description An account of the resource Sister Annina Scharper discusses her life as a teacher, nurse and admnistrator as a sister of the Daughters of Charity. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scharper, Sr. Annina, D.C.; Schmalzried, Sr. Maureen, D.C. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Daughters of Charity Archives, Province of St. Louise, Emmitsburg, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 4/21/2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Keefer, Scott (Transcriber) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission for any type of publication of archival materials, including text, photographs, video, or audio must be secured from the Daughters of Charity Communications Director before publication.ÿ Contact archvies staff for appropriate forms and contact information During the lifetime of the interviewer and interviewee, permission must be secured from the individuals directly. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio/mp3; Application/pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Scharper, Sister Annina Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1924-2017 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Education Healthcare https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/c451095b12c34c0d739e9aff43766581.PNG 63d5aaa7c8578b2a8d125975d2265ff3 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/d199c7267cab54d043fb8ed3bd637062.mp3 2778fa24fadc2a01e3cc88f885a68726 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/4663826f45a5d9dd7e9594f54fd14f4f.pdf 1a88b5dc977211dadf417c258a68aedb PDF Text Text Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 1 of 17 JK: This interview is with Sister Susan Wood. The interviewer is Jane Kenamore. We're at the Mother House of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth in Leavenworth, Kansas, and the date is June 30th, 2017. Sister Susan, to get things started when and where were you born? SW: I was born on May 8th, 1947 in Washington, D.C. JK: And were you raised in Washington, D.C.? [00:00:37] SW: Oh, not at all. My father was a student at Georgetown at the time, so it was a very temporary stay for the family. I actually grew up in the Kansas City area from about the age of four. JK: Ok. And can you tell us about your parents? What was your father doing at Georgetown? SW: My father was going to Georgetown after World War II on the G.I. Bill. He was in the School of Foreign Service although he never did anything in foreign service. He ended up being a general manager for Standard Motor Products which sold ignitions and things like that for cars. My mother was a nurse from Owatonna, Minnesota. My father was from Altoona, Pennsylvania. They met in San Francisco and were married out there. And I was born in D.C. and grew up in Kansas City. JK: Ok. (Laughs) And did you attend parochial school in Kansas City? [00:01:41] SW: I attended St. Ann's in Prairie Village—the Sisters of Charity took it over at some point there—through the fifth grade. And then my brothers—I have two brothers—and we were in public school for three years which for me was grades sixth, seventh and eighth. And then I went to Miege High School, Bishop Miege High School in Shawnee, Kansas for high school. JK: Did you have as many kids in your class as the Sisters talk about? [00:02:12] SW: Well, in the fifth grade in St. Ann's in Prairie Village there were 52 in my classroom and 42 were fourth graders and the rest of us were fifth graders. JK: And taught by one person, right? [00:02:29] SW: Taught by one person. Sister Jean Carmel. JK: And how was it from your perspective? I haven't asked anybody how it was from the student's perspective. [00:02:40] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 2 of 17 SW: There was a big change for me between fifth grade and sixth grade because sixth grade I was in a public school and it was much smaller, and I had a very innovative teacher in the sixth grade, Mr. Diemer. They ended up naming a school after him when he died, and he was the one that taught me that I could be a student and kind of encouraged reading and creativity. St. Ann's was very regimented. I think it had to be to have that many students in the classroom. So, it didn't do me a lot of favors personally to be in that environment. And so it was much better for me to go to the public school and have that sixth grade experience. I didn't care for Junior High very much when I went there, and it was more comfortable in the Catholic high school when we switched over to that. JK: And the classes were smaller in the Catholic high school? [00:03:35] SW: I don't know if they were smaller but it was a familiar environment, and it was very college prep. And it was '61 to '65 that I was in high school. That was the Sputnik era. And so I had four years of math and four years of science. JK: Really. SW: Uh-huh. So, it was a very good education at that time. JK: Yes. And did he SCLs teach in the grade school that you attended? [00:04:09] SW: Part of the time. When I first went to St. Ann's it was the Ursulines of Paola, Kansas, and then at some point, and I don't know what year, the Sisters of Charity took over. And then the Ursulines had the high school that I went to. JK: Ok. You joined SCL right after your freshman year… SW: Of college. JK: …at St. Mary's. Right? [00:04:37] SW: Yes. JK: When did you begin thinking about entering a religious order or looking at a religious order? [00:04:45] SW: Probably in high school. JK: And what attracted you to the idea of women religious? [00:04:52] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 3 of 17 SW: Again, you have to put things in their historical context, and at that time if you were a woman and wanted to work in the church that was the obvious route to take. JK: In terms of leadership and…? [00:05:12] SW: Yes, but you know the feminist movement hadn't quite happened at that particular point in time. I mean what is interesting is that the Second Vatican Council ended in 1965 which was the year I graduated from high school, and so I entered right on the cusp of the Council. And it's interesting in terms of my history in community because I've lived through every conceivable change in community, because I was in the long habit for nine months as a novice. I never had the white cap that the professed Sisters wore, but by the time we made first profession we were in shorter skirts that were made out of the old habit. So, I went through the regime of the community which was traditional but it was changing when I was in formation. In fact, they didn't quite know what to do with people in formation. They didn't know what we were being formed for in a sense at that time. And so, I usually say, well, I've been there and I've done that, and I don't want to do it again. JK: So, how was it? Can you describe the formation period and some of the changes that were taking place at the time? [00:06:42] SW: One of the changes that had happened in the community shortly before I entered is that we started saying the Liturgy of the Hours for morning and evening prayer. Before that time it had been a prayer book full of novenas and short prayers. And so that was one of the things that happened before I entered. And it was as a result of the Second Vatican Council because the Council had recommended that we use that as the liturgical prayer of the Church. But I don't think it was ever in our bones as a community in the way it was for Benedictines who had always done that. So, that was one change. We had two kinds of silence, ordinary silence and sacred silence. Sacred silence was at night and between 2:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon here at the Mother House. Ordinary silence was you could talk to do your business but you didn't chatter. There were formal times for recreation. That was part of it. So, in some ways it was very much on a monastic model. And actually the reason for that is that there was a 1917 Code of Canon Law… You're getting this from a theologian. JK: Good. That's what I was looking for. [00:08:07] SW: There was a 1917 Code of Canon Law which tended to put all religious communities in the same mold, and it didn't differentiate between the different charisms of the community. And so they all looked alike, you know. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 4 of 17 Mother Xavier didn't start out wearing a veil. She wore a veil towards the end of her life because the Sisters wanted it because they wanted to look like other Sisters. But when we took it off it was actually returning to how we were originally, because the first Sisters wore prairie bonnets, if you’ve seen other pictures of Sisters of Charity. We were founded not to be monastic. St. Vincent de Paul said your cloister are the city streets and the rosary is your breviary in a sense. So, when the Second Vatican Council told communities to go back to the charism of their foundresses, communities like Benedictines, who were supposed to be monastic, retrieved that and started calling their convents monasteries again, you know like their Mother Houses. And then communities like mine said that we're not monastic. That isn't who we are and so that prompted the change in life at that time. So, things have changed a lot, and it's going back to whatever those original charisms were of the community. We're still doing that today. JK: You're still going back? [00:09:55] SW: Going back to… So, like we've retrieved our Vincentian charism. I think I wrote in and said… You know, I celebrated my jubilee last year and one of the comments I made in the thing I wrote was that when I entered, yes, we were Vincentian. We kind of knew what that was, but it wasn't at the forefront of consciousness in the same way as it is today. Whereas we're having a big community meeting in the next couple of days and we're looking at critical needs, and those critical needs tend to be social needs in society and looking at how we can respond to them. That's very Vincentian in a way. So, that's what happened. JK: You spent your early years teaching French and English in high school. How did you enjoy that? Was there anything that you didn't love about it? [00:11:00] SW: I was never meant to be a high school teacher, I would say. I did it for six years. The French I still use today 'cause I use it in research, 'cause I'm a theologian today. And I have never stopped teaching English to my students because I make them write. So, those are skills that have never been lost. But early on I knew I was more destined to be a college teacher. JK: So, when did you become interested in theology and how? [00:11:36] SW: Oh, there's a story behind that. JK: Oh, good. SW: (Laughs) 1973 I was making my first directed retreat here at the Mother House. And directed retreats are these things that the Jesuits did, and individually directed retreats were rather new in 1973. And they tended to march people through the spiritual exercises over eight days, and they were somewhat regimented. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 5 of 17 And I remember that one day I had this very… I say I don't have religious experiences but sometimes I have clear, discreet ideas. And I had this clear, discreet idea that I wanted to do theology, and I wanted to do with my mouth what some people do with their lives. And so I went into the retreat director and said, "I have this thought that I want to do theology." And he said, "That's a distraction. Put it aside." And so I thought I don't have to talk to you about this. But I was teaching high school in Topeka, Kansas at the time, Hayden High School, and so I went back and decided to do what I could, so I volunteered for the religious activities committee which planned the retreats and different liturgical functions for the high school and soon became director of that. And the Father Thomas Santo (phonetic) was principal of the school at the time, and he decided to go into fulltime administration and asked me if I would teach his religion classes. So, I picked up sophomore liturgy and morality and that's when I stopped teaching English at the time. [00:13:32] And then the community had this thing where you filled out a piece of paper every year. And so every year I'd put what I really want to do is teach theology. I was not released to study theology until 1981, so for eight years I kept asking to study theology. And finally there was no one else in the community who could have done it or would do it. And then they let me. And that was because you had to have a foreign language ability to do a PhD in theology and I had the French. And also at that time it meant that you were teaching at St. Mary College in Leavenworth Kansas, and some people didn't want to do that for the rest of their lives. Well, I didn't obviously because I taught at St. Mary for ten years. Four of those were French. Six of them were in theology after my PhD. And then I went onto St. John's in Collegeville where I taught for 13 years for the Benedictines. And then I've been at Marquette with the Jesuits now starting my thirteenth year. So, it all kind of worked out in the end but it took me eight years to kind of get going with it. JK: Why do you think it took eight years? [00:15:00] SW: I don't think the president of the college wanted me to do that. When I walked out the door she said you could do what you wanted to do better if you were in English. Although at the time the plan had been that I would get a PhD in French. But I'm glad I didn't because the bottom fell out of French studies. The last thing I did before I left St. Mary was to turn a major into a minor and very few people are studying that even at Marquette today. So, theology was much the better field for me to be in in the long run. So, that was it. I don't really know. JK: You mentioned the comment by the Jesuit in 1973. I mean although we think of the '70s as being a time of equality for women because the Women's Movement started in '69 but obviously that was not the case. Or do you think it was gender related? [00:16:18] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 6 of 17 SW: I don't think it was gender related. The other odd thing about 1973 is that was probably in June and I went off that summer to start my master's in French at Middlebury College. So, I had this conviction that I needed to study theology and went off in this other direction for this degree in French because at that point… I think early on in the community we tended to think of people filling slots in a way. And Sister Mary Vincentine was somebody in the community who had PhD in French with a master's in theology interestingly enough. And I was supposed to replace her. That was the thinking. That never happened but what's funny is I became the mirror image in some ways because I have a master's in French and the PhD in theology which was just kind of a reverse of what she did. Other than that we're very, very different. So, I think that was part of the thinking for a while, and so, I can't really say. But people left the community who had been earmarked to study theology. There was somebody in my novitiate class who they thought would succeed Sister Mary Jude who was teaching theology. And that person left the community. There were some people in Kansas City that they thought might do it but they didn't want to teach college. They were in pastoral work or they didn't have the language background. So, I mean I just had to stand in line. JK: Yes. Have there been any challenges. I mean theology is or was at least a male-dominated field, wasn't it? [00:18:29] SW: It still is. I'm in systematic theology. Some women tend to go into spirituality or they tend to go into pastoral theology. And if you're at a research institution like I am I would say… I looked it up and I think about… In research institutions that don't have these pastoral degrees the number of women tends to be about 25 percent. Now Marquette, we've been less than that for whatever reason. But I would say it still is. JK: Still is. SW: Uh-huh. Some areas of theology more than others. JK: Has that proved to be a problem for you or not? [00:19:22] SW: No. JK: Other than annoyances. SW: It isn't a problem. I mean the other thing is, you know, I'm enormously involved in ecumenical work, and I have four official appointments, two of them international. Well, three if you count the North American Orthodox, the International Commission for Baptists and Roman Catholics, and the International Commission for Lutherans and Roman Catholics and then the U.S. Dialogue, Lutherans and Catholics. And the Orthodox dialogue, I'm the only woman on the �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 7 of 17 Catholic side. There are two women appointed on the Orthodox side and there are at least 20 people sitting around the table. So, that shows that. And in terms of the U.S. Lutheran Catholic Dialogue, I'm the only woman appointment on the Catholic team. On the international dialogue there are two of us on the Catholic team. The Catholic Church tends to be gender-blind in terms of when they make these appointments they're not trying to balance anything. You know you're balanced for your expertise. Lutherans on the other hand have a quota system and the quota system is both gender and also region of the world that they come from or represent. And so, you know, on that side it's different. I have two brothers. They're twins to each other, two years younger than myself, and I say that they prepared me for the rest of my life. [00:21:03] JK: (Laughs) SW: When I left St. Mary College, I left St. Mary College, because I wanted to be a theologian. I wanted to write and publishing was not an emphasis here nor did we have the library to support it. And so that was making waves at the time because people didn't really… It was unusual to get a job outside of our own institutions. But I went and asked if I could look for another job and Sister Kathleen Stefani, who was community director at the time, said yes. I didn't want to discuss it. She didn't for some magic reason. And so I was in this job search for two years and St. John's moved very quickly and I went there. And that was a male environment because it was a school run by a male community of Benedictines who were walking around in these habits, and I thought oh, my gosh. What is this going to be like? But it ended up to an enormously nurturing environment for me and I loved it. And I didn't leave it because I didn't love it when I went to Marquette 13 years later. But it worked out really well. So, I do think there are issues with women in the church very definitely and also in academia and I think sometimes we have to be better in order to compete. But I've managed to do it, I guess, and hold my own. JK: Congratulations on that. It's very good. Can you tell us about St. John's and how are they nurturing? [00:23:15] SW: When I went I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know. Things weren't working out here and somebody had said, well, just get off dead center and try something. And so, here's the story. So, I was the new kid on the block and I had an eight o'clock class, because of course those are the last to fill up. And I would arrive at school about 7:15 in order to teach an eight o'clock class because you can't walk into a classroom cold. And Columba Stewart, one of the monks who was �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 8 of 17 in my department finally, figured that out or figured out that I was coming then. And he said if you're going to come at 7:15 why don't you come at 7:00 and pray with us? [00:24:16] I had never been in a choir stall in my entire life up to that point because we're not monastic. And so they had a guest section in the choir so I started coming to Morning Prayer. For several months I had this most amazing experience of, I think you'd call it, fight, flight and attraction. I was like a moth attracted to a flame and I wanted to come closer, and at the same time I wanted to run away as fast as I could. And this went on from October until January the 8th, no, December the 8th of that year. Well, December the 8th is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. And I was in the choir stall and I was up on the last rung and the monks are amazing because they really do feast days up really good. And so for this feast day they had hung votive candle lights from the ceiling or something and it was beautiful. But I remember looking over the choir stalls at everybody who was assembled, 'cause it was not unusual for guests to pray with us 'cause we had a school of theology there and so a lot of the students would come. And I remember just thinking to myself you don't know it yet but I belong here. And that sense, all that flight, attraction tension totally disappeared. And I ended up taking to it like a duck to water. I mean it was just the most amazing experience, and I loved it. And for the rest of my 13 years there I prayed Morning Prayer with them Monday through Friday at 7:00. And so they became a community and I was kind of an insider/outsider. I was an outsider because I was a woman. I was an outsider because I was a Sister of Charity of Leavenworth. I was apostolic and they were monastic. [00:26:52] Some of the Benedictines do marvelous things. Like there was a women's community about five or six miles down the road that we were in a partnership with as a school. And their prioresses would officiate at the funerals for their Sisters. Then I would come home here to Leavenworth and I'd start saying wouldn't it be a good idea if… and I would get just to the "if," not even the idea and somebody… the immediate response was but we're not monastic. In other words, they didn't even want to hear it, whatever it was. And so, here I was a Vincentian, an apostolic religious, a Sister of Charity that took to this Benedictine environment like you wouldn't believe and yet I never really wanted to be a Benedictine. I mean I could not do with my life today what I'm doing if I were a Benedictine because I would have a vow of stability and I'd have a different relationship to community life than I have now. But I was so attracted to their spirituality. And, in fact, for the first three years I was there—I was trying to figure it out—what does it mean for a Sister of Charity to be in this Benedictine environment? And there's a Benedictine up the road here in Acheson, Sister Irene Knoll, who would come and adjunct occasionally, and I was talking to her about this one day. And she clarified it in a way. She said the charisms of different religious communities, they're attracted to different parts of the Scriptures and that �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 9 of 17 becomes kind of emblematic for who they are. And for apostolic religious it tends to be the Gospel. So, for us it's Matthew 25, you know, "Whatever you do for the least of these you do to me." For Benedictines it's the Wisdom Literature. [00:29:00] And so I was involved with the St. John's Bible project from its inception at St. John's. I was on the Committee for Illumination and Text for years until we finished it which meant we wrote the theological briefs for the artist, Donald, who was the scribe. And early on we were talking about which passages would be illuminated and with what weight. And I was saying there's this passage in Sirach you have to illuminate because you pray this text for Morning Prayer on the Feast of St. Benedict. And they said, we do? You know they didn't even recognize it. I mean they recognized it but they… It was just so much a part of their life, you know. So, what it meant to be an outsider was in a way to reflect some things back to them that maybe they weren't able to see. And there were a few times I was able to speak to the community about sharing their charism. And I have good friends there, so they mean a lot to me. JK: Friends from when you were at St. John's? [00:30:20] SW: When I taught there. JK: Oh, interesting. SW: In fact, I'm going back August 2nd to the 8th this summer. JK: Oh, really. Just for a visit. SW: To visit. JK: How was your first experience as head of the Theology Department at Marquette? [00:30:45] SW: I was the first woman to ever be the chair of the department. I'm still the only woman who has been chair of that department. So, I don't think of myself as a pioneer, but I guess in some ways I have been. It's a challenge. When I was chair the first time around we had 32 members in the department, so it's a big department. JK: And are priests most of the other members of the department? [00:31:28] SW: No, no. They're a minority. JK: Oh, ok. SW: It's mostly lay people. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 10 of 17 JK: Ok. SW: Mostly men. JK: (Laughs) SW: It just is. Being chair is really hard. The personnel issues are the hardest. I think the higher you go up the academic ladder the bigger the egos become, so you're dealing with a lot of big egos. And so I think personnel issues are probably the hardest. JK: What types of personnel issues? [00:32:09] SW: I don't think I want to go into it. JK: Oh, ok. Yes, right. You mentioned in your bio as this (inaudible) asking you about everything you've written that your writings focus on the issues of ministry, sacramental theology, ecclesiology, and ecumenism. So, how did you become interested in these four topics first of all? [00:32:43] SW: Ministry was another one of these clear, discreet ideas that I sometimes have. I don't have a lot of them, but the ones I've had have been life changing or formative. And that one was one evening at 10:00 P.M. in 1988. I can't remember the date. I was in St. Louis at the time, and my dean who was Carol Hines here at St. Mary College at the time… People should watch me when I'm ready for a sabbatical 'cause I tend to jump ship at those junctures. But I had missed a sabbatical when I went off for PhD studies, so she said that she would fund a summer of research if I came up with a project. So, St. Louis is actually, probably the closest major theological library to Leavenworth at St. Louis University. So, I was in a residence there. And I had a project which I actually never, ever did. But I had to do two things that summer. One was to write a response to the Decree on Ecumenism for its 25th anniversary after Vatican II. And then the other thing was to do this other project, but we were having a big community meeting, and I had to come back to Leavenworth in the middle of it for that. So, at ten o'clock on this particular night I was putting the period on the first piece which was the Response to the Decree on Ecumenism, and it sounds strange but I had a clear, discreet idea of what a bishop was. And it was the concept that he represented the Church in the Communion of Churches and there was a parallel between the College of Bishops and the Communion of Churches which right now is a commonplace idea. But at that moment it was original for me and to me. So, then I went off to Leavenworth for a week and played around and went to a wedding and came back to St. Louis. And I was faced with a decision and that was do I keep my original �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 11 of 17 research project or do I go off in this new direction, which was totally different. And so I gave myself three days to snoop around the library and I basically tried to see what was out there. And so I made the decision to change the topic of my research and I decided to do the research on bishops. So, my studies on ministry didn't start with priesthood. It started with the episcopacy and worked down from there. And I wrote for four weeks. I mean I did this in four weeks, and I eventually published that article in Theological Studies which is one of our top journals. And so that basic concept about the representative function of a bishop I worked data for the next ten years in various ways. So it became programmatic for the work I was doing, the research I was doing while I was at St. John's. JK: So, what were your conclusions? [00:36:40] SW: That the bishop represents the Church and the Communion of Bishops and the Communion of Churches. And so what's different about a priest and a bishop isn't about power, but it's about this symbolic, representational function. And then, eventually, I wrote on the priesthood. I was going to do the diaconate and then I became chair of the department and I never kind of got there. So I've never done that study. I've gone off in other directions since. But that was how I got into ministry. Now ecumenism is basically that if a door opens I walk through it. And so, two things. I went to St. John's in Collegeville in 1992 and on my desk was a letter from Carl Braaten, who's a Lutheran, inviting me to a dogmatics colloquium that he was having in Northfield, Minnesota. And he and Robert Jenson, who's another kind of famous Lutheran theologian… Robert Jenson was teaching at St. Olaf's College in Northfield at that time. It was a group of younger scholars, many of whom had graduated from Yale. Many of whom were not Catholic, and we would meet in his basement and they'd put a table cloth over the ping pong table. That was our conference table. And we would sit there and we would write papers and have these theological discussions. [00:38:34] And there's something about Yale. They come out speaking their own language. And it was a foreign language to me. And again I was frequently one of very few women. Mostly these were guys. And the hot air would just go across that table like you wouldn't believe. And I would sit there thinking, Susan, you're smart. You should know what they're saying. And I knew what each individual word was and I had no idea why they were saying what they were saying or what they were saying. I mean you know it was just a lot of verbiage. But I stuck it out and eventually coedited a Festschrift for Carl Braaten and became good friends with him and Robert Jenson. But that was my first… My theological education in school had been almost exclusively Catholic. I'd read maybe Moltmann or some other authors. But it was pretty Catholic and my background was really Catholic and so this was an introduction to other thought. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 12 of 17 And then at the same time Jeff Gros was a Christian Brother who was on the staff of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Religious Affairs at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. And he was looking for ecclesiologist to staff dialogues. So, the first thing was I was invited to a meeting in West Palm Beach, Florida. And ecumenism at that time was kind of at a turning point because the dialogues had gone over most of the major issues, and they really didn't know what do we do next. And at that meeting I remember getting very excited by and very convinced by the notion of what's called Communion Ecclesiology and became vocally supportive of it. [00:40:59] Then I was appointed to a two-year commission of Lutherans and Roman Catholics, and we were just called the Joint Commission. And we were given two tasks. One was to review the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification for our churches. And the other one was to come up with a topic for the next U.S. Lutheran Catholic Round. I was the one who developed the topic and it was on communion ecclesiology and the structures and ministries of the Church seen through that lens. And it became round ten of that dialogue. And then, of course, if that's going to happen, then I was appointed to the dialogue to carry it out because it was basically my idea. And so I've been involved in Lutheran-Catholic conversations since 1994 which is when that commission began. [00:41:56] And then in 2005 Brian Daley who was the co-secretary of the North American Orthodox Dialogue invited me to be on that dialogue. And then about 2008, I think, I was appointed to the International Lutheran Dialogue because our topic is baptism and growth in communion and one of my books is Baptism and the Ecumenical Implications of the Doctrine of Baptism. I mean it's called One Baptism, the Ecumenical Implications of the Doctrine of Baptism. So, I'm sure that had to do with why I was appointed there. And so I've kind of been a major ecumenical figure… JK: Sounds like it. SW: … through all this. But, again, they invite you and you say yes. JK: And then you take the lead. Yes, yes. Interesting. [00:43:00] SW: It gets kind of technical, so I hope I'm not getting too technical here. JK: It does but thanks. Those are simple explanations. I appreciate it. So, we talked a bit about Vatican II—how did the changes brought on by Vatican II change your religious life? [00:43:26] SW: Yes, we did. JK: Ok. So, you've been distant from SCL geographically for some time. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 13 of 17 SW: Twenty-five years. JK: Yes, a long time. How has the community helped you nonetheless? Or has it? [00:43:52] SW: Sounds strange. They give me the rope to do what I need to do. They're very supportive. In some ways I think that if I would have had to have stayed here I wouldn't have been in the community today, 'cause I wouldn't have thrived. So, things are a little different now. I'm on the governance committee which is this new committee. We just had a General Chapter last summer. So, I'm on the governance committee and the committee appointed me as its chair. So, I absolutely love Sister Connie Phelps who's our community director. I'm so happy that we have her. But she's pulled me in from the margins. (Laughter) SW: She taught at the college. She taught sociology at the college for years, and she's just very important to me. And for a long time… I mean I never considered myself a fair-haired child of the community. I never considered myself one of the popular people for whatever reason. I just always seemed a little different in some ways. What I do is not the norm. We're not academics. We’re teachers. We don't write books. We don't write articles. I have 70 articles and five books. We don't do that. And so I'm sure that's part of the reason I have felt marginalized and I've been able to be part of the community because I'm at a distance in some ways. I mean it's kind of strange. I have friends in community. I have good friends, but they're all over the country. My friends don't tend to be geographically close to me. I have ecumenical friends that are everywhere and my good friends in the community they're here or they're in Montana. But when Connie became community director I said, "Let me know if I can help you." And she said, "Don't worry. I'm going to call on you." And so she put me on this committee, and we're in charge of this event in two days. And so, I don't need another thing to do. I mean I have a job and a half, 'cause all the ecumenical work is in addition to my day job. So, she's pulling me in from the margins. [00:46:56] But the other thing that is really strange is that when I… I celebrated my 50th Jubilee last summer. And when I talk about these years with you I mean they seem like yesterday, you know. But when I entered we were just under a thousand Sisters, and now we're slightly over 200, 200 and, I don't 'know what we are, 15 maybe. Somewhere in there. And so we're downstairs. Just before I came in here we were moving tables for the meeting and 114 Sisters are going to be active participants of this meeting and then we have some observers. And the committee, we had a meeting at 1:30 today and we said next year when we do this there will not be 114 because of where the demographics are. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 14 of 17 So, in my lifetime we were at a point where we were wondering whether we should divide into provinces because we were so big, but they could never figure out how to cut up the pie and keep the schools and the hospitals in some kind of cohesive unity. And it's good that we never divided into provinces because we'd be combining them today. JK: That's right. [00:48:24] SW: But it is kind of scary to think about the diminishment. We do have some fabulous younger Sisters. And some communities haven't had anybody enter in 20 years. I mean we have wonderful, talented, younger Sisters. But the future's not going to be where it is today. JK: What is the future? I mean would you ever consider admitting men for example or bringing associates closer to the community. I don't know. Are there other ways of looking at the future of SCL? [00:49:15] SW: Men, no. JK: (Laughs) SW: Sorry. JK: (Laughs) SW: Associates, I think, they're very different. It's a very different model. Whether you would have some people who have more temporary commitments versus a lifetime commitment, I don't know. If you look at the history of religious life I think of Thomas Merton The Seven Storey Mountain. Thomas Merton entered his community… He became a Trappist in 1947, 1948, somewhere along in there, I think. I hope that's right. Anyway, after World War II there was a huge influx into religious communities. And I think the kind of despair that war leads to sometimes causes people to look at religion in a way they haven't before. But the sociologists tell us that that was a blip on the historical screen and that the norm has been smaller communities. And religious Sisters are really responsible for the healthcare system in this country. But that's being taken over, such as it's surviving these days, by secular entities and the same thing with school systems. So, we're moving away from those institutions, but I still think there's a care for serving those who are in need. And so that will look different. I think communities will be smaller. I think in the near future collaboration with other communities. I certainly hope we don't have to meld with another community anytime soon. I personally am not looking forward to that and certainly in terms of joining them and their works and working together. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 15 of 17 JK: I see. Can you talk a little bit about the new structure that's exemplified by the meeting on Sunday and Monday? [00:51:49] SW: Ok. At our last Chapter we voted in a new governance structure. It doesn't change anything in our constitutions. It doesn't change anything in terms of the General Council and the community director. But we had been experimenting with something called Leaven Groups. Of course it's a play on Leavenworth. JK: (Laughs) SW: We get our money's worth where we are. I sometimes think of that game where you say it's smaller than a house and larger than a breadbox. A Leaven Group is larger than a local community and smaller than a region. And most of them are six to eight people. And it's to get kind of a sense of community because more Sisters are living alone and in very small groups. It's kind of a grassroots kind of structure where it's supposed to be participatory. We do contemplative dialogue. We start with faith sharing, so it has that kind of a basis. But it's a place for issues to be raised at the grassroots level and then kind of trickle up rather than everything be down. And then there's supposed to be continuity between Leaven Groups and the Annual Assembly. Now that we're as small as we are it's feasible for us to come back once a year and have this assembly. So, this is the first one of that. So, there's supposed to be an interchange between those Leaven Groups and the assembly. [00:53:33] I'm affiliated with a Leaven Group in Helena, Montana. So, we meet twice a year. We meet from 9:00 in the morning 'til 3:00 in the afternoon. When I see that the Kansas City and the Leavenworth groups meet for an hour twice a year, you know, I shake my head and say how can they possibly do that? Even in Montana they have to travel from Missoula or Hamilton to Helena, and I'm flying in from Milwaukee. We're going to make that quality time in a way that local people don't. And maybe we have a bigger need for that. So, we have a fabulous group out there. And I enjoy it immensely. And it's my primary community really. JK: So, what are some of the issues that you will be discussing if you can talk about that? [00:54:37] SW: Ok. One of the things that the Leaven Groups did in their two previous meetings was to surface critical needs and so there are five critical needs that we've identified. One is immigration, refugees. One is limited access to healthcare. One is human trafficking. One is care for creation and the environment. And one is spiritual hunger. And so those are the five areas that we're going to be looking at. But, as I said to the group you can't start just meeting needs. You have to assess the needs. You have to assess your resources. You have to assess in a local situation what needs to be done. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 16 of 17 So, we're having two panels as part of this day, these two days. The first panel will be people who've been involved in assessing needs. We'll talk about that process. So, Sister Vickie Perkins is going to be talking about Welcome Central which is an organization here in Leavenworth that they worked together with the leaders of various churches to see what the needs of the City of Leavenworth are and they've come up with this Welcome Central. [00:55:57] Our Peruvian Sisters are going to talk about their assessment in Piura, Peru which led to the St. Vincent Pastoral Center there. And then we have a layman, Casey Dunning, who's related to our Sister Marie Carmel Dunning—she's 98 years old—who's coming here to talk about the Interfaith Cooperative in Missoula, Montana. So, they'll be talking about this process of assessment. And then we'll have a panel in the afternoon where we have Sisters who are actually working with immigration, care of creation and so forth. And then we have doctor who's the head of the clinic in Topeka. So, they will be examples of people who are already involved in those critical areas. And then the Sisters will see what bubbles up and to see if there is some kind of response that we feel called to beyond those individuals. So, that's where we're going. [00:57:04] At the Chapter we also developed a directional statement. So the mandate for the Leaven Assemblies and the Leaven Groups is to unpack that statement. And one of the statements in that directional statement was to address critical needs and their systemic causes. So, that's what we're doing. JK: Oh that really sounds interesting. Well, thank you very much. SW: You're welcome. JK: Do you have anything else you'd like to add? [00:57:39] SW: I don't know. It's just that I feel a vocation to be a theologian and that's become clear and this is the context in which I do that. It's amazing. It does not seem like 51 years now. JK: You've got a huge amount of work as chair of the department, teaching, research and then your spare time SCL stuff. [00:58:20] SW: It's full. JK: It's very full, but I can tell that you love it. [58:27] SW: I do. JK: Yes, yes. So, thank you again. SW: Oh, you're welcome. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Susan Wood Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 30, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, October 1, 2017 Page 17 of 17 ### � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Wood, S. Susan Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Kenamore, Jane Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MPEG Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 58:52:00 Location The location of the interview Digital Sisters Files Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wood, S. Susan, Oral History, 6/30/2017 Subject The topic of the resource Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth; Teaching; Theology; Vatican II; Charism Description An account of the resource Susan begins with what it was like coming to the Community just post-Vatican II. She discusses the changes of Vatican II from a personal as well as a theologian's point of view. She talks about beginning her missions in the Community as a teacher but not finding she was strong at it. She then speaks of having her epiphany that she wanted to work in theology and her path to get there. She also talks about feeling connections to charisms from other Communities as she works and finding deeper meaning in the Community through that. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wood, S. Susan; Kenamore, Jane Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/30/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All rights belong to the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Wood, S. Susan; Kenamore, Jane Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1947-2017 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Audios Education Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/c315b9c8b4b3a2ba229d4cabf46a6a4d.PNG 191ffefedb600320aa608953dfd838c3 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/3fd1f86b8beaf362c183940296a11eb1.mp3 42e3635d6c2dce6b84609019505f2e1b https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/c07abc670d0075ff9d418b42f598ca92.pdf 1ca802a78aec10183893ca315c66be85 PDF Text Text Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 1 of 32 JK: This interview is with Sister Kevin Marie Flynn. The interviewer is Jane Kenamore. We're at the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth in Leavenworth, Kansas. We're at the Mother House, and the date is June 27th, 2017. So, Sister Kevin Marie, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed. KMF: You're welcome. JK: I think you're the only SCL right now who was born in Ireland, though there used to be several. Am I right on that? [00:00:37] KMF: Right, yes. JK: Can you tell us about growing up there. Who were your parents? What are your early memories of County Longford and so on? [00:00:49] KMF: Ok. I actually was born on the border of Langford and Leitrim and our address… JK: And where is that location? [00:00:57] KMF: Leitrim, it's sort of close to Dublin. I mean it's about six miles east of Dublin. JK: Oh, ok. KMF: And it would be more central, I think, than any other county. You don't hear too many people coming from Longford or Leitrim. It's not as popular as Cork or Tipperary or any of those places that a lot of the Sisters used to come from, Limerick especially. I was born the ninth in a family, a large family, and we were born in the country. It was a countryside. It was a very popular countryside. It was at a crossroads, and we became very wellknown as the Flynns from the crossroads. It was very popular for sports, for gatherings, because it was at a crossroads. And my childhood, as I look back upon it, was a beautiful experience of growing in a large family and having lots of fun and being wild in a way, because we were always out in nature and doing beautiful things out. The stars and the sun and the sky, and all of that were all very important in our lives. JK: And you were the ninth. How many were…? [00:02:12] KMF: I was the ninth girl. JK: How many…? �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 2 of 32 KMF: I was the ninth, yes, and there were nine of us, as I said, nine. There were five boys ahead of me and two girls, three girls ahead of me. JK: Three girls. KMF: Five boys and four girls. JK: So, you were the baby of the…? [00:02:28] KMF: And I was the baby of the family. JK: Ok. KMF: There were three of us at the end that… there were probably six years, seven years between the three of us. The oldest of the three would be seven about maybe even… The next one was born and then I was born and she was three or four, the one ahead of me. JK: And can you tell us about your parents? [00:02:50] KMF: My parents were… I don't know really too much about their courtship, 'cause they didn't… We didn't talk about that that much. We took it for granted, I guess. But my dad was from the area, but my mother was from another country area, and she had large families and so did he. He was an orphan actually of a big family, and they were raised in an orphanage in Dublin—my dad's family. JK: Oh, they were? Oh. KMF: And there were five or six boys and I think a couple of girls but we never did know the girls because they died younger. So, I never met them, my aunts on his side. But his five brothers were very, very close to each other that I remember as we grew up they would come to visit. And two or three of them would go off visiting by themselves and have a good time together. So, they were very close, my dad's family. JK: Did he ever talk about growing up in an orphanage? [00:03:54] KMF: Not too much, no. JK: It must not have been… KMF: Never talked about it too much, no, but I don't think they were there that long. JK: Oh good. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 3 of 32 KMF: And I'm not even sure of how my grandfather died. That didn't seem to be very important history for them, I think. But just because I was the youngest they used to tell me as I was growing up that I was spoiled, but, of course, I never thought I was. But my bigger brothers and sisters, my brothers especially, they were in the working stage while I was young and they were very good to me. They owned cars for the first time and they'd be coming home from something or another and they'd pick us all up from school—you know, that kind of thing—which didn't happen to any of the rest of them in the family. And my brothers often gave me money, and they were very good, especially one of them who what my godfather. But later when I went home after I was a Sister—I went home for the first time after several years over here—he said to me one day, "Did you ever know why I was your godfather and not Francy?" (phonetic) who was the oldest of the crowd. And I said, "No. I just thought you were dying to be my godfather." And he said, "No, not exactly." (Laughs) He said, "I had to be because Francy refused. He did not want to have anything to do with having a baby sister." JK: Oh, how funny. [00:05:21] KMF: So, you know how older brothers are when the parents are still having children. You know they're thinking oh, my God, another baby. But I never saw that in their lives. I never saw that in their behavior toward me. I was always spoiled, and I always had a great time. And I do remember my childhood growing up was always full of fun. JK: Must have been. KMF: And one of adventure and play and just a good time. And faith was a very important… being Catholic was… We never thought of being anything else but Catholic, because everybody was Catholic there. But I think that my faith grew more from my home than it did ever from my church because the church was kind of thought about as the place where you receive the sacraments and the bigger or the most important part of being Catholic. But the way, we were raised was always very faith-filled. Like, for instance, we had always had the rosary at night and always as a family, you know, even as teenagers that had to kneel down beside the chair and said the rosary. The Angelus would ring in the middle of the day and everybody would stop and pray the Angelus. If there were men out working the field they'd take their hats off. If you had a drink of water like this you'd say, "Oh, blessings on the water. Thank you God." God was always part of our everyday life and the providence of God taking care of us. So, we lived that way. You know it was just very faith-filled, but we never thought of it as being faith-filled. We thought of it more as just the ordinary way of living. So, I think that's what has �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 4 of 32 stayed with me through the years is that faith that I saw in my parents and in my older brothers and sisters as I grew up, and not just them but in everyone around us. You know it was just a… JK: You mentioned earlier that your older…. yes, it had to be an older brother was a priest. KMF: Yes. JK: Which brother was that? [00:07:27] KMF: He was the third one from the top. JK: Ok. KMF: Third one down. And he had gone to a seminary over there. JK: And how did he decide to be a priest? [00:07:36] KMF: Bishops of that time went over there to… Well, he decided on his own, I suppose, to go to the seminary. Some other priest might have… He might have looked at somebody and said, "Oh, I might like to do something like that." But Bishops would go… How he got to the States—Bishops would go over to different seminaries and speak about the need of priests over here, and then he would offer them the last two years of their theology over here in the States. If they wanted to come to his diocese he would pay for their theology. And so that's how a lot of them are recruited to come over to the States. JK: And which diocese did he go to? [00:08:23] KMF: The Lincoln Diocese. He was in the Lincoln Diocese. JK: In Nebraska. KMF: In Nebraska. JK: Ok. KMF: So, the reason then… It was really through him that I got over here and, in a sense, because I went to a boarding school. It was called a finishing school, and I always smile when I say finishing school because people think, oh, you went to a finishing school? Like it's a big uppity. But it was just an ordinary convent school, boarding school, and it was over in County Mayo which is the west of Ireland. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 5 of 32 So, I boarded over there, and there were lots of other girls with me and everybody from different counties. And if you were from a different county it as like you were in another country. You're from County Longford, where's that? You know that type of thing even though it was all small. It was small. But Sisters used to come and speak to us about their missionary work, and they would be from Africa, Australia, England, France. They were all missionaries. It was the time in the church of missionary work, going over to a country, converting them to Catholicism and that type of thing. And so, it fascinated me, their stories about the people they worked with. And it also fascinates me to this day that Sisters then were able to do what they did, because these Sisters would talk to us. Now this is '88, and so these Sisters would… It would be a long time ago when they would be speaking to us. And they would tell us about their work and so many of them would go over to Africa or Australia or another place. They would start a hospital. They would have their own doctors. I don't know how they got educated as women, but I think it was because they were Sisters they could be educated as women to doctors and no one thought of them as women. That's the only thing I can think of. JK: So, the doctors were women? [00:10:29] KMF: Right. JK: That's fantastic. KMF: They were doctors from among themselves and nurses. All of the people who went over to do that missionary work were Sisters from among their community. And they would go over to an area, a poor area, and they would start a hospital in a very small area, and not much... It would be just like a little shack probably to begin with. They would train the native people in different hospital work, in different areas of the work. And pretty soon they began to educate the nursing and they began to get their own doctors and began to build within that community their own doctors and their own native people. And then the hospital would expand. And that's how they developed, the same as schools. JK: Interesting. [00:11:22] KMF: They started with themselves and they worked for the people. They didn't work for themselves. JK: What was that order that you're talking about? [00:11:29] KMF: That would be different orders. This one was…. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 6 of 32 JK: Various. KMF: They were the Medical Missionaries of Mary. That was their title and that's what they did. They did a lot of nursing. But a lot of different communities would speak to us. But that was the one that appealed to me—the Medical Missionaries of Mary. JK: So, why didn't you join that one instead of coming over here? [00:11:49] KMF: Well, this is the story. Then they left. I went home then at Christmas and I said, "Oh, yes, by the way, I'm going to go to Africa and join the…" It was kind of a nonchalant kind of thing, and you didn't make a big fuss over the different things. And so, my mother said, "Africa?" And I said, "Yes, these Sisters had come," and I told her the story, you know, how exciting it was and all that. So, then my brother came home in the meantime or maybe six months later or whatever because you couldn't do anything within a year. There was a war going on in the first place, and anytime you had to leave the country it took a whole year to prepare and to get a… So, anyway, he came home and my mother must have said to him, "Talk her out of going to Africa, and maybe she could go to the States." So, he said to me one day when he was there, "Well, why would you want to go to Africa?" And I said, "Because those Sisters were from Africa, and that's…" And he said, "Why don't you come to the United States?" And I said, "Sisters never came and talked to us about the United States. I don't know anything about it. I don't know any Sisters there." And he said, "Well, I know Sisters," because he had our Sisters in his parish. The Sisters of Charity were, and they were also attached to a hospital. It was Falls City, I think, Nebraska. And they had a school, and they had a hospital there. So, I said, "Well," I said, "oh, well, all right. What's the difference, Africa or America?" And it really wasn't to me at that time. So, I still have a kind of an inkling for Africa, but I wouldn't think of going there now. That's for sure. JK: (Laughs) KMF: It was the missionary aspect of it that attracted me. JK: I see. KMF: The adventure. Let me say the adventure. JK: So, you decided on the adventure of the United States. [00:13:45] KMF: So, yes. I was finishing school and so then I said… He said let me write to the leader. Let me write to the superior of the Sisters of Charity. And at that point the mother superior was Mother Francesca O'Shea. She was from Ireland. So, of course, that didn't hurt, you know, the fact that she was from Ireland. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 7 of 32 So, it didn't take very long. I came sight unseen so to speak. They didn't know who they were getting. They knew him, and he had a good reputation among the Sisters. So, when I arrived I stayed with him. I think I stayed with him a week or so before I came to the community here. JK: Other than The Wizard of Oz, what did you know about Kansas? [00:14:29] KMF: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. JK: (Laughs) KMF: Nothing at all. It's sight unseen for them and for me. JK: What were your first impressions of the Mother House and Leavenworth in general? [00:14:41] KMF: I had stayed with my brother at the rectory, and I was bored to pieces. You know I'd think, oh, my God, I want to get out of this place soon, because everywhere I went he'd say, watch when you go out there when you do… because I was the only woman around. The only girl around, I should say. And so, it wasn't that he was careful, but it was curtailing for me not to have any young people. So, the entrance day was September 8th, I think, '47, and so he brought me down to the Mother House and I was introduced to the people I should be first. And then I was brought into the novitiate, and this large crowd of young people my own age was there to greet me. There were 32 of them. And there were 32 just in my class alone, so I was just among young people again, and so that's what gave me life, to be truthful. JK: Oh, good. And there were other Irish Sisters there too, right? [00:15:43] KMF: There were other Irish Sisters but they were all a generation ahead of me. They were professed and they were middle age probably at that time, and I had no association with them that much at all because we were more on our own. Our schedule was not mingled with them for sure. Our schedule was to have classes and have training and have everything that we needed to become postulants and professed. And that would be two years time at least. So, I didn't really know. I might have met them but there was a generation between us. So, when you're at that age generation means a lot. JK: Oh, it does. [00:16:25] KMF: So, I associated a lot more, which was good in the aftermath as I look back on it, a lot more with the American crowd that I was in the midst of. And I made great friends and I loved it. I loved my novitiate. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 8 of 32 JK: Oh, good. KMF: I loved the different personalities and just being a part of them all. And being accepted, so well accepted. And there are people who still tell me some of the things that I said when I was there that they couldn't tell what in the world I was talking about. JK: Like, for instance? [00:16:57] KMF: Well, there's one Sister who tells me about… and I never remember saying it nor never do I remember but… and stories do change a little bit. But she said we were at table one day and I wanted milk, and it was a long table. And so the milk pitcher was down at the other end, and so I said to someone next me, "Would you see if there's any milk lurking in that jug down there at the end?" (Laughter) KMF: Now, she tells me that every time I see her because she's a little bit older than I am now. And I said, "Now, honest to God, Marcella, I don't think I remember saying that but whatever." So, there are lots that people say I said and all that, which I probably did. But we have lots of good stories about novitiate anyway besides just the stories I would… JK: Can you tell...? [00:17:52] KMF: I'll tell you this one story quickly. The Wren Day, St. Stephen's Day, is a big day in Ireland. And my first St. Stephen's Day here we were in the novitiate. Now, the novitiate is a place… Did anyone mention the novitiate to you yet? You know, being part of the novitiate? JK: Well, I would like more information. [00:18:13] KMF: It's segregated from the professed Sisters, and we have regulations of our own. We're in training so to speak. And there is a mistress of novices and a director over us. There are two people and they are our guides. And then we have each other. We don't mingle. We didn't mingle with the professed sisters. We had an area of our own and everything. It was our schedule. And that was to keep us from distraction and people who came because of their friends being there. They didn't see their friends that much. It was just different. But anyway, St. Stephens's Day in Ireland is a big day. They dress up. Do you know anything about St. Stephen's Day? No, you don't. JK: Not a lot. [00:18:54] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 9 of 32 KMF: They dress up and they go out Wrenning. Wrenning means you go from house to house and you demand money and they don't know who you are, and you sing a song. It's just a tradition and it's the day after Christmas, the very day after Christmas. It's a big tradition with young adults and children over there and then, you know, it… So, I got a couple of my friends and they, of course, loved anything from Ireland. And so I said, "Let's get dressed up and"—this is St. Stephen's Day—"and we will go down to the community room," which was out of our area. The community room was down where the professed Sisters were, where we weren't supposed to go. JK: I see. KMF: I said, "They won't know us because we're all dressed up, and we'll ask for a box of… we'll ask for something, and Mother Francesca will know what it means because she was from Ireland." So, I don't know if we snuck out or if we had time, but we went down to the basement and we got boxes and put them over our head and put a face in front and two eyes so they didn't know who we were, and we went down to the community room. And they were all playing cards at different tables. And we went to the superior's table or the officer's, the most important table, and we sang, "The wren, the wren, the king of all birds, get up…" and whatever it went. And Mother Francesca looked at us, and I think she knew that I was the ringleader of it. So, she went to the closest and gave us a big box of candy, chocolate. So, back we came and we were delighted with the chocolate of course, and we presented it to our mistress of novices. And she said, "Where'd you get this?" And then the story came out. And they said, "Elizabeth brought us down to celebrate the Wren Day." And then they… well, they got more punished than I did. I got away with it because I didn't know any better. But the two of them—their deceased since—but they never let me forget how I got them in trouble. JK: (Laughs) KMF: And I didn't get in trouble but they did. So, that was one of the fun things about it. JK: That's funny. So, has the novice training changed over time? [00:21:17] KMF: Oh it has changed a whole lot. Yes, because there aren't as many. JK: So, how is it different? [00:21:20] KMF: It's so, so different. There's only one or two to begin with. JK: Oh, that's true. KMF: That's the thing. And so they're mingling with us all the time. It's different completely. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 10 of 32 JK: Yes, ok. KMF: It's a whole different ballgame, uh-huh. JK: What was the most difficult adjustment in your new home? [00:21:36] KMF: My most difficult… in coming here would be learning the culture, but it didn't bother me that much because everybody was so darn friendly, you know, and they took you in. I just became friends with so many different ones, so many different personalities that I felt at home being around young people. That was really what did my novitiate for me. I don't remember the praying part of it that much and all that. We also had lots of fun things that we… There were a lot of fun personalities among the Sisters. They just kept life going. We had lots of different rules but the fun behind the rules was what really, as far as I'm concerned, was really what kept us going and the camaraderie together of so many young people wanting to do the same thing in life. You know that kind of thing was kind of encouraging to me. But the hardest thing for me was the eating and the food, getting used to the food was so different for me. But eating because we ate differently. We used the fork. The fork was just used the opposite in our hands, and so I was always looking around and trying to look at the mistress of novices and she was eating very sedately, you know, and I was next to her because the youngest was always next… So, I let silverware fall just about every meal. You know I was picking up something off the floor. But pretty soon I got used to it, but I do remember that as being a big, big adjustment. JK: Right. What were some of the rules that you had that you either got around or dealt with? [00:23:19] KMF: The silence was a big thing. Yes, the silence was a big thing, keeping quiet at certain times when you weren't able to talk. Those are the hardest for me because when we were able to talk and communicate you sort of had fun. And if you didn't have fun, you know, a schedule of fun, you always had fun just interacting, doing something on somebody or whatever. JK: When were you not allowed to speak? [00:23:41] KMF: Three in the afternoon was a quiet time—3:00 to 4:00, or 2:00 to 3:00 or something like that. JK: But you could eat… dinners or meals were not silent. [00:23:51] KMF: Some meals were silent too. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 11 of 32 JK: Oh, ok. KMF: There were just lots of different things. But we never… There were five or six of us still, four or five, and we can still talk about novitiate days even though they were just two years, you know, but they were the beginning and so we kind of hang in together. But you meet all kinds of Sisters along the way after that, you know, through life which is the biggest part for me of a great community life, meeting so many different ones. JK: Your first ministry involved teaching in elementary school as had most of the other young Sisters. [00:24:37] KMF: Mine was in Leadville, Colorado, and it was at a very high altitude, but I didn't even realize that at the time. I was just getting so used to so many different things that the altitude probably didn't bother me. But I do remember getting the measles while I was there—measles. And the place that we taught had a hospital as well as a school, and the Sisters from the hospital worked… lived together and the school Sisters lived together. And we lived in a kind of a dorm. It was an old hospital, a very old hospital, and our dorm was almost part of the hospital. And so I remember being in a hospital room very close to where I was living in the dorm. The cure for measles was lying in the dark six to seven days without lights. JK: I know they believed… well, at the time … KMF: I don't know what it was. JK: … they believed it would help prevent blindness, 'cause I guess blindness was a… KMF: Right, or something to that effect. JK: …side effect of the measles. [00:25:37] KMF: I just vaguely remembered how did I survive those seven days or whatever, because the room was stark and bare to begin with. But I got over it. I guess I did anyway. JK: And you didn't give it to anybody else? [00:25:48] KMF: I didn't give it to anybody else. So, that was good. JK: Oh, that's good. KMF: But Leadville had… There were lots of other strange things in Leadville because of the Sisters in the hospitals living together, you know, at that time. I learned a lot there about school. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 12 of 32 JK: You feel like it's a frontier town. Of course it is. [00:26:10] KMF: Uh-huh. And the other thing, my biggest problem there was just learning the ropes as being a part of the school system, being on faculty, because our report cards, for instance… I had a mentor from among the teachers. One Sister was assigned to me to keep me abreast on what was happening so to speak. And I remember when it was report card time… Are you familiar with report cards? JK: Oh, yes. [00:26:47] KMF: There are six sections and you fill in the first one for the first six weeks, I think, or the first six something or another. They get grades even, six… So, they bring it home to their parents and then they bring it back and you keep to the next time. And, well, I saw one of the Sisters working on hers long before it was time. And I thought, oh, my gosh, maybe I should start working on mine too. So, I worked on them and I had four or five of them done. And we had been teaching now close to six weeks. And so I saw the six spaces, so I gave them a grade. I had made out four or five report cards, and I had given them a grade for every week. JK: Oh, no. (Laughter) KMF: I had filled in the whole report card until this mentor said… I said, "Oh, I have already some of my report cards done." And she said, "Let me see them." And she just laughed and laughed and laughed when she saw them. And I'm thinking what is she laughing at? So, she said, "These are given one space." She said, "You have to do these over again." At that time asking for five more report cards was a big deal, so I did get into a little scrap over that one—not to be so quick and to ask questions. Money was another thing. We were taking up pagan baby money, and I didn't know the difference. We didn't use money in the novitiate, so I never learned American money. I had to learn it then and there and so you get it mixed up kind of. So, we were missing money turned in to the pagan babies or something. I can't recall what it was. Maybe it was music money. Oh, I know. It was music money that this kid was supposed to be… He was taking music lessons from one of our Sisters and the mother was sending the money with him daily or weekly for the lessons to pay exactly then and there. And we had a contest between the boys and the girls at the same time about who was going to make the most money for the pagan babies whether it was the boys or the girls. And this little guy was giving his music money so the boys would always be ahead. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 13 of 32 And so the day came when the bill went home for the music and the mother said, "I've been sending money with him every week." And I don't know how much it was. So, the next thing you know I was called and said, "You know, Jimmy Irwin."—I remembered his name—"He takes music lessons and he hasn't paid for his music, and the mom says she's been giving it to him every week." And then I said, "No. Oh, my gosh. That's the reason why the boys are ahead all the time." JK: (Laughs) KMF: The boys wanted to be ahead of the girls so it was a competition between the boys… So, we had to cough up… and so I didn't … the principal said to me, "We are ten dollars short of music money," or something. And she said, "We have to make that up." And I'm thinking I have no idea where we are going to get ten dollars. I said, "Maybe you can write to my brother and ask him for ten dollars." JK: (Laughs) KMF: So, anyway, that was one money deal but it turned out ok. JK: Were your classes as large as other people's…? [00:29:57] KMF: Oh, yes, they probably were. I don't remember much. I just survived, I think. Leadville was just a year. I was only there one year. JK: Only one year. Ok. [00:30:05] KMF: And then I was moved to… I think I was moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and it was easier each year because I began to know more and more. But the kids were always… They were always reminding me of something. There would be a great… If I was saying something incorrectly in spelling words, they'd say, that's pronounced… They wouldn't pay any attention to the way I'd pronounce it. So, sometimes I found them my better teachers really. [30:38] When I went to St. Laurence in Laramie, that was the first time where I was principal, and I was there a year before the principal was leaving. And I'm sure that I was being shaped to be her replacement, but I didn't know it at the time. JK: Oh, you didn't. [00:31:00] KMF: No. But it was very… JK: Did you go to Laramie first and then Helena, I mean… KMF: Yes. I was in Laramie first and then Helena. Yes. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 14 of 32 JK: Oh, ok. KMF: And Laramie was Wyoming. It's a very small city really. It had a university. That was the big thing. And we had a wonderful staff there. We had a junior high. Not too many places had junior highs at that time. But we didn't have a high school there. So, we had them come to the ninth grade instead of having to go into junior high and then move again. So, that was about the… you know, in Laramie. JK: How did you like administration as opposed to teaching? [00:31:45] KMF: I kind of glided into it easily, I think. I didn't make a big to-do about it, I don't think. I had so many good Sisters, I mean companions there that were really good assistants and helped in so many different ways that I'm sure they took the burden off the principalship. I don't remember it being stressful to be truthful. JK: Oh, good. How long had you taught before you became a principal? [00:32:11] KMF: Oh, probably 14 or… 10 or 15 years, I'm not sure. Around in there. JK: Ok. So, where else did you teach then? [00:32:19] KMF: Then I went to… from Laramie I went to Helena, and that's where the schools closed. JK: No, I mean where did you teach after Leadville? [00:32:28] KMF: Oh. I was out in California for a year, and I was in Leavenworth. I was out in California for a couple of years. JK: Where in California? [00:32:36] KMF: It was called Visitation School in Los Angeles. JK: Oh, in Los Angeles. KMF: And it was a very big school too. And I got changed from there because some Sister there had to be back here close by for something or another. And it was just a good experience for me. That's all. I can't remember much about it. And the kids were very nice, very good kids. And from there then I went to Helena. That's where I went. And I was only there in Helena for two years when that school closed. And it was one of our first schools closing. A lot have closed since. Well, many of them have closed since. JK: And why did it close? [00:33:11] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 15 of 32 KMF: It was the bishop's decision because a lot of the money was going into the Catholic schools system from the parish, and there were a lot of other students, a lot of other children not able to go and pay the tuition. So, he felt it was unfair to have a Catholic school going really and not having some good religious education programs for all of the children together because some families weren't able to pay the tuition. JK: I see. KMF: So, it was a hard decision at the time because not many schools were closing, but he was a very strong man. His name was Bishop Hunthausen. And he saw the handwriting on the wall and it was a very difficult thing for all the Sisters that were there because we were all without jobs. And that was the beginning of my other career which is the most important part of my life, I think, is the next career that I've gotten into. JK: Oh, good. Before we leave that when was it that that school closed? [00:34:18] KMF: Let me see. In '69, maybe '69 or around. It was maybe '68. I'm not sure. JK: Right. KMF: It was in the '60s, and there were nine of us teaching and there were nine of us without… You know when the schools closed we all wondered now where do we go. And so five, I think, of us stayed on to bridge the gap between the religious education program that we were going to work on and not having a school, to bridge the gap for the parents that had sent their kids to a Catholic school. So they would still see us and be familiar with us. And so then that was the beginning of pastoral ministry work in parishes. JK: I see. KMF: And then we began to work closer with the priests. And we became one big staff rather than the Sisters here and the priests there. JK: I see. And what did you do in your new position and where was it? [00:35:22] KMF: The next one you mean. JK: Your first position in pastoral care. KMF: Oh, my first there in Helena. I continued to work in pastoral ministry. JK: Pastoral ministry. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 16 of 32 KMF: I had marriage encounter groups, and I did some day retreat work for women. Then we of course had religious education for the children, but we did adult work too with adult classes. JK: Can you tell about each of those experiences? [00:35:52] KMF: No. I'm not sure if I have time, but let's see, the marriage encounter… JK: You've got time. KMF: Oh, I have lots of time. But I have a bigger story, I think, as I go on. My story gets… I have more to say about the last part of my story because I've spent longer in the last stage of my… I've spent longer in the ministry of AIDS. JK: Oh, ok. KMF: That was the biggest chunk of my… JK: Right. But we have plenty of time. KMF: But anyway… ok. I thought I could find a good excuse here of not having time, but that's not working. (Laughter) JK: If you want to pass onto the next one that's fine. [00:36:29] KMF: No, no, no. What was the question you asked? JK: I just asked… KMF: Oh, marriage… yes, yes, yes. JK: You had a few programs that you… KMF: Yes. Marriage encounter was one. JK: Marriage and…? KMF: Marriage encounter. JK: Oh, marriage encounter. Ok. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 17 of 32 KMF: It was a program and then you kept it going and married couples met and discussed their differences and their acceptance and whatever to make their marriage better. And that was quite an experience for me. JK: How so? [00:37:03] KMF: I wasn't ready for all of their discussions so to speak. JK: (Laughs) KMF: For all of their differences. And they were very talkative too. They were very outgoing people. And I think I might have had six couples if I'm not mistaken. But I do remember just one that just comes to mind. I said, "You know what? I think I have to leave." And it was a little sooner than I would. And they said, "Well, why are you leaving? The conversation is just getting started," or just getting fired up or whatever. And I said, "Yes, I'm leaving. Truly," I said, "I'm leaving because I'm so happy just to be going home to my single bed." (Laughter) KMF: Because it was all about their problems… well, I shouldn't say in bed, but anyway, it was that kind of a problem and so they all said, "Oh, chicken, chicken." (Laughter) JK: That's good. KMF: But they were fun groups to have, and the other one was a retreat, days of retreat I'd have for women. JK: And what did you discuss there? [00:38:28] KMF: There would be a topic. Maybe a topic about how do you feel about the church today. It would be a topic like that. It would be support for them in aftermath because they might continue meeting on a monthly basis or something like that. And there might be women that belonged to prayer groups, 'cause I did some prayer group work too for women mostly. I think I might have been on the women kick at that time. JK: It was the very beginning of the women's movement. KMF: Yes, it was. JK: Did that have anything to bear? [00:39:05] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 18 of 32 KMF: A little bit. It did probably. JK: How so? [00:39:08] KMF: 'Cause I remember I stayed on in summertime giving retreats. We had a big convent and it was a mansion-y convent called 600 Harrison. And it had big rooms and gave itself very well to groups for retreat. So, I would always have day retreats there for women. JK: Did you discuss any women's issues? [00:39:34] KMF: Oh, yeah, very much so. Yes. You know it was mostly women's issues, you know, about leadership and how we could become more prevalent in parishes and support each other by small groups too. JK: You started the pastoral ministry in Helena, but then after six years you moved to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Montana. [00:40:06] KMF: That's right. JK: How did you like working on the Indian reservation? KMF: Oh, I loved it. JK: And what did you run into? [00:40:13] JK: There was one Sister up there. The reason I moved up there was there was one Sister… There were two Sisters working there, and they had just been there a year. That was their first endeavor. And one of them was leaving at the end of the year. She either didn't like it or she was moving to another area. And so the one Sister… There weren't too many others volunteering to go up there. I was still in Montana and so it was up farther in the state and so I thought about it. That would be a wonderful… I always liked adventure and I'm thinking that it was adventure that probably got me to the community to begin with, the adventure of doing different things. And so I thought, I don't know, I never worked with the Native Americans but I bet I could manage that and I really have had… What? It's not the prejudice I want to say. I've never had that much difference in discrimination. You know I remembered an incident when we had the grade school in Helena. I got a call—this is going back to grade school. I got a call one time from somebody from Washington who was moving to Helena, Montana, and he wanted to know something about the Catholic school. And he was going to come a week ahead of his family just to stake things out. And he wanted to �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 19 of 32 know if he could come and look at the school because he didn't know for sure whether he'd send his kids there or not. So, I said, "Sure, give me a call when you come and I'll show you around." So, he did. He came and he gave me a call and I showed him around the school. And as we were walking around the school he said to me, "Do you have any African American people?" And I thought "African American people." I said, "No, no we don't." We were still walking around. And then we passed a classroom, and there was a teacher who had good, loud voice and she was teaching, and he looked in and he said, "Oh, but you do have African American teachers." And I looked in and I said, "Oh, yes. Mary Alice." So, it dawned on me. Now, Mary Alice had been there when I went to Helena and she was… her husband was the assistant coach at Carroll College, I think. They were a stable family. I never thought of her as being African American because she was there when I went there and she was just stable. And then I remembered all her kids were in school. You know, she has five or six kids, and they were all in different classes. I said, "Oh, yes, Mary Alice." And then I said, "We do have her children here too." So, it was like… You know, he never sent his kids to our school. JK: No, really? [00:43:08] KMF: No. So, that's way back there too. The side of the story is that I would have never seen the difference. So, going up to Browning to the Indian, Blackfeet Indian, I didn't think I would have any difficulty with their culture if they didn't have any difficulty with mine. JK: Right. KMF: That kind of thing. So, because of the vacancy I volunteered to go up there because I felt that I had done enough in Helena and that somebody else could… some lay people now could replace me. So, I joined that Sister for two years, three years up there, and she left and then another Sister came and joined. And we were there six years and we promoted a lot of leadership among them. And the kind of missionary work that was beginning in the church and that we did at that time was not the same as the old missionary work of going to a country and saying this is what it means to be a Catholic. But you take their culture and you work with and say, "You are still African American, and that's the most important aspect. Here's how you can bring in the Catholic culture to it. You don't change your culture. You bring the Catholic faith into it and work it from your culture, and that was the whole completely opposite of missionary work. Missionary work in the past and in the beginning when missionaries went to Africa people had to become like them in schools and boarding schools, and all that the kids were taught white. White is the thing. But that's not… JK: And the Indian reservations at that time, how are the students taught? [00:44:58] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 20 of 32 KMF: At that time there were some… Now in Browning they had no grade schools, no schools. They would have vacation schools which meant Sisters would go in for two or three weeks during the summer and prepare them for sacraments but it was not a longtime term thing. So, anyway, that was my reason for going, for developing leadership among them themselves so that they could become the leaders of their own culture from the Catholic point of view. And so I learned their culture and fit it into their culture. JK: Oh, I see. KMF: Yes. And I think that being Irish did help me in that area. JK: Did it? [00:45:46] KMF: It did, yes. I have a funny story to tell that I sometimes tell the Sisters about. I would try to learn their, what do I want to say, their characteristics, their beadwork and their handiwork, and I would try to learn things that would be important for me after I left. And, anyway, we were sitting around and we were having beadwork. Now, I would meet with a group of them every Wednesday, I think, and it was a chat group and beadwork, but they do a lot of other things including a little bit of gossip, you know, periodic. So, one of them said to the group one Wednesday, "Oh, I have to go to Missoula."Are you familiar with Montana? JK: Somewhat. Yes. My daaughter lives in Billings. KMF: "I have to go to Missoula next weekend for a wedding." And they all said, "Oh, poor Wilma." They were all Indian, Native Americans around me. And I didn't know for sure what the wedding was about. But the next Wednesday someone said, "Wilma, how did the wedding go? How did the wedding go?" And she said, "Ah, you know those white people." That's us. "You know those white people." So, I'm the only white person around so I said, "Wilma, I'm here, you know. I'm here." And she said, "Oh, no. You're not white. You're Irish." JK: (Laughs) KMF: So, I said, "Ah, good, good, good, good. I'm saved." So, I felt like maybe that interaction… I mean… I loved being on the Indian reservation. I loved it, and I loved the interaction with the people. And when I was leaving, both the other Sister and myself, we wanted to leave because we felt that as long as we stayed there they wouldn't do what we had trained them to do, because they'd say, "Oh, the Sisters can do it. The Sisters would do that. They'd know how to do it better than we do." So, we both decided to leave at the same time. And then we both naturally… JK: Did you ever check back and see that they followed through? [00:47:57] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 21 of 32 KMF: Oh, yes. Oh many times, many times. JK: Did you? KMF: Many times, yes. I still hear from some of them. JK: What was the result? [00:48:02] KMF: Well, now we have Sisters up there too. We have a Sister teaching grade school up there. JK: Oh, you do. KMF: Yes. And then there was another Sister who followed a few years later than that, and she was there for 30 years, I think, or 20. Yes, yes. I feel like they got a good… You know that they were used to doing their own thing kind of thing which is the best thing for them to do. JK: Were there any challenges at all dealing with…? [00:48:26] KMF: Oh, there were lots of challenges. Yes, there were lots of challenges of... JK: …different cultures? KMF: Yes. We had another very successful ministry for men that really changed a lot of the men there. Men didn't take much responsibility about their faith or anything. And there was… I don't know if you ever heard of a Cursillo, but there was a men's Cursillo, and I asked about seven or eight of them if they wouldn't mind making that Cursillo. It was a weekend. There was a lot of dedication, and they came back just full of the spirit, full of life and faith. It was a renewal for them. And so to this day I do think that they go to other places performing and giving lectures on that Cursillo, on being with the Lord and taking responsibility of your family for the Lord. And it was the first time in a way they seemed to be awakened to that kind of a discovery. So, it was a very successful… And I know that long after we left they were traveling to other reservations and they were traveling to other places to put on the Cursillo. Cursillo —did you hear of it? It was a very successful movement within the church in the '70s or '80s. JK: Would you say it again please? [00:49:51] KMF: Cursillo, C-U-R-S-I-L-L-O, Cursillo, I think. JK: Ok. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 22 of 32 KMF: I'm sure there are Sisters who would have gone through it here many times. But it's a wonderful lay thing. And then we would also attend a Tekakwitha Conference. Tekakwitha is the saint, the Native American saint. She was canonized, and all the Native American tribes from around would meet once a year some place, and so we would raise money and send as many as we could to that conference. And that was also a great revival for them, because they were meeting with other Christians who were active in their churches, other tribes. It would be a good weekend, long weekend where they would revive their own culture within themselves. JK: And you wrote an Indian family prayer book. KMF: Oh, yes, I did. I did that… JK: Why did you do that? [00:51:02] KMF: I did that because I wanted their artwork. I wanted them to see their own artwork around common prayers, so that they'd recognize… JK: So, you incorporated… KMF: The prayer wasn't really Indian as much as the artwork. JK: Oh. It was from the reservation. [00:51:23] KMF: Yes. And they would recognize the artwork and then they would pick up the book and they'd say, "Ah, we know these prayers. They are our Father." It wasn't prayers that they weren't used to. JK: Ok. KMF: I used ordinary prayer with it, I think. I can't remember. It was so long ago, but I do remember definitely their artwork, their Native American artwork. JK: That must have been very pretty. KMF: Yes. JK: And you moved from Montana to a Native Alaskan ministry. KMF: Yes. JK: With the Archdiocese of Anchorage. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 23 of 32 KMF: Right. JK: But did you stay in Anchorage? [00:52:01] KMF: I did. I stayed in Anchorage, but I used to go out to the bush area. JK: Oh, did you? KMF: And my reason, I was asked by the community to go up to Alaska. We had a Sister up there by herself, and she was a midwife and she lived with… Sisters are few in Alaska and few meaning they are from different communities, maybe one or two or three. And we were all one when we were up there because we needed each other. So, she was living with six or seven other Sisters from other communities. So, when I went up to join her we got a little apartment for the two of us because there wasn't room for me in the bigger one. But we had a great camaraderie with all the other Sisters there. That was the biggest boost to me, to get to know so many other different religious communities and meet each other. We needed each other because we were so far away from all of our own communities. JK: Right. KMF: And we had lots of fun and lots of good community. And so much so that when we would be doing… you know, where we all met in parishes, we were working, we were meeting together the Sisters would all try to sit at the same table so we'd have fun and visit. And the bishop would come along and he'd say, "You Sisters are supposed to all spread out among the people. (Laughter) KMF: So, I worked with the Eskimos and the Indians there. I kept my work to Native Americans. JK: Oh, you did. [00:53:32] KMF: And the Eskimos are the natives. They are two completely different… Eskimo. I always felt that they were all the same. No. The Eskimo has a heritage of their own and the Athabascan Indians were the other famous Indians who are up there. And the Eskimos, they were the fish herd. They would catch the big salmon and do that kind of stuff. And the Athabascans were bead workers. JK: Oh, really. Ok. KMF: Beautiful beadwork. But I worked with the two and it was called Native Alaskan. And so when you referred to Native Alaskans you were referring to Eskimos and the Indians and all the �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 24 of 32 other different tribes. But there are so many white people up there now the Native Alaskans are fewer. JK: And where did you have to go? [00:54:27] KMF: Anchorage. I worked out of Anchorage and a lot of the native… from the different islands, not islands—what do they call it? —bases (phonetic) from around Alaska, all the different, small places in Alaska, they would come in for some reason, and maybe many of them came to stay in Anchorage. And so to keep their culture again and to… my job there was developing native leaders, Catholic leaders. JK: So, an extension of your Montana experience. [00:55:05] KMF: Right. And also it was important for them to be able to live their native culture in Anchorage because Anchorage was white as well. So, they would put on native Masses, for instance, and they would have their own culture, and then other native people would want to come and see their culture, you know. So, it was saying Alaska belongs to the natives. This is who Alaska is in a way, 'cause that's who they were. So, all the different areas that… There are so many little, different sections that different ones come from. They're all different tribes and all different languages. So, it's like a little country to itself—Alaska. But it was a wonderful experience for me. And the reason I left… I was there for seven years and I had committed seven years to that program. And so the community, I think, knew that my seven years were coming to a close and so they were probably thinking, oh, let's see. What can we have her do? So, I got a call one time that said would you come back to the lower 48—that's us down here— and do this program for the candidates, formation director? And that was new candidates, first year candidates. So, I did that for a year, and it was only two and I think two lasted and went onto the next realm of it and then they went onto to the next. And then my second year was beginning. I had only one, and she left in February. But I then got into my most, do I want to say, the area that I got the most out of myself as well—the AIDS work. JK: And when did you enter the AIDS work? Or when did you begin the AIDS work? [00:57:12] KMF: It was in, let me see, '86 or '87. JK: Oh, that early. KMF: Yes. '87 or '88. JK: Oh that must have been… �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 25 of 32 KMF: And the reason I got into it was actually by coincidence because after that candidate left I had no options for much jobs because it was February, and we needed to have a job and we needed to be bringing in money here in the community at that time. I was told that. And so, I thought, well, let's see now and I can look… So, I called lots of parishes to see if they needed any… and February's not an easy time to find a job. JK: Right. [00:57:53] KMF: But one of the candidates that had—I think she died since—but she had some connection with AIDS, or with AIDS, and she used to attend something, an AIDS support group or something. I wasn't sure I knew what it was all about. But she used to mention it to me about AIDS. And so I thought I'm going to check out that AIDS business. It was just beginning. I knew nothing about it and knew everybody was afraid of it. But I checked it out and I heard at the right time that there was a training. And I'm thinking, well, my gosh, this just fits right in. I'll do the training and it'll give me a chance to find out more about it. So, I did the training. It was a week's training, very intense, and at the end of it I went down to Good Samaritan. It was just beginning to… It was an organization for AIDS, daily organization not a live over or whatever. JK: And this was in Kansas City. [00:58:56] KMF: Kansas City, Missouri. And so I went there and I did the training, and then I went down to Good Samaritan after the training, and it was just beginning and there were only two people on the staff, maybe three, and the one that interviewed me, she said, "Now, what would you like to do?" And I said, "Well, the only thing I'm really qualified," I said, "is for something in the spiritual line, and I don't even know enough about how I would fit in or whatever, but that would be my forte," I said. And she said, "We never have any calls for that. We just never hear about that." They didn't because they were so caught up in the disease itself. There were people dying. And it was just the beginning of AIDS. It was the first or second year of the AIDS epidemic in Kansas City. And so I said, "Well, you know what, that would be my first preference," I said, "and I don't know that I'd be useful in any other area." And the areas that they would want would be transportation, taking them around from place to place, but I knew I couldn't do that. And so I said, "Well, you know what, I'll have to try again," or something I said. "I'd try some place else."And she said, "No, just a minute. Just a minute. You know," she said, "we have had about 15 clients come here to Good Samaritan." And she said, "Would you mind just calling them maybe and asking them if their service was complete or if they need anything else and just to see where they are with the disease?" �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 26 of 32 So, I thought I could do that but I don't know any answers for their questions. But I decided I'd take that anyway. So, I called and my experience was that the person would say, "You're who? Who did you say you were?" And, you know, Sister Kevin Marie. It's sort of a, "Kevin Marie?" Now, some of these wouldn't be Catholic. Some of them would, but you could tell those that weren't. And they said, "Who are you working for?" And I explained, and I made the training. I'm a Sister of Charity and I'm volunteering, and I'd explain who I was. And then after a bit they'd say, "Oh, would you ever mind calling my mom and telling her that you called me?" And I thought, "Sure. Give me your mom's name." And so that would be his… Then another would say, "Now, tell me again who you are." And so I went through… you know I explained who I was. But if they were Catholic they knew right away, Sister Kevin, and they'd say, "What are you doing here?" because they would get the shaft from a lot of people already. And so I would explain to them that I was trying to work at Good Samaritan and I was just beginning, and then they would say, again, it was connect with my family. Tell them who you are and tell them that you are in my life. It's like saying if you are in my life I'm ok. So, it was my calling card to say this is where you belong. If you don't do anything else but call this is where you belong, because they were asking for spiritual help and for support. I found the support needed badly. JK: Right. [01:02:37] KMF: And so that's why I said after I finished… I didn't do it all the first day because it probably took a week to go through… But that's what I was getting. And then I was getting requests like… because many of them already had a partner die of AIDS, and no one wanted to bury the partner, no church wanted to—no one. So, they would say would you do my memorial for me if I die. I mean they were dying right and left at that time. And so that's how… Then I said I belong here. So, I came back and said… oh, I think I said to her, or did I tell you the part where I said, "I can only do a spiritual thing and she said we don't have any… So, when I came back with the results of my calling I said, "They're all asking for something different, for some spiritual thing, some need." And so, when she heard my story then they were putting out a new pamphlet, a new format, and so there my name was saying spiritual support. And that was how I got into it. JK: That's wonderful. [01:03:44] KMF: So, it was my greatest, my most rewarding type of work. JK: It must have been so difficult. But maybe it wasn't because you were… [01:03:56] KMF: It was difficult in a sense that I felt so good among them because I felt so accepted among them that I was somebody that represented the church to them. I represented their parents to them. I represented so many people that had rejected them. So, they thought, well, here's this one �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 27 of 32 person. She's in my life. I must be ok if she sticks with me, because at that time it was devastating for them. Devastating. JK: Yes. KMF: So, I lasted there for almost 20 years. JK: Twenty years. KMF: Twenty. I was on my twentieth. JK: So, you lasted until the cure came in. [01:04:46] KMF: Right. And until people stopped dying actually. They're not dying now at all of AIDS, and they can get a long-term… If they're on medication… And I know many of them that are still living, and they live as long as anyone else because medication has so improved. But it was devastating because we would have 30 to 40 a month. And this is why I brought this along to show you. This is only a portion of them, but I kept a picture of these. JK: Oh, really. KMF: And that's just a portion of them. JK: Oh, my gosh. KMF: And each one of those has a story. JK: Oh, I'm sure they did. That's really nice. [01:05:46] KMF: But these are what I would do for actually the memorial if I could, if I had time. I didn't do it for everyone. But I called it "Blow gentle breeze. Carry memories of our loved ones." And then I would have a little bit about each person. This would be the first one, Norbert, that I had. JK: Oh, really. KMF: Do I have time to read it to you? JK: I'm sorry? KMF: Do I have time to read it to you? JK: Yes. [01:06:24] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 28 of 32 KMF: Ok. "In memory of Norbert. [And this was '89.] Norbert, frail in limb and body but strong in spirit. My fragility from fear and experience was made strong by Norbert's welcoming spirit. Baptismal waters bonded us spiritually. And a large rosary draped over his bed made our conversation flow with ease. Norbert recalled the nuns who taught him, and I recalled the Norberts that I taught. Was it this connection that brought a glint to Norbert's eye? I will never know. Our encounter seemed so fleeting. In so short a time an empty bed announced his resurrection and fleshed angels told the story of his peaceful dying. I will never know for sure about that glint. I only know I longed to take him in my arms and speak pietà to a world of AIDS." This is the picture of the pietà. So, as kind of a grieving sometime after, I composed a verse in their memory. JK: I'm sure that helped. [01:07:53] KMF: It did. Yes. And I have it as a memory, you know. JK: Right. KMF: This man was Jewish, and I was gone when he died and I was very sad. But we had great discussions even. "I sat stunned as I saw your obituary. I read it over and over again convincing myself it wasn't you, Michael, my friend. But denial gave way to acceptance and my heart bore a great pain, pain for the loss of a good friend, pain that I was not with you in your final exodus. I was aware that your life was often battered by the winds of depression and finding shelter in the midst of the storm was difficult for you. In contrast there were days when peace dwelt in your heart, the bright moments when your Jewish belief carried you through the Red Sea of pain. I will remember our long conversations intertwining the best of both of our faiths both respecting and believing in the goodness of the other. And when you sent me your email on June, 2001 you ended with the following manner. Now I will repeat it in your memory." �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 29 of 32 And he has something in Jewish that I don't know but it's like "May the Lord always be with you and bless you," but he said it in Jewish. JK: Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you. [01:09:31] KMF: Yes. Alex was a very funny guy. JK: You know I wonder if the archives could make a copy of that. KMF: Oh, I'm sure they could, yes, because I have several copies that I've given people. JK: Oh, do you? [01:09:47] KMF: Yes. Not several left but it might well be in the archives already. JK: Oh, ok. But let's check, because it should be. KMF: Yes. And let's see now if there's anything else. JK: Well, copies of that also. KMF: I'll put that in the archives too, I think. These are all Alaskan pictures of different Sisters that were there, you know, in the time. JK: Oh, yes. KMF: We're having a good time. JK: Yes, right. Well, that's good. KMF: So, let's see, was there anything else? JK: So, thank you for sharing them. [01:10:37] KMF: Oh, I guess maybe the last few questions I… What makes the SCL community work? Can I do that? JK: Yes. If you met your younger self and she was debating whether or not to join the SCLs what would tell her? [01:10:51] KMF: I would say, yes, yes, yes, do, do, do. JK: (Laughs) �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 30 of 32 KMF: Go and enjoy it. Enjoy it and say give it all you've go. And use your natural gifts to the hilt. JK: Great. Yes. [01:11:08] KMF: I think for me, like for instance, working with AIDS I found that they gave me more myself than I gave them, and they accepted my naturalness. They accepted my gifts, and they turned them into something that I didn't even think of them as gifts. Like when they would introduce me to their parents or something, they would say, "Sister Kevin is with us." Or like one fellow said, "She was the last one I saw before I went into surgery and the first one I saw when I came out." Well, what would you expect that I sat there in the (inaudible)? I didn't. I went home and had an eight-hour sleep, you know. And when he saw me the next day it was probably 11 o'clock. JK: (Laughs) KMF: But they would say that to their parents and they would make you believe… And I'd let it go, you know. I would let it go. I don't know if you know Catholic statements or not, but one day I went into a hospital, and I went to say goodbye to the young guy because he was going home. And when I got there his friend was leaning over him, and when I knocked on the door the friend was so delighted to see me. He said, "Come in, come in." And he was really anxious. And he said, "I think he's dying. He's dying." And I said, "Willy (phonetic) dying, oh, my God." And I was so taken at the moment that I put my hand under him and I said what we would say, and I don't know if you're familiar with grace before meals? I said, "Bless us, oh Lord, in these your gifts." And I said the grace before meals, what I would say, which wouldn't be said when a person is dying. You know, it would be before a meal. And the other guy that was there with him… Willy died right then and there. Now, he was very sick but he was also well enough to go home, but he wouldn't have long maybe to stay at home. I don't know. But when Michael was explaining this to different… he said, "Willy is in Heaven. Willy is in Heaven, because Sister Kevin came in and gave him the Last Rites." I said, "Oh, no, no." I didn't even contradict him that I didn't give him the Last Rites. But they always put you away on a pedestal and you let them be, you let it be because, well, if they thought so that's ok. So, a long time after that, sometime after that when I heard him saying it in a big crowd, I said, "You know, Michael, if there's a bishop ever around don't say that because I'd be in big trouble." (Laughter) [01:13:52] But they always gave me more than I ever deserved from them. They thought that I could do anything for them. And I think it was I did fulfill a purpose for them because the church was not �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 31 of 32 on their side. Their parents were not on their side, at the very beginning especially. Some parents would come the last few days of dying and then they would want to have—what do you call that?—oxygen or not oxygen but… Well, oxygen or something that would keep them longer alive. Oh, where were they when he needed them? But they wanted… You know the last minute it was like, oh, (inaudible). And they would ignore the partner that was with them taking care of them for 30 years, or 40 years, so it was really hard on them. They had a whole lot to put up with. And so my last remark is… I don't have it with me naturally but I have… My shroud is going to be three big banners that I made in their memory. And their names are on it, and I had it on display during AIDS week or something. JK: Oh, did you? [01:15:12] KMF: I'd make one for each new session, and I'm going to have that as my shroud when I die. So, I know I'll have to go straight to Heaven with that crowd around me with their names. JK: Oh, right, yes. KMF: I said I'd have to go straight to Heaven with that crowd around me with all their names. And I know they're in Heaven because they suffered so much and were rejected so much. But AIDS has come a long way, even in the reputation of AIDS. People… JK: Yes it has. KMF: People remember. Ok, let's see if there's anything else. The future of the SCLs. JK: Yes, what's the future? [01:15:55] KMF: I think that the future of the SCLs will diminish, but no organization can last as long as we have lasted. We have to remember we have been going for 150 or 160 years now. And to leave that much history, what other organization, what other society has been able to do that length of work? And so, it's only history. Another new… something new will develop from that. And it will move where we started. JK: That's a good way of looking at it. [01:16:33] KMF: Right. It's a matter of history, I think. JK: Right. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Kevin Marie Flynn Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 27, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, August 22, 2017 Page 32 of 32 KMF: It's not a matter of diminishing. And the other thing is there are a lot of lay people who are doing a lot of the work that the Sisters used to do, and that's another whole new element which is a very positive element. JK: Very. KMF: That there are a lot of lay people. Ok. JK: Thank you so much, Sister Kevin. KMF: Well, you're very welcome. JK: That was wonderful. ### � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Flynn, S. Kevin Marie Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Kenamore, Jane Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MPEG Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:17:19 Location The location of the interview Digital Sisters Files Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flynn, S. Kevin Marie, Oral History, 6/27/2017 Subject The topic of the resource Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth; Ireland; Teaching; Native Americans; AIDS Ministry; Counseling Description An account of the resource Sister begins by describing her childhood in Ireland and the importance of faith in her family?s daily life. She talks about learning of the SCLs through an older brother, a priest already working in the States. She speaks of the novitiate fondly, recalling the sense of community and how these relationships eased the culture shock of moving from Ireland. Her mission work begins in education; she describes learning to be a teacher and working in many different places, eventually becoming an administrator. The closing of her school in Helena became the catalyst for change, and she shifted her focus to pastoral ministry. She describes working with married couples and women, followed by time spent on a Native American reservation. She finally describes working with the Good Samaritan Project in Kansas City. She discovered a need for spiritual support among the organizations patients. A position was created for her, and she spent many years offering this support to those afflicted with AIDS in the Kansas City area. Sister consistently talks about how the people she encountered in her mission work taught her valuable lessons and strengthened her own spirituality. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Flynn, S. Kevin Marie; Kennamore, Jane Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/27/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All rights belong to the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Flynn, S. Kevin Marie Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1928-2017 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Audios Education Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth