8 10 108 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/860b27f9dde58114933d58eea56ee9b8.jpg 232c1f3c84b90482b2e674d5545298eb https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/c20e7fb452c0ffbeaf7eed5489025030.mp3 a0ba874e349ea1d53be503426107bc21 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/8b081432ba509028dc4b55a90f994c4b.mp3 41d7ffe8286236078d3d82bbc3de5606 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/39382842de8ab479d2b354efcfdec40d.mp3 9f4d109d3fe518322c06098646191b40 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 Seton Hill Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Sister Marie Corona Miller Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sister Mary Janet Ryan Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio cassette tape Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 31:56 31:56 20:57 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 96kHz 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 Ryan, Sister Mary Janet Oral History Subject The topic of the resource Sister Mary Janet Ryan Description An account of the resource An oral history of Sister Mary Janet Ryan, a Sister of Charity of Seton Hill from 1935 until 2017. The interview was conducted by Sister Marie Corona Miller on May 11, 1988. Sister Mary Janet Ryan was born on May 31st, 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pa. Daughter of Alexader Ryan and Josephine Dalton, Jeannette Ryan entered the community on September 8th, 1935 at the age of 17 as Sister Mary Janet Ryan. Sister Mary Janet taught intermediate for 3 years, upper elementary for 15 years, secondary for 12 years, and college for 7 years. She was a History Professor at Seton Hill College from 1965 to 1979. She taught history in the summer sessions at SHC in 1953, 1955, 1956, 1958-1960, 1962, and 1975. She taught in Louisiana Schools as well as in the Pittsburgh Diocese. Sister Mary Janet received her B. Ed. in Secondary Education from Duquesne University in 1947. Then, in 1953, she received her M.L. in Geography from the University of Pittsburgh. Sister Mary Janet Ryan passed on September 15th, 2017 at the age of 99. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988/05/11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All rights belong to the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio cassette tape 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 OH-88 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/6de50751e7881288f33279c884a4d23a.jpg 2fb7b7f8a3000fe865c6e53953dce037 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 Sacred Heart Pendant Description An account of the resource This Sacred Heart was worn by the Sisters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart after their final vows, since 1924, the year of our official foundation. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Religieuses de Notre-Dame-du-Sacre-Coeur (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource N/A Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Online access is provided for research purposes only. For rights, reproduction, and use requests or more information, please contact the Religieuses de Notre-Dame-du-Sacre-Coeur (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart) Relation A related resource N/A Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Pendant, sterling silver Type The nature or genre of the resource Physical Object Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N/A Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant N/A Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available N/A Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ca. 1924 Les Religieuses de Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Coeur https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/e1d33ca0e3526b62b9f302b2390a80c4.jpg 8e48508eb589ab7c44d10154fba3d57d 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 Sacred Heart Statue Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Religieuses de Notre-Dame-Du_Sacre-Coeur (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart) Description An account of the resource Our Lady of the Sacred Heart statue; Mary is showing Jesus' Sacred Heart. Our Foundress, Mère Marie-Anne, saw this Statue in a window display in Montréal and reserved it to be bought at a later date. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource N/A Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available N/A Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1924 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource N/A Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Online access is provided for research purposes only. For rights, reproduction, and use requests or more information, please contact the Religieuses de Notre-Dame-du-Sacre-Coeur (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart) Relation A related resource N/A Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Plaster Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Physical Object Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N/A Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant N/A Les Religieuses de Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Coeur 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/2c5137a235bbc718bea8544bb32b79c7.jpg d6edd7ab745c1b697489d43680d3fb47 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/8e698839c5332ed8d95c206d7bf4f972.mp3 dcfb9a6b6e9bba236abd813305fb8736 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/02322b4a0f5bfc99b89f57d0c873343a.mp3 3a2a1acd7f5a2da2a567c1f8867ea1ec https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/de107ab72e4fe0781656265e4523c088.mp3 f3a15bae36c4b8cb571edf7ce5ef582d 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 Seton Hill Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Sister Miriam Jane Hollowood Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sister Mary Schmidt Location The location of the interview Seton Hill College Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound OH - 81 Sr. Mary Schmidt Side I of Tape marked I and II OH I and OH II SMJH: This interview is being conducted as part of the oral history program of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill. The interviewee is Sister Mary Schmidt ,formerly known as Sister M. Thecla, and the interviewer is Sister Miriam Jane Hollowood. The interview is being conducted at Seton Hill College on July tenth, nineteen hundred eighty-four. SMJH: Sister Mary, will you tell us something about yourself before you came to Seton Hill? SMS: I am the oldest of six children. · My father was Henry Schmidt, who was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. My mother was a teacher of Speech, what they then called Elocution, Unfortunately, I didn' t imbibe any of the things my parents had specialized in. I went to Sacred Heart Grade School and High School. I'm sure that's where I got my greatest feelings for the Sisters of Charity . SMJH: Who were some of the Sisters that you knew at that time? SMS: I suppose the ones I had in high school were the most memorable. I had my name from the marvelous Sister M. Thecla Carroll, who was a Latin and Mathematics teacher. Sister Thecla died very suddenly at the age of forty-four when I was a sophomore at Sacred Heart. This was my first experience with death. At that time, Mother Rose Genevieve Rodgers knew I was going to enter and she said she would like to save that name for me, so she did. The person who was ' most influential with me at Sacred Heart was Sister M. Claudia Glenn, who later became Mother M. Claudia Glenn. She taught English for the four years I was at Sacred Heart High School. She was really the first to note I am sure that I was going to become a Sister of Charity. When I was twelve or thirteen, a freshman in high school, I remember one day of being struck beyond words when Sister Claudia said: "Mary, I know that you are going to be a Sister." I said: Well, how did you know that?" I realize now that she could see it. Those were the two people who were most influential. Of course, there was a teacher, Sister Rose de Lima Henry, whom I had the pleasure of having for Latin for four years. There were others. However, if you are asking for the highlights, those are the highlights. SMJH: When Mother Claudia said that she knew you were going to be a Sister, did you know? SMS: Yes, that's why I was so surprised. It was just around that time when I was in the eighth grade going into high school that I simply realized that I was to be a Sister. At that time I thought it was rather glamorous, but I also knew that it was a way of devoting my entire life t·o some thing. This may sound naive, but I always knew that I had to devote my entire life to something. It couldn't be any less. That's why I didn't want to marry, not meaning anything derogatory about marriage. I remember how I was very drawn to praying in Sacred Heart Church. They had Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on Fridays when'I was in grade school. I was always running back and forth between the church and home. We didn't live very far away. I also kept saying to mother: "I won't be away long. I'll be back soon. She of course didn' t mind. Then fortunately, or unfortunately, I realized that I wasn' t in any big hurry. My father, of course, just took it for granted that one went to college. I had no problem with that. I was delighted to go to college. Obviously, I went to Seton Hill. I had studied piano with my father for a number of years. He was very interested in my not being very good at it. He said: "If you are really interested in becoming a religious, I don't want you to become a piano teacher." He had seen too many of them who didn't have enough to do but listen to little children. I had nothing to do with it, but I have always been grateful to him since. He said: "I don't want you to learn any more piano if you are determined to do this." Before I went to college, that was the idea. It is also true that my first preference has been English, both reading and writing it. I really don't think I ever had any trouble with anything. I had an extraordinarily happy childhood and home. I look back on that as being very helpful to me. My mother was a convert, and had no great feeling for my wanting to be a Sister. She also had some problems with some of the sisters when my brothers were altar boys and choir boys. That wasn't important. She came to be very happy with the whole thing. That's pretty much in a nut shell what my early years were like. SMJH: Now, you said your Father was a Music Professor. Didn't he also teach at Seton Hill College? SMS: Well, he did along with his teaching at Carnegie Mellon. He didn' t teach at the college while I was a student. I know he was here while I was a white capped novice. He never left Carnegie Mellon. He only came up to Seton Hill College two days a week. This was during depression times when the younger students at Carnegie Mellon and at Seton Hill were not so numerous as they had been, and consequently he was able to condense his work at Carnegie Mellon into three days a week and teach at Seton Hill the other two. He was here for four or five years. I remember that Mother M. Evaline Fisher was the Mother Superior and also chair­ man of the Board of Directors for Seton Hill College. She wanted to get my father to be chair­ man of the Music Department, hoping that the connection with Pittsburgh might be influential in getting more students to come to the college. My Father and Doctor Reeves were great friends, and my father enjoyed his time at Seton Hill. I believe that it was difficult for my father and he should only have been at Seton Hill for a short time. Anyhow, he went back to Carnegie Mellon until he retired. All of his friends were there. It was like in the Henry James era. If you wanted to study music a lot, you went to Europe, and so he did. Many of his friends went to Europe also and when they came back they were the pioneer faculty of the Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. This was about nineteen hundred ten. We were faculty children, and we went to the swimming pool and music classes, and Dr. Baker' s Christmas parties for faculty children. That's my recollection of it. It was kind of a nice thing. We enjoyed it. SMJH: That' s good, and he got to be part of our faculty at Seton Hill. You graduated from Seton Hill with a Bachelor's degree in English and then went to Pitt to obtain a Master' s degree in English. SMS: Yes, I graduated from Seton Hill in nineteen thirty-two, and again wasn't in any hurry to leave home, so I went to Pitt and graduated with a Master's degree in English in nineteen thirty­ four. My father was also in favor of this. He thought it was better for one to get as much college work as possible, as he had some insight to some of the problems people had. SMJH: So, you entered the Community then in nineteen thirty-four. What was the Community like at that time? I'm sure it was different for a woman entering with a Master's degree, which was not common at that time. SMS: It was difficult. I was the first one. People thought that you might become a snob. I was a great substitute in the fourth grade, about which I knew nothing, and I have never to this day set my foot inside a high school as a teacher. I understand this. It was the mentality of religious life at that time, and it would not happen today. I knew that here I was, I belonged, and never doubted for one second. I was extremely happy in the community. The first thing I did when I didn't let them decide was to go to Altoona to teach the seventh grade. Where upon I fell with a terrible case of scarlet fever. That ended my career as a mission sister after a few months. They really wanted someone as a seventh grade teacher. They felt that you would know so much more because of having a master's degree. Then I came back to Seton Hill. I was a black cap novice. For a time, I was not doing anything as the scarlet fever left me with a heart involvement, which evaporated later on, but I had it then. It was Christmas week. I had not made my vows yet. Behold, Sister Victoria Brown, who was an English teacher took a trip to the hospital and was retained for a while. So, here I was with a Master' s Degree in English. There must have been a great commotion among the powers. about my doing anything. Some of them felt it was the kiss of death for me to do anything. There they were, and here I was with this degree, so anyhow I did it. I became a part time teacher in the college the Spring Semester of . nineteen thirty-six. Somehow, I got a much better feeling for the sisters than what I had when I was in college. They seemed so much better. I didn't come to the community because I thought the sisters were marvelous. I came because I knew that was what I had to do with my life. I was presumably destined to be an English teacher. Sister Victoria, who was the treasurer decided that I should go to Oxford University in England for a degree. They didn't give a doctorate, but they gave a Master's, which they feel is superior to our American Doctorate. I was indeed supposed to go. All preparations were made. In the late summer of nineteen thirty;.e ight; there was a big scare in this country that the war was immanent. Well, it was decided that it wouldn't be good to send a young sister off into a war. So everyone said: "We' ll wait·until next year. War was declared on September fourth of nineteen thirty-nine, so I never went. At that same time since I was already to go somewhere, they packed me off to New Haven, Connecticut in September of nineteen thirty-nine. I was there until January of nineteen forty-three, which was four years. I stayed with the Sisters of Charity in New Jersey. They were near the University. They were so nice, but didn't understand what on earth I was doing. I enjoyed that life, that scholarly life I guess you would say, very much...being on my own. However, I knew I belonged in the community, so I hurried back to Seton Hill. SMJH: What did you do your dissertation on? SMS: I did my dissertation on Sir Thomas Moore. It turned out to be a very small subject within a great field. I knew that ifl was going to spend a year or year and a half on anybody, I wanted it to be someone I could feel some sympathy for. I wanted to take someone who had a religious mentality. I thought ifl took Alexander Pope or somebody like that for that length of time, I couldn' t take it! So, even though I had no course work in Tudor English, I took it on.....Sir Thomas Moore. I enjoyed it very much ...going through books, transcribing in black letters which was the way it was then. It has only been in the past twenty-five years that things were printed in ordinary letters. During all this time, the war was going on. I still wonder now why I didn't know more about the war, even though I read the New York Times every Sunday. I still want to know why I didn't know more. I think you become very engrossed and very selfish in a way while during library work. It' s very demanding! There were only four women working on their graduate work, but they too were talking about their work, and not the war. Men were at the age where they were drafted into the war. I'm certainly no expert on the second world war. SMJH: No, but you' re an expert on Thomas Moore. You have published some papers on Thomas More. SMS: Yes, I also have a very good experience of the generosity of this Community. When I finished there, I had all sorts of things that I came across while I was doing my dissertation. The dissertation on Thomas Moore was recognized on Thomas Mooore's use of St. Augustine as his English polemical work. It was certainly nothing anyone should be bored to death by reading it. But, while you are doing this you run across fascinating things which you want to pursue. So, it was the most natural thing in the world to want to write about these things, and.I did. I had many summers, one after the other when I went back to New Haven and did this writing. I got it into print, not anything marvelous. The first thing I had printed was an essay on St. Patrick because that was enlarged in nineteen forty-five shortly after I was back. SMJH: Why did you do St. Patrick? SMS: Well, again, there was a large group of women, possibly from the A.O.H. They wanted a speech, and I was asked if I would give this speech. They wanted something relative to the pious nature. It was in March, and I was asked to speak about St. Joseph or St. Patrick. I knew little about St. Joseph, and I knew that.St. Patrick had a lot of historical things. I made this great discovery that Patrick was a staff (couldn' t make next word out) character. So I got together some of these things and gave my speech. They were things that perhaps they had heard, but claimed they were all news to them. I got this speech sent to the magazine "America" for publication. Then after that I did other articles like St. Thomas Moore , The Medieval Devil and other funny things like that, which were also published in "America", and "The Catholic World". In those days, they were the only magazines that would print things with background, at least that I knew of. There was one article published in the "Scholarly Journal" and others were published in different places. (She didn't name these places). SMJH: Did you also have some poetry published? SMS" Yes, some short ones, which were also published in "America". SMJH: Did you want to say anything about coming back to Seton Hill and being on the Faculty? SMS: Yes, those years when I was teaching were probably the best years of my life. SMJH: That's great, and we'll continue this interview sometime later! SMJH: This is a continuation of the oral history interview with Sister Mary Schmidt. (Sr. Miriam Jane didn't give any date here). Sister, when you returned from Yale University, you became a full time member of the English Department at Seton Hill. What were some of the courses that you taught? SMS: Well, I taught Writing. We all of course taught Freshman English, and I happened to like that very much. I also enjoyed teaching Writing. We also had a course in "Advanced Composition" we called it. English Majors were required to take it. At least they did. Then I taught Shakespeare, Literary Criticism, and sometime later, I'm not sure exactly when, but I taught Twentieth Century English Literature. I never was an American literature person. I didn' t have any advance work in it and didn't have a feel for it. As I recall; we , especially young teachers, took for granted that we taught whatever.needed to be taught. It didn' t matter how many hours it happened to be. One became the advisor for the publications that would be corning in and for the "Quarterly," which at that time was a rather active thing. It came out three times a year and included a commencement issue. Many marvelously talented girls whose things I value very much, and have never thrown out were printed in it. The other thing, of course, was that you were appointed to be a class advisor, as I was, pronto, by Sister Victoria Brown, who was the young Dean at the college. I wanted to write and do all these things, but I became a class advisor immediately. So, the class came in the Fall of nineteen forty-three (some of what she said here is disconnected for want of a way to put it), right when I was getting started. I was the class advisor for the class of nineteen forty-seven. I put on the Freshman show " Anne" of? (couldn't understand what she said). ·The Freshman show had something to do with frogs. I don't remember what it was. A lot of the people laughingly remember some of the songs in it. I do remember how desperately hard it was to get the girls together to get the show together, while at the same time having many other responsibilities. You still had large charges. SMJH: When you say you had large charges to do, what exactly does that mean? SMS: You had a lot of manual stuff which you had to do. You were responsible for cleaning one of the classrooms. You did this for quite a number of years. Some of my dear friends used to come and help me clean. It was in Room 236. They would shove the chairs around, etc. SMJH: Was that your weekly charge? SMS: You cleaned the blackboard every day. Only once a week did you do the marvelous pushing the mop around. These are funny little things, but as faculty members, you were expected to do all these things. You were primarily a good sister, and after that a faculty member. I don't say that with any bitterness. It was just a funny situation, and that's the way it was! Even the chairman of our department, Sister Electa Boyle felt this, and she had done the same. So, there wasn't anything the matter with this. She had no feelings as to the number of things people had to do. You see, it all came through alright. I don't think I became any less the teacher. I think you're young enough. You rise to the occasion! You have good health, and it's expected. SMJH: In addition to your full time teaching, advising, and doing all these other things, you were also responsible for all your community activities. You took time out to go to Quarter Prayers, and did you go to recreation with the community? SMS: Why of course! I skipped recreation as often as I could. There were many evening meetings which I had to attend. I was never very fond of recreation. I think it was a contrived thing! It wasn't really recreational. However, you did all those things. You rose at five-fifteen AM even though you lived on the floor with the students and were responsible for them. I distinctly remember that when Mother Maria Benedict Monahan was confronted with the fact that the college sisters were not getting enough sleep because we had charge of the floors. In other words, they were supposed to be quiet, but not until eleven o'clock. If they weren't quiet, you took care of it, but you still got up at five-fifteen. Mother Maria Benedict said of course that this was fine because we could always catch up on sleep during the time we had between classes. I think that this was her sincere view of the matter. I remember getting very exhausted, and was relieved once I no longer had this responsibility. I really never enjoyed floor duty. SMJH: Did you say that the girls were to be silent at eleven o'clock? SMS: They weren' t silent. They just weren't supposed to shriek, etc. I slept on Fifth Canevan next to a floor of double decked beds. SMJH: Double decked beds? SMS: Yes, they were all double decked beds. We had more students than we had room for. We didn' t have Brownlee or Havey then. They would merrily jump from top to bottom and laugh and laugh. Of course, I made some of my best friends that way too. The only thing is as I think back on it was that it was an arduous life. I don't think it made me a wretched teacher. I think you rise to the occasion , and you can do it. However, I would not ask anyone else to do it. SMJH: As adviser to the Setonian, you probably kept late hours too. SMS: Well, I suppose so. I don't seem to remember much about whether I did or not, but probably did. SMJH: When you were adviser to the Setonian, who was your Printer, do you remember? SMS: Yes, Mr. George Berrry. He had been Adviser to the Setonian when I was Editor during my years in college. He was such a dear man, and a wonderful friend. I remember when I was a Senior, he brought the paper into my house in Pittsburgh. It had just come out . It was during the Summer. I suppose there was a change in Printers. I don't have any recollection of when George Berry died. I didn' t keep the Setonian for years and years. I had it before I went to Yale, and sometime after that. The other thing that I began to do was "The Alumni Quarterly", so every vacation that you had, you're down in the office typing up the news for the next "Quarterly." Here again, with all my ambitions to write, and here I was typing class news. However, I did go away many Summers , and this provided me with opportunity to write. I have never loved anything so much as being a teacher in the classroom. Consequently, it was announced to me in February of nineteen fifty-seven ,by Mother M. Claudia Glenn , that I would not be teaching any longer. This was a great blow to me. I was very unhappy about this. SMJH: Now, you were not to teach any longer, and for what reason? SMS: It was because I was to be in the President's office. I was to be the Assistant to the President of the college per Mother M. Claudia Glenn. I was Assistant, and not Vice President, because she thought I was too young to have this title. I was only forty! I didn't know what I was going to do. The big thing I wanted to do was teach. I said: "But I have courses, and Mother Claudia said:" They will be taken care of." I kept one course going for three years. I also had the honors course, and I kept it up after I got into the office. To a degree I would have evening seminars for the honor students. That's how I came to know Mary Ann Crenner (sounded like) and others. SMJH; Who was the President of the college at that time? SMS: The President at that time was: Father William Granger Ryan. We were always kind of friendly. He used to put his head in the window by the Canevan arch where I had my office. I would be facing the window and suddenly there would be this large head looking at me in the window, laughing. I knew I would never, never, ever learn the alphabet system of that kind of office. It was like another world. Father Ryan was marvelous to work with, so that made up for a lot of other things. That job just grew in a topsy turvy fashion. From the first moment when I talked to Father Ryan that lovely February morning in nineteen fifty-seven, I went right to Mother Claudia. She said: ''Now, Father Ryan expects that you will go over to his house." I went, and there he was wearing a neck brace because he was having so much tension. He would be away and come back this way. So, without any direction from Mother Claudia, because she was most evasive, Father Ryan talked to me. He told me that whenever he was away, he would support me in any decisions, right or wrong, which I made in his absence. I thought...what am I going to decide? So, he was stuck with the assistant title too. We never had a bad moment in thirteen years. SMJH: What were your responsibilities as assistant to the President? SMS: Well, I started out by going through the mail when he was away. That' s when I had very little to do. He didn't quite know yet what to.do with the assistant to the President. That's why I went to the Archives at that time to help Sister M. Electa Boyle. Things began to grow. For one year I could teach one class. When Father Ryan was home, he worked very hard at indoctrinating me to the job, but he was away a good bit of the time. It wasn't a clear cut job. I don't understand it myself, but that's the way it was. Father Ryan was stuck with the assistant title for some time. He wasn't permitted to say what my title really was. At one point he called me "Dean" of the faculty, which I didn't understand either. Then, after a long time, we did get around to my being Vice President. It was an experience which he and Sister Muriel Flamman made quite bearable. The thing that' s so wonderful about this is, that Sister Muriel as Dean of the college was next in line as President...ex officio. All of a sudden here is this other office created between, so I took precedence. She made me feel so welcome. It was the most beautiful experience. It gave me an insight into her which of course extended into several years. I don't know of any other person who could not only make you feel welcome, but was also so gracious. When I say that we never had any bad moments in the office, I don't mean that we didn't have numerous bad moments together. We had numerous, different kinds of people confronting us. We worked two against the world a great deal of the time. I don't remember a great many details in those early years. Father Ryan was doing a great deal of pioneering in the Pennsylvania college organization. He and other independent college presidents, besides universities, really did more in those years for the status of colleges in Pennsylvania, for the scholarship program, for the whole scene of private colleges in Pennsylvania. These were the men who did it all...back scene. There is a section here that is very difficult to hear. Sister's speech is not clear...too fast and words are run together. Suffice it to say, that I believe what she is saying here is that she didn't have a clue about what needed to be done regarding the area of accomplishing the goals that she attributed to Father William Granger Ryan and other college presidents. Sister says again that she had to learn everything from Father Ryan. Her own words were: The Presidents were always very remote. I knew Father Reeves well, but would never just walk into his office. As a faculty member, there was no relationship at all. It was an "on the job" learning experience. Looking back, I don't think I would have asked to be relieved of this job because Father Ryan was such a good priest and educator that I would not have voluntarily left. SMJH: Weren't those also important years in the college in the new arrangement of the board of trustees? Did that happen during those years? SMS: I'll tell you what happened. This was one of the many things which Father Ryan knew he had to accomplish. It was a strange system retained by women religious communities, not sure about men, by which their Mother General and her Officers were in the primary control of the college. Now, "The Middle States' , had been confronting them for some time on this, realizing that they needed larger ranging support in their board. They needed people who understood finances and all kinds of things. These Sisters of course, with all good will did not understand. They were very fearful, not only ours, but there were many others. They were very fearful of losing control. They thought people would run away with the money bags or something like that. They would choose to let anything happen which did not include them primarily. So, Father Ryan got together a board, which was an advisory board. It met for the first time on March twelfth, nineteen hundred fifty-seven, just after I appeared in the office. They were some of the best people to have in Greensburg. SMJH: Who were some of the people? SMS: Well, you had: Chuck Lynch, Tom Wentley (if spelling is correct), Ed Brinker, representatives from the banks... the general people who were knowledgeable and acceptable in Greensburg. Father himself had some friends from elsewhere. There was: Mrs. Helen Cutting, who was a very wealthy woman from New Jersey. She came to all the board meetings from New Jersey. There were others. Oh, I forgot, Jack Coulter was on it. They didn' t really have authority, but they did have a title "Board of Trustees", which was very cunning (believe this is the word she used), but no-one seemed to object to it. They all knew that they were not really a trustee board. So, the Sisters, the Council would meet with them. They did a great many things for us....using their influence financially, getting the city to do things, etc. Sometimes advice was welcome, sometimes not. However, they were there to support and help. They could never get the "Go Sign", to make that Board a legal body, which was really in control of the college, until finally twelve years later, under Mother M. Victoria Brown's leadership in office. She knew what had to be. By this time, "The Middle States" began to be rather insistent about it. So. She and her Council agreed to it. We had a long process of dissolving and incorporating...couldn't understand everything Sr. Mary was saying here. Pat Pacello (if spelling is correct) is and has been our attorney for years. He helped us to get things resolved. He worked in the courts. He even offered to go around to the various communities and explain to the Sisters that we were not giving anything away. We were simply strengthening our Organization. It was determined therefore that there would be fifteen sisters and fifteen lay people on the Board. This was in nineteen sixty-nine, and that is still true. At this time, Father Ryan's health was very poor. He was completely worn out. He got this Board started December of 1969, and announced to them that due to his declining health, he was retiring. He left in June . The Board was finally an accomplished fact. That was his greatest accomplishment for the college. SMJH: We want to talk about your years as President of the college. That will be the topic of our next session. Tape ill Begins Here July 4, 1984. SMJH: This is a continuation of the oral history program with Sister Mary Schmidt. The date is: Wednesday, July fourth, nineteen eighteen-four. Sister Mary was named acting President of Seton Hill College by the Board of Trustees in May of nineteen seventy, and elected to the office of President in nineteen seventy-one. She held that office until her resignation in June of nineteen seventy..se ven. In a newspaper article from "Westmoreland's Wednesday," dated June first, nineteen seventy-seven, the reporter says: "The entire academic world was in turmoil in nineteen, seventy-one, the year that Sister Mary Schmidt was made President of Seton Hill. Student and faculty dissension that arose during the height of the Vietnam conflict continued. Declining enrollments were plaguing all but a few colleges and universities . The image of institutions of higher learning had never been lower. Graduates from colleges all over the country faced a depressed job market. Vocational schools cut into a traditional student school, and career minded young men and women began to seek specialized technical training. Seton Hill was not spared the repercussions of these problems. Happily for the college, the woman who walked into the President's Office in nineteen seventy-one was equal to the task that lay ahead." End of quote. SMJH: Sister Mary, we know that this is true. Will you tell us how you were able to confront the problems and issues of the seventies? SMS: Well, I should say initially that the woman who walked into the President's office at that time had no convictions as to whether she could take care of these things. Neither had she any vision of what was to come. We were, I would say immediately plunged into a horrendous despot in the Summer of nineteen seventy-one. We had, without any warning a smaller freshman enrollment that we had ever dealt with before. The Board, my very attentive and careful Board, immediately said that we could not afford to carry deficits of this sort. The only way we could save money to stabilize (couldn't clearly hear) the College budget was to cut the Faculty. Since the student enrollment was smaller, it was of course assumed that a smaller number of faculty would do. Simplistically of course that wasn't true, but it turned out that I had no choice. I was faced head on with the need to make a study of class size and Faculty members. So, we made a careful view of the whole thing, so that we had at least a reasonable case. Then came the dramatic announcement to terminate three or four young faculty members. This, at the time, was a kind of bombshell, since the unrest of both family and students had already been felt across the country in large universities. It's always later in reaching the smaller, conservative women's campuses. All these faculty members and students were well aware that their time had come. And so, the announcement of the termination of these faculty members, caused quite a commotion, but it resulted shortly thereafter in the Pennsylvania Labor Union being invoked. We therefore were informed that our Faculty had shown that they had desired membership in our college in view. That, of course, threw us into a very bad state, because a labor union in a college of our size, would be fatal. The demands were very high for salaries, etc. It would have been the end of the college. (There was the roar of what sounded like a train here, preventing me from getting what Sister Mary had to say). So, without going into the gruesome details, I would say that we had to go through a period of trying to do everything that we could to help to confront this problem. We were facing an election by our Faculty as to whether or not the college would be accepted. SMJH: Were the Sisters on the Faculty permitted to vote? Were they part of that? SMS: No, the Sisters, normally were not permitted to vote. There was a great deal of feeling among the Sisters. They too felt very keenly about their salaries and conditions, etc. However, the National Relations Board in Pittsburgh, advised that we have a lawyer, and they had a lawyer to determine the Sisters right to vote. It turned out in our favor. They didn't have a vote. We were having this vote then by the lay Faculty, and while you were permitted to talk individually to the Faculty members and Administrator, you couldn't have a meeting. So, it was very draining, and a wretched experience all the way around. Finally, the day came when the secret ballot was to be cast, and this was done at the end of the day to the consternation of the other members who had been brought in from the Pennsylvania Labor Union. The vote was two or three in favor of the Union, but the others were against it, but before that, you had no idea how people were going to vote on a secret ballot. You may have had pleasant conversation or so, but you don' t know how they are actually going to vote. This had been triggered by the termination of those young faculty members, and they lost. This was still in nineteen seventy one-seventy­ two. We were also scheduled for a Middle States exhibit (too difficult to hear), which as you know comes every ten years. We had a special case study that year. It took much more time than the one you had in nineteen eighty-two. Very able administrators from a number of colleges come. I happened to be in the office the night before they were to start their work. " You may find that there is more entertainment on our campus, because our students are going to demonstrate that we are really a wretched Organization because we terminate faculty members and we don't do anything that's right!" Of course, they all laughed. The only thing is that I'm afraid they will never do it because they are ultra conservative. I just want you to be ready for it. Nothing of course happened. Things went on. We didn't have to terminate any more faculty members the following year. The enrollment began to pick up. I think, we have a note here, that at some point in nineteen seventy-seven, we had seven hundred ninety full time students, whereas in nineteen seventy, we had six hundred. For us, that was a rather large growth figure. That was not because of me, that was simply the time ( couldn't understand...sounded like stanzika...never heard the word) perhaps in which we were able to get back on our feet. Perhaps it wa-s becauseof all the turmoil we had in the beginning. Things really cleared the books were cleared, and the budget was cleared, and we could go forward. The national situation which you referred to in the newspaper article you read meant that no one going into any kind of office in nineteen seventy-one could go in starry eyed. Everyone knew that faculty and students were no longer satisfied with the status quo. Everyone knew that the plans presented for growth in the nineteen sixties had to be scrapped. It was a lovely plan, beautiful building, but we could not afford it, anymore than we could afford the fine arts building. In other words, instead of dreaming for these wonderful things, you had to begin to work on campus with the people involved in consolidation. You had to realize that the only building you were going to do thereafter, was replacement, and I think that has been true. We did fix up a Music wing while I was in office. That was done with a grant from "The R. K. Mellon Foundation." SMJH: That was an interesting building, was it not? Wasn't it the old laundry building? The institution no longer provided laundry service for the students or the sisters living here. SMS: Yes, that is all true, and I think that the architect was very clever also in leaving a solid stone foundation on the building. Then when the state dictated that we could no longer use St. Mary's for classrooms or for indeed much of anything, we had to replace that building, and we did. The original Stokes Mansion was caving in on itself. The whole building had to go. ·We had the option of spending a couple of million dollars of rebuilding it as a monument, but we didn't choose to do that. We were then able to sell it. ( Sister Mary said something else about this, but it was garbled). The Home Economic Department came up here after much commotion. People came up here, and they were happy not to be running up and down the hill. The building which took its place is a lovely building. There was concern at the time, that it wouldn't be too nice because there is not much sun shining in that area. However, that wasn't the case. It turned out to be quite satisfactory. I have heard people later on remarking how well the building blends in with the other buildings on the campus. The Security members said how wonderful it is that the building fits in with the structural harmony of the other buildings. My point in bringing this up is to say that instead of going ahead with grandiose building plans, one had to made do, and we've been making do ever since. SMJH: So, the Music and Home Economic Buildings were put up during your time in office? SMS: Yes, the plans for the Music Building were done before that per the grant from the "R. K. Mellon Foundation"as said earlier. Then I went to the "Kresge Foundation" in Detroit following . the arrangement Sister Dorothy Jacko had made with them. They gave us a large sum of money which was used for the Home Economic Building. I don't think you would have received money during those years to put up something lovely ..e.g. a student union building. It would have been difficult to prove that you were going to use the facility within a certain time limit. I believe I think of those years on the negative side. It seemed like you were constantly fighting for something. I do remember a couple of things which I was very pleased about. We began the Campus Ministry Program some time during those years. I don't recall exact dates. My memory is all I'm going on. Perhaps someone would like to look it up in the files. I remember that the students' response to the initiation of the Campus Ministry was tremendous! Most ofus were 12 very happy, because it was difficult in the sixties to find students attracted to a program that was altruistic and outgoing. They were too concerned with running around in their bare feet, wearing cut off jeans, wondering why they couldn't have this or that etc. The reception the students gave to the concept of campus ministry and the actuality of it was a remarkable thing. We also found among the Faculty a great cooperative spirit, usually because there is an obvious need, to see how to see what could be done about bringing (not the word she used, but after several tries couldn't understand) the Academic and Liberal Arts Departments to some additional thing which would make them clearly oriented without destroying their liberal arts tenor and caliber. We knew we couldn't think what to say in regard to our liberal arts stance and quality. We also knew that we had to show some practicality. It seemed wonderful to me, that our Faculty, one· after another, would come up with many acceptable things, which seemed to tide us over in that period when people needed to be shown that their education could be practical. The things, of course, which appealed to me personally, were the outside activities Membership and meetings which we were obliged to attend at the Pennsylvania colleges and the middle states areas, and national meetings. Those 'were things which broadened your horizons for your work at home. They were very good, although they took a lot of traveling. Other things which one feels more constructive about was going around seeking funds from people. It seems to me at least, that the responses from directors of Foundations, and from small Corporations, and people that you went to talk to, was always quite positive and pleasant, if not in dollars, at least in attitude. Those were things which I found myself enjoying more than fussing around with why someone did or did not do what they were supposed to do. It' s a matter of temperament. I apologize, can't help it. I also found it to be very important to make the college well known in Greensburg. Father Maida (sounds like) did a very good job of doing this. To keep that going was something too to be visible, belong to the Chamber of Commerce, where Seton Hill was a place instead of a mysterious element on the Hill. I don't know, but I believe that's enough, don't you? SMJH: I think it is very impressive and interesting. I would like to quote from the newspaper once again. When you left the Office in nineteen seventy seven, the paper said: "Sister Mary leaves the Office of the President, having established programs that respond to the needs of the Seton Hill student body. She has built working relationships that will endure. The college is financially sound. Enrollment is at an all time high. Structures and systems of working are established that will benefit Seton Hill for years to come." Sister, we know that all these things are true, and they are true because of your enthusiastic leadership. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio cassette tape Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 27:04 28:25 26:45 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 96kHz 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 Schmidt, Sister Mary Oral History Description An account of the resource An oral history of Sister Mary Schmidt, a Sister of Charity of Seton Hill from 1934 until 1993. The interview was conducted by Sister Miriam Jane Hollowood on July 10 and 18, 1984. Sister Mary Schmidt was born on June 26th, 1911 in Pittsburgh, Pa. Daughter of Henry K. Schmidt and Mabel Green, Mary Jeannette Schmidt entered the community on March 25th, 1934 at the age of 22 as Sister Mary Schmidt. Sister Mary Schmidt was a professor of English at Seton Hill College from 1936 to 1957. She served as the Executive Vice President of Seton Hill College from 1957 to 1970. Then, the following year Sister Mary Schmidt served as President of SHC from 1971 to 1977. Sister Mary Schmidt received her B.S. in English, Psychology, and Philosophy from Seton Hill College in 1932. Then, she received her M.A. in English from the University of Pittsburgh in 1934. Sister Mary Schmidt went to Yale University for her Ph.D. in English Language and Literature in 1943, where she would pursue her postdoctoral research at both Yale and Columbia Universities. Sister Mary Schmidt passed on April 26th, 1993 at the age of 81. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984/07/10 1984-07/18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All rights belong to the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio cassette tape 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 OH-81 Subject The topic of the resource Sister Mary Schmidt Education Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/f15511706d1e411ff5a23a569a09a47f.PNG 86158ee3a073a90b7620693896a7f0cc https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/07676890b410950a354b78d6e009dee9.mp3 dbf993307e145c484a20edc3798dfbfe https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/5d38626402957cbdfa482147950473f7.pdf 4af89bd97827d479ba5ce03313920fe9 PDF Text Text Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 1 of 16 JK: This interview is with Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka. MMS: Yes. JK: Ok. The interviewer is Jane Kenamore. We are at the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Mother House in Leavenworth, Kansas, and the date is June 29th, 2017. MMS: The year goes by. JK: Sister Marie Madeleine, when and where were you born? [00:00:40] MMS: I was born and raised in Chapell, Nebraska which is a small town in the western part of the state, close to Denver and Cheyenne. JK: Oh, it is. Ok. MMS: Right in the corner. JK: Oh, ok. Can you tell us about your parents and the values that they passed onto you? [00:00:59] MMS: Oh, yes. My mother was a staunch Lutheran, and my father was a staunch Bohemian. (Laughs) JK: A staunch what? MMS: Bohemian. JK: Oh. MMS: Czechoslovakian. And we had a wonderful family life. They were very good. My mother was very humble. My father was a plumber, and we were poor but we never lacked for love and care. JK: And your town was a very small town, I gather. [00:01:23] MMS: 1,198. JK: Oh, my gosh, yes. So, what was it like to grow up in a small town? [00:01:32] MMS: You know, when you live in a small town you know everybody and everybody knows you and you make friends, and you do all the things kids do in school. I worked in a soda fountain at our corner drugstore and so I got to know a lot of people. Had a great life. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 2 of 16 JK: Oh, that's good. Did your town have a Catholic school? [00:01:57] MMS: We were part of a very small group of Catholics in Chapell, Nebraska at that point in time. In fact, there were very few Catholic families. And one of my good friends was Pat O'Connor who later became a Sister of Charity and her sister Margaret became a Sister of Charity. And their brother became a Passionist Father. So, they were a strong influence in my family or to me, to me. But I enjoyed living and growing with them. One of the joys of my life was on Good Friday. I was one of the only kids in school that could ask to be dismissed at 12:00 noon so I could say Stations of the Cross. JK: (Laughs) That was lucky. (Gap) JK: You started by going into nursing training. Am I right on that? [00:03:00] MMS: Yes. Yes. JK: Why did you decide to go into nursing? [00:03:03] MMS: I mentioned earlier that we were poor. And after I graduated from high school I wanted to go to college but I knew that that was impossible. And it was about that time that the Cadet Nurse Corps was started. And my mother heard it advertised one day on the radio. And I came home from school and she said, "Honey, I think you should think about going into the Cadet Nurse Corps." So, I looked at St. Joseph Hospital in Denver and made my decision to, yes, I'd go, and so I entered there in June of 1944. JK: Oh, and you actually served in the military then? [00:03:40] MMS: No, it wasn't the military really. It was a program to try to get people interested in nursing because we were in the middle of the war. And it was free tuition. It was free uniforms. It was free everything. So we were really God blessed at that point in time to have that opportunity. I hadn't had an inclination to become a nurse but the opportunity was there and I took it. JK: Oh, good. So, was that your first experience with the Sisters of Charity? [00:04:13] MMS: It really was. I knew very few Sisters in my life prior to that time. There were Sisters of St. Benedict or some group in Sidney, Nebraska, and they'd come down a couple of weeks �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 3 of 16 during the summer to give us some classes in catechism and all, but they were the only nuns I ever knew. So, I had no drawing to Catholicism as a nun. JK: Can you describe your nursing training? [00:04:44] MMS: Yes, I was fortunate. It was a three-year program, the hospital schools of nursing, and it was very good. And I so admired… I really admired the Sisters. I think that's where I came so involved with the Charities because I watched the nursing nuns, and they were really the core of hospitals at that point in time. I think the nursing nuns really built the hospital system in this country. Powerful women. JK: That's true. MMS: Yes, it is. (Gap) JK: It was a three-year program and was there anything notable in it? [00:06:01] MMS: I think we produced wonderful bedside nurses in the hospital schools of nursing. Later on when I became an educator in nursing education the country was going through the process of changing nurses from three-year programs to four-year programs with your BSN and that sort of thing. And we struggled for years to keep the schools with the three-year programs open. But it really wasn't fair to our graduates because they ended up with their RN but it took them two more years to get their BSN. So, our hospital program, St. Francis, St. Joseph, St. Vincent's all phased out during that period of time. JK: Oh, that's a good idea. MMS: Yes, it was. We had women of vision. Really Sister Eugene Teresa McCarthy was one of the leaders in moving nursing education from strictly bedside care to the hospital where they were teaching women more how to interact with people and that sort of thing. So, the hospital programs prepared us to take care of the body, and the college programs helped us to take care of the whole person. JK: Oh, yes. That's good. I'm assuming… I'll ask the question anyway. What attracted you to the SCLs and going into religious life in general? [00:07:26] MMS: Just my experience at St. Joseph's and my admiration for the Sisters that I saw working there. And they were so… They were just great women. They were generous and competent and kind and strong, prayerful. I mean they set a real pace for me. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 4 of 16 JK: Yes, good. Who were your early mentors in SCL? [00:07:50] MMS: Sister Alice Marie Schwieder was a lifelong friend. And some of my other friends, Sister Joan Allard and Sister Macrina Ryan, Mary Julie Casey, just some of the wonderful women I met along the way. They weren't all in nursing but they were wonderful Sisters. JK: Oh, good. When did you enter specifically? [00:08:15] MMS: I entered the community on February the 11th, 1947. And that was three days before the Sisters… When we entered, there were only five of us, and all the people in the novitiate were on retreat at that point in time. So, we walked from the noisy, blustery world into a world of silence, and we looked around and we wondered what we had gotten into. So, here we were. And so the retreat was over on February 15th, and some of our Sisters made their first vows then and so life went on. JK: Did most of the classes begin in September? Is that why yours was small? [00:08:55] MMS: No, no. We entered in February and most of the classes entered, the large classes entered on August 15 of each year. JK: Oh, I see. MMS: And that's when the girls were out of college and the summer schools and high school etc., etc. And at that point in time many women entered as you well know. So, the five of us were outliers. JK: Right. Yes, you were. But I guess that mid-year entry was probably small usually. MMS: It was wonderful. Oh, yes. It didn't last too much longer. You know after a few years they started to straggle in most times but not as group in February. JK: Oh, I see. MMS: So, the main entrance date for a while was August to my knowledge. And, again, you know, I'm 91. (Laughs) So, I might be off on my timing. JK: You were ideally prepared for your early ministries. What were your positions at St. Francis in Topeka, St. Vincent's or St. V's in Billings and St. Joseph's in Denver? [00:10:04] MMS: When I finished my… I made my first vows in February of 1950, I was sent to St. Francis Hospital in Topeka. And I told God I that didn't want to be in OB. I didn't want to work �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 5 of 16 nights, and I didn't want to educate anybody. So, the first thing I did was to be assigned to obstetrics. And, oh, my. We had more precipitations than the world dreams. Then I was assigned to night duty, and that was another growing experience. And the education part was something that I finally latched onto and continued in my progress. JK: Oh, good. And then you went to St. Vincent's in Billings? [00:10:50] MMS: Yes. I went to St. Vincent's, and I was director of the school of nursing, but I also was teaching on the side a few classes. And I loved working with the young women, because they would come in, and, you know, kids 18 and 19 are a little bit scatterbrained and all that sort of thing. But as the years progressed and they worked ahead in their educational programs, they matured beautifully, beautifully. It was a joy to watch that growth. JK: But you were young then, weren't you? MMS: Yes. JK: How old were you when you were director of nursing? [00:11:24] MMS: Oh, 24, 25, 26, something like that. JK: You were director of nursing. Were many people working for you? MMS: Director of the school of nursing. JK: Oh, school of nursing. MMS: School of nursing. School of nursing. JK: Ok, but even still. MMS: Well, it was a challenge. JK: Yes, I can imagine. What were some of the challenges that you ran into? [00:11:44] MMS: Finding my way around as the director. (Laughter) MMS: And working with the young women, and making sure that our educators were good educators and just life in general. But it was great. I loved my hospital life. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 6 of 16 JK: Oh, that's good. MMS: Yes. JK: Did you like Billings as well? [00:12:03] MMS: Yes, yes. Billings is a lovely town. I was there for about seven years, I think. And then I was asked to go to St. Joseph Hospital in Denver for a year and to take some courses at Regis College, I think. And at that point in time they asked me to get prepared in some of the math courses and that sort of thing. And then the next year I was assigned to go to St. Louis University, and I got my education and master's in Health Services Administration. JK: Ok. So, did you like your program at St. Louis U? [00:12:52] MMS: Yes. Yes. I really have liked just about everything I've had to do, and I just would kind of roll with the punches, you know. I guess that came from Chapell, Nebraska. (Laughter) JK: That's right. (Laughs) How did you decide to go…? Well, you were kind of heading toward hospital administration, but how did you decide to go fully into it? [00:13:20] MMS: I really didn't decide. It was kind of decided for me. At that point in time we were asked if we would consider that, and so I was asked to go to school and get my master's in hospital administration so I did that. So, it wasn't my choice. JK: Right. MMS: It was my challenge. JK: So, one of your early experiences was as assistant administrator for St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. MMS: Yes. JK: What did you learn from this experience, and how did it prepare you for your later role? [00:14:00] MMS: Well, I was in California for 41 years and I loved every minute of it. And when I got there in 1968 as an assistant administrator to Sister Mary Eloise Paul (phonetic) I was assigned to be in charge of the Respiratory Therapy Department. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 7 of 16 And then as the years went on between '68 and '73 I started going to medical staff committee meetings and was allowed to sit in on board meetings and things like that. So, Sister was kind of helping me along to get acquainted with a broader picture. JK: She was. MMS: Yes. JK: That's great. MMS: Yes. JK: Yes. So, when did you become the director of the hospital? [00:14:45] MMS: Well, the title at that point in time, in 1973, was executive director, but it was one of the times during our lifetime in constant change. But we were looking for executive directors and CEOs and presidents, and the community was trying to get things organized so that we all would be in sync in our many hospitals across the country. So, it was kind of an evolutionary flow. But it finally ended up with being president and CEO. JK: You must have appreciated the fact that you were a Sister at that point because in the nonreligious world women, despite the fact that… well, the Women's Movement kind of began in 1969 but in 1973 women weren't in leadership positions such as you were. [00:15:39] MMS: I really didn't think about that. JK: You didn't think about it. MMS: No. JK: Interesting. MMS: I really didn't. I just didn't. (Laughs) JK: Yes, interesting. So, you were in Santa Monica. MMS: Yes. JK: So, you must have run into a lot of celebrities of one sort or another. [00:15:56] MMS: We did. We had a lot of people who supported St. John's over the years and were very good to us. Mr. Sinatra had some programs for St. Johns. And Jimmy Stewart and his wife, Gloria, were on our board of directors for a period of time. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 8 of 16 JK: Oh, really? MMS: Yes. And Irene Dunne, and most of the people listening to this won't even know who I'm talking about because they're so long ago, but Irene Dunne was one of the people who really helped St. John's get started. She helped our Sister Mary David especially to get St. John's moving and raise money for St. John's etc. We've been blessed with good friends and many, many wonderful lay people. We've had so many wonderful lay people on our boards and in our foundations over the years, so it was an exciting time to be with people. JK: It must have been. MMS: Yes, it was. And I really enjoyed getting to know them and working with them. JK: So, what was Frank Sinatra like? [00:16:56] MMS: Around us he was very nice. (Laughter) MMS: I guess he has another history. JK: I think so, yes. MMS: I remember particularly R.J. Wagner who was very good to St. John's too, and he had just become acquainted with St. John's, oh, many, many years ago. JK: Is that Robert Wagner? [00:17:20] MMS: R.J. Wagner, Robert Wagner, uh-huh. One morning he called… They called me to come down to the Emergency Room that he was down there and his mother was a patient, and his mother died right in front of us. JK: Oh, no. MMS: And poor old R.J. was shaken but her eyes were wide open. So, I closed her eyes and I said a prayer with him and then we kind of helped him to… He had never been faced (phonetic) with something like that really. He was pretty busy in his career and that sort of thing. It seemed to help him. So, years later he wrote a book and of course the book contained many of his activities as a younger person. He was a real ladies man etc., etc. And one day one of the people who worked with me at Seton Center was reading his book and my name was in it. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 9 of 16 JK: Oh really? [00:18:16] MMS: She poked her husband and she said, "Bill, Bill. Look at this. Sister's name is in here." And so R.J. put the incident of closing his mother's eyes into his book. So, I think something touched him. JK: Yes, obviously. MMS: I think the Holy Spirit. JK: Right. And who were some of the other people you mentioned? [00:18:37] MMS: Oh, I don't know. There were so many that were so good to us and most of them really weren't high powered, but Mr. Campion... People who worked in big business in California were good to St. John's. Conrad Hilton, I mentioned before, Baron Hilton. Some of the people in the city who were prominent were always very good to St. John's and assisted us on boards and in the foundation. JK: That's good. So, in 1994, I think, the Northridge earthquake took place. MMS: Sure did. JK: So, can you describe the earthquake and its affect on the hospital? [00:19:20] MMS: Ok. Well, I wasn't home the morning of the earthquake. I was back here in Leavenworth for a board meeting. And my COO called that morning and said, "Sister, this is a terrible earthquake. You'd better come home." So, I finally got home about six o'clock in the evening. And I drove from the airport back to the hospital. And I drove around the hospital and it was severely damaged. Our entire north wing was severely damaged. They had to evacuate the nursery. We had babies in intensive units. They evacuated all the people into our main wing for security purposes. The elevators weren't working so the men had to carry patients from the fifth floor downstairs into another wing of the hospital. So, people were truly heroic and so thoughtful and so good. And they just all stood up and were counted. It's amazing how brave we can be when we're called to do that. So, anyhow, the hospital, as I said, was severely damaged. And the inspectors from California came down right away, and they said that you have to close the hospital… JK: The whole hospital. MMS: …and rehab this facility. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 10 of 16 JK: So, during that period of time we had to let all of our employees go. JK: Oh, really. JK: So, we had over 600 people, and we gave them all their benefits and all their payment and that sort of thing. And that was in about May, I think, or maybe earlier, that all of our employees were going. And the only facility that remained open during that time was the John Wayne Cancer Institute which was housed in the building across the street. And so they were able to carry on their clinics and their activity during this time. But those were the John Wayne employees that were there and all of ours were gone. JK: Where did you send your patients? [00:21:24] MMS: Where did we send them? We had to have them evacuated to… Many went to Cedars. Many went to UCLA. Many went to Daniel Freeman. It was a whole day of evacuating the patients from the hospital. The ambulances were lined up. And it was well-organized. I must say that, you know. We were God blessed that everything went as well as it did. And nobody was killed or injured at St. John's during that time. JK: That's good. MMS: Yes. It was very good. So, during the summer… I'll just continue for a minute. JK: Please. MMS: During the summer our COO and our personnel director and our finance person and the leadership team of St. John's were working, and we were getting ready to reopen as the hospital was being prepared to close down and to raze the north wing. So, we finally were stabilized and were able to reopen the hospital in September of 1974, and on that day 69 percent of the people who came back were the people we had to let go. JK: Oh, that's great. MMS: Yes. They wanted to come home. I'm rambling. (Laughs) JK: So, you had to do a lot of fundraising, right? [00:22:48] MMS: Yes, we did. Yes we did. JK: And in a short time. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 11 of 16 MMS: Yes. Well, you know there was a period of time when people were looking at St. John's about whether we should… should we rebuild or should we move in to ambulatory care or should we do this or should we do that. And the people, our board of directors and the people who had supported us for so many years, were so anxious for us to rebuild and carry on. So Sister Mary Kathleen Stefani was our community director at that point in time, and she came out for a board meeting and she heard the passion and the desire to really rebuild and so she authorized our rebuilding and getting started to see what we could do. So, at that point in time our foundation's total effort was in raising over 100 million dollars because our first estimate of rebuilding was 150 million. Eventually, over the years, as the building went on and the raising went on the total cost of the project was around 500 million, but the 100 million got us off and started. JK: That got you back in business. MMS: It got us back in business. Yes, indeed. So, we had the architects and the building committees and the construction types and… JK: And you did all that in nine months? [00:24:07] MMS: No, not nine months. But just so many people were there to help us, you know. And the building committee evolved over that period of time, 'cause we had to get the architects, and we had to get the construction types and that sort of thing. But we had very bright guys on our committees there, the building committee, etc. etc. And they were entrepreneurs, and they were architects and construction types and that sort of thing. And they helped us to develop the vision that we had for St. John's of the future which was to be, at that point in time, a smaller hospital. At our first point in time our greatest number of patients was 551. Then over time we got down to 350 at the time of the earthquake. And when we reopened the hospital we had 300 beds. JK: And you don't need as many beds with the new… MMS: We were going through that period of time when people were looking at ambulatory care and outpatient clinics and things like that. JK: Right, right. But to get a… MMS: The medical staff was really a support in all that because we had wonderful obstetricians and cardiologists and surgeons etc. The medical staff was outstanding. Still are today. Even though there's so much transition in healthcare and so many people have to go here or to go there because the grass looked greener, our sole supporters were still there, and they just held St. John's together and helped us to grow back to become very healthy. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 12 of 16 JK: That's fantastic. One of your awards, one of many, I'm sure, cited the following: You "ensured St. John's was able to sustain a potentially devastating nine-month closure after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and, moreover, pioneered the situation into an opportunity to build for tomorrow and improve healthcare delivery through the west side." You already answered the question about the staff. You had to let them go and I'm sure there was… but 60… MMS: 69 percent. JK: 69 percent returned, so that's phenomenal. [00:26:37] MMS: On the first day. JK: Yes. And what were some of the renovations that you did that brought the hospital into the 21st Century? [00:26:46] MMS: We had long since looked at ambulatory care and we were working with doctors in getting the offices tied in closer to St. John's. And we strengthened our orthopedic program. We strengthened our cardiology program, our cardiac surgery program, our obstetrics program, and internal medicine. We had a plethora of doctors who were truly experts. We used to tease that we were the crown jewel of the hospitals. And at that point in time Sister Marianna Bauder was at St. Joseph's in Denver and they thought they were the crown jewel. So we called St. Joseph's St. John's East and she called St. John's St. Joseph's West. So there we were. JK: (Laughs) Can you think of anything specifically that you added that was particularly forward-looking? [00:27:49] MMS: I think it was my spirit that I was not ever going to stuff up (phonetic). I mean we worked diligently to keep things moving and as people would become depressed, you know, you go through periods of up and down and that sort of thing, but we had to keep it going so we did. JK: Good. Good. MMS: It was God. (Laughter) MMS: Yes, truly. �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 13 of 16 JK: That's good. So, you're back here now. It must have been sad to leave Santa Monica after being there for so many years. [00:28:23] MMS: Well, you know, there's a time when you know it's time to go. JK: Right. MMS: And when I decided it was time to move on I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I saw an ad in a paper about home nursing, and I worked with a Sister of St. Joseph in Kansas City. (Gap) MMS: It was the director of a program. Sister Loretta Marie, who was a lifelong friend, invited me to come live with her. So, I thought, well, I'll live with her and work in the home nursing. And I tried that for a while but I was uncomfortable. I didn't like going into people's homes, and I felt very uncomfortable in that work. So, Sister said, "Why don't you come work at Seton?" And I didn't know what I wanted to do at that point in time. So, she said, "I'll put you to work in the pantry." So, now I'm working in the pantry backup room. We set up all the commodity bags, and we set up the cosmetic bags, the hygiene bags. And so I'm really blessed. I'm a happy camper. JK: Oh, good. MMS: You know I work about four or five hours a day. JK: Perfect. [00:29:48] MMS: And I like what I'm doing. And I love the people we're taking care of. And I love the staff that's working with us. They're multi-national, and they're just wonderful people—truly blessed. Sometimes you go out in the parlor and you'll meet somebody sitting there, and you know they don't have two nickels to rub together. "How's everything going?" "I'm blessed." JK: That's good. It must be really gratifying to be working among the people who need that so desperately. [00:30:22] MMS: Yes, yes. I'm happy. Yes. And we do a good, good work. JK: Oh good. MMS: We served over 1800 families at Christmastime last year. JK: Do you really? �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 14 of 16 MMS: And we give them food, and we give them toys, and we give them clothing, and our volunteers are just extraordinary. They're just extraordinary. They're so helpful in everything we do. JK: So, do you give them clothing throughout the year or only at Christmas? [00:30:50] MMS: No, we have a thrift shop. It's open four days a week. And they can come in, you know, and some can come in and buy clothes for 50 cents or a dollar or two dollars or what have you. And sometimes we'll get some very wonderful clothing, and they're able to come in and buy nice things and leave the place looking like a million dollars. JK: Oh, yes. That's good. Do you think you'll ever retire? [00:31:19] MMS: Oh, I'm probably retired right now. (Laughter) JK: No, you're not. MMS: Well, I'm as close to that, I think, as I'll get. Retirement just means doing what you can with what you've got and so that's where I am. JK: And so when you joined the SCL I'm sure you didn't have any idea that you'd be heading up a large hospital. [00:31:45] MMS: I used to stand in the hallway at St. John's and say, "My God, what is somebody from Chapell, Nebraska, U.S.A. doing at St. John's in Santa Monica?" I truly did. JK: I'm sure you did. What were your career expectations when you joined the SCL? [00:32:06] MMS: I'm not sure. I don't know. At the time that I entered the community young women could be nurses or secretaries or what else? JK: Teachers. MMS: Teachers, exactly. And today they can go to the moon. So, with the declining numbers of young women they're providing service in different ways than we did at that point in time. JK: So, in a way, there are benefits. In many ways there are benefits of the new culture. [00:32:45] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 15 of 16 MMS: Absolutely. They have many opportunities. Sometimes those people having multiple opportunities and do exciting or extraordinary things. They kind of forget there's a God in charge, you know, and so you see people kind of drifting. And my hope and prayer is that when the time comes they'll come back. And I believe that especially with nieces and nephews. JK: Oh, really, yes. Yes. How has the SCL community helped you to accomplish all that you have in your life? [00:33:26] MMS: Their support, their prayers, their willingness to let me serve, their guidance. I have a wonderful community. JK: You do. That's true. Do you think you would ever have accomplished all you have working as a woman alone? [00:33:45] MMS: I don't know. I don't know. I think if that would have been my choice I would have done the best I could. So, God provides. JK: So, how did the SCLs contribute to your love of life? [00:33:59] MMS: Contribute to what? JK: To your love of life? MMS: They love life. They all love life. They're just such good people. Yes. They're prayerful, good, inspirational role models. JK: And how have you contributed to the community over the years? [00:34:24] MMS: Oh, I think I've had a spirit that's been good. Yes. I think I had a spirit. I think I still do. JK: I'm sure you still do. So many of the women that we've interviewed, well, all of them actually, seem to have that spirit. [00:34:41] MMS: Yes. You know we're going through great transitions at this point in time—what's going to happen to religious communities and where are we going etc., etc. And it's up to God, 'cause I won't be around to see where it goes, but I sure want to have the spirit to let them go. Is that it? JK: I think that's it. Yes, I think that's it. MMS: All right. JK: We didn't cover this. Why do you think fewer people enter the order today? [00:35:20] �Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas Transcription of Sister Marie Madeleine Shonka Interviewed by Jane Kenamore, June 29, 2017 Transcribed by Jessie Lehman, September 25, 2017 Page 16 of 16 MMS: The reason I said before. They have so many opportunities today, others. But they end up serving one way or another. JK: Right. Yes. MMS: So, the options are great and numerous and exciting. JK: And also in the community as well. MMS: Oh, yes. Isn't that wonderful? You know when Sisters left the teaching they were able to go into social work, and they were able to go into religious work or whatever, counseling, mentoring and that sort of thing. And so all of us have benefitted by the changes that have come along. Been a lot of battles along the way about I don't like this; I don't like that, but you know eventually we all get into the game and we roll with whatever direction we're going. JK: We didn't talk about Vatican II and the affect it had on the community and actually on you personally. [00:36:14] MMS: '68 was a … Well, I've been in religious life more in post-Vatican that I was in preVatican, and so at the time I was really kind of… I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to think but I… As the community was making changes and we were doing things differently we adapted you know. I don't think I fought it. I think sometimes I didn't like it, but I don't think I fought it, the changes and all. So, I think I've been able to move ahead. JK: Was that true for all of your friends in the community? [00:36:55] MMS: No. We had a time in our community when sometimes if you weren't dressed as a nun you weren't really too accepted. I mean, you know, they didn't like the changes in dress or the changes in some things. But eventually God gave us all the grace to get over that and to continue on being great women. So, that's the name of the game. JK: That's true. All right. Do you have anything else you'd like to talk about? [00:37:24] MMS: No. I'm finished. I probably talked too much already. JK: No, you haven't. MMS: You'll have a hard time screening this one. (Laughter) MMS: Thank you. ### � 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 Shonka, S. Marie Madeline 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.) 37:40:00 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 Shonka, S. Marie Madeline, Oral History, 6/29/2017 Subject The topic of the resource Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth; Cadet Nurse Corps; Nursing; Health Ministry; Northridge Earthquake, California Description An account of the resource She begins with a description of her childhood in Nebraska. She belonged to one of very few Catholic families in a small town. Because her family did not have a lot of money, when it came time to get an education, she took advantage of the Cadet Nurse Corps program. She describes meeting SCLs for the first time at her training hospital. Her admiration for their spirit and work ethic drew her to the community. Initially reluctant to be an educator, she tells of becoming the Director of the school of nursing at St. Vincent's and how she grew to love her role there. Eventually, she studied for her Masters in Health Administration and became the Executive Director of St. John's hospital in Santa Monica. She describes the great support for the hospital from the local community and the aftermath of the Northridge Earthquake. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shonka, S. Marie Madeline; 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 6/29/2017 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 Shonka, S. Marie Madeline; 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 1925-2017 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Audios Healthcare Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/21771b8c7a9ac82d48ad114119079323.JPG 53afb27966619e6a0b08b0a850a828a4 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/7dbcbb7ee033d1fd813c314a0a076e66.JPG bd5442d95aa27580f4db1fede5250d33 Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. 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 Silver pitcher Subject The topic of the resource Pitchers Silver pitcher Description An account of the resource In 1858, as Community foundress Mother Xavier Ross prepared to leave Nashville, TN., where her Community had first began, The people of Nashville, TN. gifted Mother Xavier with a silver pitcher engraved: “A token of esteem and gratitude, respectfully inscribed to the Sisters of Charity, by the citizens of Nashville, Dec. 4th, 1858.” The pitcher has become a treasured historical artifact of the early days in Nashville and the work the Sisters did there. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived N/A Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available N/A Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ca. 1855 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tennessee--Nashville Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The material in this collection is made available by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth. To request reproductions or to inquire about permissions, contact SCL Archives at 913-758-6588, or tcrawford@scls.org. Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/56462d58f3cb6414f26b43284b865070.jpg 90bd4ab4b82f420ecb073c1c171424a3 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/62a67b748c377578714b73ce51e1af18.mp3 685683275a5f173a1645d1fa7db62aea https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/f623b8e4bc51bcacfc9e7f0c65f19e68.pdf b7f3b8a227a50aac6179c54b22c5c97c PDF Text Text Interviewer: Interviewee: Date: Editor: Date edited: Sister Mary Teresa Orbegozo, SC and Sister Rosanne Caiazzo, SC Sister Agnes Socorro Ward, SC January 1980 Sister Noreen Neary, SC November 10, 2020 Sr. Agnes Socorro: We had, of course, orphanages. We had, as I recall it, and I may not have the exact number, we had at least three orphanages and they were big orphanages. You don't remember them, either, I don't think. Sr. Rosanne: I just remember seeing [Saint Mary Orphanage in Newark, NJ]. It was still open when I entered. Sr. Agnes Socorro: Yeah. That's still open. Sr. Rosanne: [Saint Joseph’s Orphanage in Totowa, NJ], too. Sr. Agnes Socorro: And, of course. Then another thing we did, I was young when I came and I went to [Holy Cross School in Harrison, NJ]. Do you know where Harrison is? Sr. Rosanne: Yes, Sister. Sr. Agnes Socorro: There was an old sister there. She was then fifty years in the community. She taught the first grade. And one of her duties was that she would go around and visit the sick and the poor, and lay out the dead. It scared [me] to death laying out the dead. I had to go with her. That was my assignment. The Sister Servant told you, "Do this, that or whatever." Sr. Agnes Socorro: And then, I remember in Harrison going upstairs, that you'd think you'd never get to the top. They were so shaky. And she would go in. And of course, she was there so long, she knew them all. And the people knew her and she would ask, as I used to say, she asked them everything. How much money their husband was making? If he wasn't, why wasn't he working? They took it from her. She was an old sister and they knew she was interested. And then, in Harrison at the time, there was Saint Vincent de Paul. Have you read about Saint Vincent de Paul? Sr. Rosanne: Yes, Sister. �Sr. Agnes Socorro: He had Ladies of Charity. Father Fitzpatrick, who was then in Harrison, founded a group of women, which you'd call the Vincentians. They could work and make money for the poor, but they couldn't give out the money. That was up to the sisters. So she would decide, in a way, how much money these would get and all of that. In Harrison, we collected [unintelligible]. Then if a child that anybody would [unintelligible] first communion class would [unintelligible]. Such a one cannot get a first communion dress, we would see that she got it. And things like that. Now that was working with the poor, well I think, in a way, more intimately than you do today. And I remember getting into a scrap when somebody said we did nothing for the poor in those days. Go without dessert, we'd take it over to some poor kid that we knew didn't have any food, because there was no such thing as lunches in the schools. Sr. Mary Teresa: When did you enter the community, Sister? Sr. Agnes Socorro: What? Sr. Mary Teresa: When did you enter? Sr. Agnes Socorro: 1912. Sr. Mary Teresa: 1912. Sr. Agnes Socorro: So, life was different. I mean, in Saint Vincent, you read about the sisters going around with a pot of soup. We didn't go around with a pot of soup, but we went around in the same way and promised them things, like promised them food. And I remember there was one shoe store that if they were [unintelligible] the poor, for lack of a better word, they could go to that shoe store, with a pass from sister, and get shoes. Things are done differently today. But it was done in those days. There's no doubt about that. Sr. Rosanne: You entered at a time when there were a couple of major worldwide issues at hand like World War I. Sr. Agnes Socorro: World War I started at 1914. Sr. Rosanne: �Right. And women's suffrage. Sr. Agnes Socorro: No, there was no such thing as women's suffrage. They were fighting for it. Sr. Rosanne: Fighting for it, right. Were the sisters at all aware of what was happening? Sr. Agnes Socorro: Oh, they were aware. Sr. Rosanne: Yeah. Sr. Agnes Socorro: But like that, for instance, they were very much aware of World War I. They did a great deal of knitting and everything like that, all kinds of work. They could not go out as you might go today. If you're interested in ERA, you'd go around and picket or something. We couldn't do that, of course. Life was different. We were not exactly cloistered. But no woman…And most women didn’t, I'll put it that way. Some women did it, but most women didn't. And people lived more in their homes and life was altogether different. This is, of course, what goes on in my class, raking up fashions and all of that. But then in the Civil War, you see, the Sisters of Emmitsburg and some few of our sisters did go out and nurse in the battlefields. But in World War I you didn't do it. I think, I suppose, there was more ways of getting it done, but the need was not as great. Now, however, we had the flu in 1918. You've heard of the flu. Sr. Rosanne: Yes. Sr. Agnes Socorro: That flu. And some of the sisters from here went to [All Souls Hospital in Morristown, NJ] to help out. Another sister and myself were sent from Harrison to [Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital in Elizabeth, NJ] to help out. We did things like that. But there was not so much going out of the community as there had been in the Civil War. That was a different setup. Know what I mean? Sr. Rosanne: Mm-hmm Yeah. The Congregation then did impress upon you always the Vincentian spirit. Sr. Agnes Socorro: �Oh, yes. You were there for the poor. In fact, when I was missioned in the [Academy of Saint Elizabeth] here, I was in the old generation. You don't remember that, either, but you've heard of us. I was there. And then I was brought up to the Academy and I…Oh, I was in a terrible state. I didn't come to work for the rich, I came to work for the poor. And here I was. No, you were working for the poor. It was impressed on you that you did without, because if this mission that you were on could succeed in saving some money, it was turned right into the Motherhouse for the poor. That's in the old Rule. Hope they have some of those old Rules around some place. Because I mean, this is going to come up – we’re working on the history of the community. Sr. Agnes Socorro: And life was different. Now, things are different in you might go out now and get a job and turn your salary in to the community, for the work of the community. But in going out there, you have to live accordingly and dress accordingly. You don't go without the way the others say. If a Sister gave music lessons and every mission had a Sister giving music lessons…You had them in [Waterbury, CT] too, maybe not in your day, but…You had one lovely saintly woman there. But anyway, that money was not used for that local community. That was sent right to the Motherhouse. So, you see this is all part of life, as we knew it. It's different today. It has to be. Life has changed every place. Sr. Agnes Socorro: I would not say that women were involved in women's rights as they could be today, because of our life. You might be interested, you might want it and all of that, but our life was such. You don't remember when since you could go home. When I first came to the community, if you went home, you had to be back. You couldn't eat at home. But this was not just our community. This was every community. You couldn't eat at home. No more than you could sleep at home, of course. If then you had to be back in the convent at a certain time in the evening, and that did not change, that time in the evening until about 15 years ago. You remember Sister [unintelligible]. When she was a novice she fought for that. Sisters have a longer time in the evening so they could get to know their fathers. They never saw their fathers. They had to be back so soon. So you see, I suppose some of these things were things that were brought from European communities where life was different. And you see, I know. I have visited. There's one French community in Ireland. They bought a big, old estate and they care for epileptic children. They can never go home, or they couldn't when I was there. This was maybe 10 years ago. But their whole family could come and stay right in the convent, which was... You see? But we had no way of putting up a whole family in the convent. We didn't have these big estates. I don't what other social issue besides women's rights was...Sister Mary Cecilia would tell you all the things she knitted, both in World War I and World War II. Sr. Rosanne: What about Mother Xavier, Sister? Sr. Agnes Socorro: �Well, I didn't know her that well. She was an old, old sister when I came. Very short and very frail looking. And her office was where that new council room is, there in the front of the building. Her bedroom was where Sister Mary Canavan's office now is. You know that room. She slept there with Sister Mary Virginia [Burke]. They did not allow her to sleep alone because then she was very old. She was very, very rigid. There's no doubt about that. And I suppose in her way, it was a carry-over from the other communities. You know what I mean? Sr. Agnes Socorro: She did not see the Irish communities going home and things like that. So she never went home herself. In fact, Sister Agnes Paula [Conefrey] used to tell the story that she was going home [to Ireland] about 1908 and Sister Mary Madeleine [Bull] was with her. And they were out in New York harbor on the boat. And Sister Mary Madeleine was down in the stateroom saying her rosary. And Sister said to her, "Will you come up? I want to see the skyline of New York. I’ll never see it again at night." "No, I won't," she said. "Oh, please, do! I’ll say the Rosary all the way across the Atlantic if you come up. Come on." "No," she said. "I won't. I will stay here until we start because we might get sent for to come back." But the first Assistant Mother, Sister Mary Catherine [Nevin], was extremely kind. And I think she was kind of a buffer. You know what I mean? She took care of the kindness part of it, so that the sisters did not feel the rigidness that Mother had. And the next Assistant Mother, [Mother Mary Cecilia Casey], who was later the second Mother, Mother Cecilia was extremely kind. But Mother Xavier used to sit in the back of the chapel in the corner there by the twelfth station. I suppose they put her in there to get her out of the drafts. You see, that chapel was barely finished when I entered. They put her there in the corner and she sat there. She had her little prie dieu there. But she was at Mass each and every morning. It was six o’clock in those days. I remember we were… [Sister Rose Vincentia Bradley] who entered with me…there were five of us, seven of us came from Ireland together. [Sister Mary Alphonsine Coffey] was one of them and Sister Rose Vincentia. They’re both at [Saint Anne Villa] Sister Rose Vincentia and myself, Mother Xavier considered too young to enter. We were 14. She told Sister Virginia Clare and [Sister Francis Xavier Edgeworth] that we would go to [Saint Vincent Academy in Newark, NJ]. And she would see us later on. The others entered. But she sent for us eventually, sometime during the fall, and we came up and there was an old Sister. And I often wish I knew her name, just for the sake of knowing it. She met us up in the hall and she said, "Now, when you go in, Mother Xavier will say to you, ‘Isn’t this place more beautiful than Ireland?’ And be sure to say, ‘Yes.’" Now, there was a lawyer here last week who said she was a shrewd woman. She came here, as you know from the history, with five dollars. She had bought that place from Seton Hall and they didn't give it to her. She bought it for plenty, it cost her plenty. But bit by bit she bought up all this bits of land. And she wanted them. And she had her reasons for wanting. There's one now that they want to sell that opens onto Columbia Road because she felt it would be for the good of the community if we had an opening on Columbia Road. Sr. Agnes Socorro: You'll enjoy this. This lawyer came up and I had to speak to him and he was saying… He said to me, "Well, when you were novices and you went down there in the farm and so on, could you �see the cars on Columbia Road?" I said, "The cars?" He said, "Yes, the automobiles." I said, but there weren't any automobiles in 1920. So, life was slower. I don't know how much formal education she had. But I believe I once asked. But she had an Irish education. And I'm not saying this because I'm Irish. It was a very superior kind of education. They had more of a respect for education than the other people of the world because they couldn't have it. What we can't have, we want. And I think that she could use that education to further the work of this community. She built this house and there was no money. It's a good built building. It's still standing after over 100 years. I look at the trouble they're having with some of these other buildings. So she was, as he said, she was a shrewd business woman. And one wonders where she got that because she did not have any training in this life. They said before she entered [Mount Saint Vincent in New York], she made her living by sewing. So where did she get this? She said it was God's work, all right. Sr. Rosanne: Her value for education too, I think. Sr. Agnes Socorro: Oh, yes. Sr. Rosanne: You pointed out, in the beginning of the [College of Saint Elizabeth]. Sr. Agnes Socorro: Yeah, she allowed them to begin the college. And there were many people in the community against it. They didn't want it started. They thought it shouldn't be done at all. They tried to talk her out of it. A certain faction in the community. But she insisted. She didn't do it quickly, either, if you notice. She took her good time to think it out. And then she started it. And she educated the sisters. Even in those days when, as I say, you couldn't go home and you couldn't eat at home, things like that. What was her name?… [Sister Helen Angela Dorety] Yeah, it was a long time ago. But she sent her out to the University of Chicago for her biology. And they say nobody ever was anyone like Helen Angela with the education she got in biology. She was the one who founded that whole department. I'm not saying that we haven't had good ones since, but this is Mother Xavier's choice. [Sister Marie Jose Byrne] was allowed to go to Columbia for Latin, so that she was far-seeing. It wasn't just the moment she was looking at. And while we entered and you were... In my day, now this had changed in various times, we were postulants three months. We were novices a year, and then we were sent out. We didn't have that much education, you know. But on every mission you were on there was an older sister would take you in the afternoon for [teaching] methods. And you would go out on Saturdays to class. And you came up here every summer to get [state teacher’s certification]. So she foresaw all these things and knew they were needed. [unintelligible] You wonder, as I say, how she did it and why she did it. And she was very wise in her own way and all of that. So I would say that she had a great vision for the Congregation. There's no doubt about that, in every way. And in after years that they closed, for instance, the orphanages; that's one of my big disputes, that we closed the orphanages. I'd rather have a child in an orphanage than in a foster �home. The way they abuse them in foster homes. Of course, this is my opinion, of course. And look at the cost of [unintelligible] Saint Joseph's Hospital [in Paterson, NJ] like it is today. Sr. Agnes Socorro: I remember Saint Joseph's Hospital when it was a little bit of a frame house. And she encouraged them to build the [House of Divine Providence and Home for Incurables in Ridgewood, NJ] that was supposed to be for the dying and the incurables. Now it has turned into a home for the aged. Because if you have it as a home for the dying, it would require a number of nurses and all that. But she founded that. Look at the land she bought up there. And she built that. And I don't know if it’s in Sister Mary Agnes's book [The New Jersey Sisters of Charity by Sister Mary Agnes Sharkey, S.C.] or not. I must look it up some time. Have you ever been in the present home that's up there? Sr. Rosanne: Mount Saint Andrew's? Sr. Agnes Socorro: Yes. Sr. Rosanne: Yes, many times. Sr. Agnes Socorro: Well, the old home was across the street that burnt down while this one was in the state of building. But right down at the foot of the new one, you know what I mean by the new one, the one that's there now, there was a cottage which she bought. In those days, there was a great amount of [tuberculosis] in this community, as there was every place. And of course we lived so close, living in the dormitories, and people got it. And there was in Philadelphia a Doctor Walsh who was very, very famous for his TB treatments. And she would send the sisters to him and he had a sanitarium in White Haven in the Poconos. So she decided that she was going to buy this bit of land and this cottage that was up for sale in Ridgewood. And, she did. And when I went up there, I'd say, roughly speaking about 1960, I used to walk there with a sister. She was the only child. Her parents had a farm up there. I must go back to Bergen County sometime because all I remember about Bergen County is walking through fields and fields and fields and never seeing a person. I would have to go home with her in the morning. She couldn't go home herself. And she would work with them all day. And I would sit in the house. And they were very, very good to me. There was a place that I could lie down. I was only a kid. I wasn’t interested in lying down. And I'd have a book or something. But she bought this place and there was the famous bluegrass of Kentucky. He had been a horseman. He had the bluegrass in the yard. At that time, that was roughly speaking, 1918, there must've been five or six sisters there. They took care of themselves. They even wrote their own death notices. I know. Think of that. �They didn't put the date in, but on the old death notice her name had to be filled in and where you died. They even did that. Oh, and they were talking the other day about some [Sister Rose Bernard Brennan] who’d just come to [Saint Anne Villa] last week. I said, the first one [Sister Rose Bernard Ryan] was the most beautiful person I ever saw. She was beautiful. [unintelligible]. [Mother Xavier’s] plan was to have our own sanitarium up there. In the old Villa [at Convent Station], on that porch that faces the cemetery, notice on the second floor, there's a screened-in porch. For a while [Mother Xavier] had TB sisters there, sleeping all together in the one porch and all of that. She saw that as a need. So, you see, as time went on, there was no further need because they felt TB was conquered, you know. We got rid of the place in Ridgewood. But she saw to things like that. Sr. Rosanne: See that whole area there is Paramus, which is a fairly new community, where Mount Saint Andrew is. It was Ridgewood. Sr. Agnes Socorro: It was Ridgewood, at that time, yes. Sr. Rosanne: So I didn't realize that she had acquired that area up there. I mean, it was during her time. Sr. Agnes Socorro: It was during her time she acquired that. And, you see, the place I stayed in was the old house. And they were old, old people there. They went there... I suppose something like the Little Sisters of the Poor today, you went there and that was it. You died there. And there were people there, wonderful sisters, who just lived for their work. The thing is that this is a busy day because of the college coming back. They have to come into this house and greet the girls. Sr. Rosanne: Oh. I see. That's right. The girls are [unintelligible]. Sister Mary Teresa, do you have any other questions? Sr. Mary Teresa: Well, I think this is the main thing I wanted to ask. Sr. Agnes Socorro: Mother Cecilia was a big woman, as big as [Sister Mary Carita Pendergast]. Dark. An Irish beauty. And, of course, we had the old cap. And in those days the Mother went out in the morning after Mass. The Mother went out of the chapel first, followed by the Assistant Mother, followed by every officer. And we were new in �the transept there, you know. The novices sat in the transept and we said [Sister Mary Cecilia Casey] was Mother Xavier's guardian angel. I never called her anything else Sr. Rosanne: It was interesting, when you mentioned Sister Mary Catherine [Nevin] as being kind. Because when I entered Sister Mary Catherine… Sr. Agnes Socorro: Oh, not this Sister Mary Catherine. Sr. Rosanne: No, I know that. She was also the Assistant Mother when I knew her. Sr. Agnes Socorro: Mary Catherine? Sr. Rosanne: [Sister Catherine Mary McHale] from Boston. But that's who I think when you talk about the [unintelligible] for the sisters. Sr. Agnes Socorro: She was a very kind woman. Sr. Rosanne: Yeah. Sr. Agnes Socorro: But as I said, life was different. And to me, I'm old. They should know that. The changes don't get me down. The same things get me down that would get me down sixty years ago, people are not doing the right thing. But the changes don't get me down. If you're doing the right thing, all right, you've changed. We never changed. That's life. And there were a great many changes in the community. And I think we have to realize that in their day, they were doing more, I think in a way, than we do today in a different way. They couldn't go out the doors. They had to do it from the inside out. For instance, Sunday, you had Sunday school classes in the morning. You counted the money in the afternoon, the parish money. You had then maybe a couple of days a week, you'd have to go to someplace three or four miles away to teach Sunday school. And it was not an easy life. I survived, so it couldn’t have been too… But I mean, you have to realize that you're not comparing. I don't like comparing and saying we're doing more today than then, or they did more then. No, I don't think you should compare. I think you should know it, as we lived it. Sr. Rosanne: So true. �Sr. Agnes Socorro: But then now there's some people, and Sister Carita agreed with me on this, the last meeting we had, some people who say that Mary Agnes's book is inaccurate. Sister Carita agreed with me that it is not inaccurate. There are misprints. She said, "I think she was inaccurate in this way." A man's name, whether it was John or James, meant nothing to her. She would quickly write down Mr. John and it might've been Mr. James. But the main things are right, because I have read it twice lately. There are a few dates and I think they're misprints. For instance, somebody posted a picture. The old Nazareth [novitiate] that I entered, that it was destroyed in 1909. And I said to [Sister Hildegarde Marie Mahoney], who happened to be standing there at the same time, I said, it couldn't have been. I lived in it. The old Nazareth was... Remember where the men's house was? It was on that spot. It was an old frame house that had been the first boys' house [Saint Joseph’s School]. And this is another thing [unintelligible]. [Mother Xavier] sent Sister Mary Paula to Europe to study painting and art. This was roughly speaking, 1909 or 1910. And the boys said to me, maybe this isn't a nice word. I call her shrewd. [Mother Xavier] sent her to Europe. I'm not sure of the date. Was either 1909 or 1910. It was before I entered. All right. She sent with her Sister Mary Julia [Donovan]. Mary Julia had been in another community. She entered a Black community in Baltimore. But that makes no difference. Speaker 3: Was she a Black sister? Sr. Agnes Socorro: No, no. But there were a few other whites entered at the time, but she thought this would be a wonderful sacrifice, you see. She was from Beverly Farms [Massachusetts], outside of Salem. And the Donovans were fairly comfortable. She has a nephew in the Jesuits. He was implicated in this seismograph business and all of that. But anyway, she sent Sister Mary Julia with her to make her study the novitiates in Europe. And one of the things that we know of, she came back and she said that in Europe, and I'm telling the story badly, but before this, the novitiate was in this building. When they built convent wing, we've been sure where that is, the novitiate had a big room, like a big community room, was on the first floor over there. And the novices slept up through the house and corners, wherever. But Sister Mary Julia found out that in Europe, the novitiate was on the motherhouse grounds, but in a separate building. And that's what it should be. Therefore, almost immediately, the boys’ house, the new boys’ house, which is now that school for... You know, the one I mean… was built. And the reason that was built. There's a sister, [Sister Mary Casimir Reynolds]. You wouldn't know her because she was in Salem for years. She was a saint out of heaven. She was one of the tobacco Reynolds. So when her father died, she got quite a legacy. So it was used to build the new boys’ house. My generation calls that the new boys’ house. So the boys were out. She took the boys all together out of the old boys’ house, moved them over there. The old boys’ house was turned into a novitiate. And Sister Mary Julia was made the mistress. So that that was another thing that... Sister Mary Ellen Gleason said something to me, "Were you taught about the history of the community by your mistress?" I said, “Well, I didn't have a mistress in the early days.” Because Sister Mary Julia was one of these who had to be sent away when she got TB. So that she was up in White Haven and there were a couple of women brought in to be Mistress of Novices and they �could not see it because we had to come up, all kinds of weather, to do the charges, to wait on table. And waiting on table meant wait for a six o’clock supper, as well. And we’d go down in the evenings and there was an old fellow around then, who would have an old sled and he'd give us a ride on that. It was a big sled with a horse. But they didn't think that this was wise. So that was when she built [Nazareth novitiate] that was torn down [in 1978]. She built that because that way we would be in keeping with what they were doing in Europe. It would be a separate building on the motherhouse grounds. And that was what they found they had to do when they opened Harper's. Harper's is the present novitiate. You see, of course I blame it on my family. My grandfather lived with us. And if my grandfather was talking, we had to keep quiet. He was my mother's father, but my father would be very insistent that we listen to what he said. So then when I came to the community, that was ingrained in me. And I listened to the older sisters. So some of these things I've gotten from the older sisters. We've had a great many wakes at Convent. And [Sister Mary Rosalita Hyland]. Do you remember Sister Rosalita? She was a music teacher, beautiful woman. Every wake she was in the corner, and I was Circle Angel, so I could be... The Circle Angel was the Sister of Charity to the Academy girls, supposed not to teach. I'd be free during the day, and I’d go in and [unintelligible] and sit there at the wakes. And she would tell me more, things like that. So that some of these things are hearsay to me. So, for instance, she told, me, you don't remember our old dining room was where the sculleries are now. See, they built the new one [unintelligible] the 100th anniversary [unintelligible]. And that dining room... I call them the music rooms because when I entered all of these other rooms were music rooms and they were here. Then there was a passageway. And then there was the dining room. What Sister Rosalita told me that, before the chapel was built, there was no corridor there. These sisters slept in these bedrooms, [Sister Mary Honora Foy] and some people that were wonderful women. They slept in these bedrooms right off the dining room. The kitchen was in the basement. And some of the older Irish sisters would tell us the way they had to work when they came. I'm not saying the others didn't now, but they were speaking for themselves, the way they had to work in the kitchen and whatnot. And when I entered, there were all sisters in the kitchen. We were saying that only the other night. Again, how old the sister... The Sister Rose Bernard who has come to the Villa now had charge. She was in the novitiate with [Mother Josephine Marie O’Brien]. She said she had charge of the dairy down here in the kitchen. And I said, “Do people remember Sister Honora?” She was a wonderful woman, she had charge of the kitchen. These people had no education. But when we were in the old Juniorate, if I asked [Sister Mary Stephanie Bird], who was in charge of the kitchen, for a leg of lamb, she’d say, well now, I'll give you this size and this will feed so many people. Now I’ll bet you the man that's getting a big salary down there couldn't tell you that. These people had had no education. So that God took care of His own. That's the only way you can account for it. Sr. Mary Teresa: That's beautiful, Sister. That's beautiful. Sr. Agnes Socorro: �But as I say now, don't start out to compare. We were not better than. Maybe individually, some of them were better than, because I have lived with saints. I've lived with real saints in this community. But it's just individuals that were better. Sr. Mary Teresa: Yes. Thank you, Sister, for the time you gave us. We wanted to take some pictures, somewhere there. Sr. Agnes Socorro: You don't want a picture of me. That wasn't on, was it? Sr. Mary Teresa: Yeah. Sr. Agnes Socorro: Oh, my goodness. � 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 Saint Elizabeth, Convent Station Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ward, Sister Agnes Socorro, S.C. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Orbegozo, Sister Mary Teresa , S.C.; Caiazzo, Sister Rosanne , S.C. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data cassette tape Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:37:11 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 Sister Agnes Socorro Ward, S.C. Oral History Subject The topic of the resource Ward, Sister Agnes Socorro, S.C.; Mother M. Xavier Mehegan; Holy Cross School, Harrison, NJ; Convent Station, NJ; tuberculosis; Ireland Description An account of the resource Description of Sister's early years in Harrison and at Convent Station; stories of Mother M. Xavier Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ward, Sister Agnes Socorro, S.C.; Orbegozo, Sister Mary Teresa , S.C.; Caiazzo, Sister Rosanne , S.C. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 1980 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Neary, Sister Noreen, S.C. (Editor) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio/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 Sister Agnes Socorro Ward remembers her early years as a Sister of Charity and recalls stories of Mother M. Xavier Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant January 1980 Education Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/289e44346ea9a7b567b6a0754afc4d41.jpg efeae8b9860da3daa4c0ef773ce15f06 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/72b5fec3bf3a2c8a4bb482f6d2679734.mp3 6e8ad73ea12f97f3578beee76d27b231 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/72f0d87aa286f47139324ae16cd139f7.pdf 992482e788e03b386bf8c3522921052d PDF Text Text Interviewer: Interviewee: Date: Editor: Date edited: Sister Francis Maria Cassidy, SC Sister Anna Denise Murphy, SC July 6, 1983 Sister Noreen Neary, SC November 17, 2020 Sr. Francis Maria: We're visiting at Saint Anne Villa this morning. It's July 6th 1983 and I'm sitting in a lovely, cheerful parlor. And sitting next to me is ... And we've been chatting for a little bit about the [House of Divine Providence and Home for Incurables in Ridgewood, New Jersey]. Your name is Sister Anna Denise Murphy and I'm Sister Francis Maria Cassidy. And I'm just recording that I'm visiting you in this lovely, cheerful parlor. Sister Bea Guider has given us a very nice room here to ... Sister Anna has agreed to tell us something for the record, for history, about her memories of the House of Divine Providence for Incurables in Ridgewood. So, SisterSr. Anna Denise: You see, there was a little cottage, I'll tell you that point. Across the way from the House of Divine Providence, and [Mrs. Andrew Fuller] owned that house. It was a little cottage. Sr. Anna Denise: ... and do things for her. And when she died, she gave all that property to Sister Sarah Joseph [Morning], where Mount Saint Andrew is. All that property she gave to Sarah Joseph. Sr. Francis Maria: That would be across the street? Sr. Anna Denise: Yes. The big house. Nothing was there then, when I was there. And then you see, Sister, this is funny, she had a lot of lovely flowers, Sister. And she had a horse, the woman had. She had a horse, and I think a dog. And she had a parrot. And you see, the people in our house used to go over there. She had lovely flowers, and they used to pull the flowers. And Sister could hear miles away, that parrot would holler, "There they are." And that meant she'd come out and chase them. But Sister, I think you could hear in New York, he'd holler every time they'd come. He'd holler and she'd have to chase them. She used to give some of the flowers for the chapel. And then, of course it was very ... every Sister did their work there. No help of any. They had one girl, a lovely young girl. She's now the Sister. But she was Maria Melania here. Sr. Francis Maria: Yes. Sr. Anna Denise: Her Sister, Mary Crowe. Sr. Francis Maria: �Yes, I know Sister Melania. Sr. Anna Denise: She used to have to help me because I didn't know much. So in the morning, [Sister Maria Melania Crowe] used to tell us at the table. "Please, Sisters, could you do without milk? Or could you do without bread?" Or something, "Because I ain't got enough for the patients." They'd say yes. And then Sister Sarah Joseph had a wagon and a horse. This is funny, too. And I'd have to get up at three o'clock in the morning, and go in that wagon with her. And she'd go down to Newark, to Walsh to get the meat for nothing. He had a big, big meat store, but she'd have to go there before the man would open. Sr. Anna Denise: And, Sister, she had a little bell. And she stuck that bell and she'd ring it for the Angelus. Now this is true, and every time she rang, the horse… Sr. Francis Maria: Nodded his head. Sr. Anna Denise: Yes, he was used to that. Sr. Francis Maria: It was a signal. Sr. Anna Denise: Then when we'd come home, Sister, we'd have to take care of the patients and fix them, get ready for Mass. It was very hard because… Sr. Francis Maria: Do you remember the year that you went there, Sister? Sr. Anna Denise: I think it was either 1916 or ‘17, because I entered in 1915. Sr. Francis Maria: So then you were just a novice? Sr. Anna Denise: What? Sr. Francis Maria: You were just a novice. �Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, [unintelligible]. And then you see, Sister, they had a great big room there, a beautiful room. Best room there. And they used to fix this up and have it. But that was for [Mother Mary Xavier Mehegan]. She used to come and stay. That was before I was there, of course. And they used to say, "Fix the room." And they put a big chair for her, and she used to see the sisters, see? And she'd stay there a couple of days. And of course, the sisters were so happy that she was there. Sr. Francis Maria: It would be like a visitation, but it would also be a little vacation for her. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, she loved it. She loved Ridgewood. Sr. Francis Maria: It was getting out into the country, even though here is country. Sr. Anna Denise: You see, now it's all built up. Before there was there nothing for miles and miles, there was nothing there, no houses, only that little cottage. And across the street where Mount Saint Andrew’s was, there was nothing there but woods. But now it's all built up. And of course, the house is burnt; they have a church there now. Sr. Francis Maria: Yes. I've been to that church. Do you remember anything about that fire? Sr. Anna Denise: About what? Sr. Francis Maria: The fire that burned… Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, yes. You see, Sister, Mr. Cullen in Newark used to give girls to them. I don't know, they were poor. So this girl, after the fire, they said she was a firebug, I don't know. And up in the attic, of course, they had nowhere. They never had wheelchairs. They had crutches and all that. And she must have sent up there fire. I remember, the whole attic went on fire and we had such a hard time because most of those people were crippled. And we had to try and get them downstairs and out, and everything. That was in 1925. Sr. Francis Maria: Oh, you have a good memory for dates. Sr. Anna Denise: �Yes, that was from 1925. I forget that date, but it was 1925. And they had to get out. We had to try and get them out. So the firemen in Ridgewood were very quick, Sister. They helped us. Because the ones in Ridgewood didn't come right away, but the firemen in Paterson came. Sr. Francis Maria: Oh, it was the Paterson firemen who helped you? Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah, they did all the work. The Ridgewood firemen came after, but they wasn't so quick. They took their time. But the firemen in Ridgewood, they did, they came. Sr. Francis Maria: Paterson first, and then the Ridgewood people came. Sr. Anna Denise: But Paterson did everything. Sr. Francis Maria: But before the fireman arrived, I imagine you must have been helping the patients. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, we had to get them down, Sister, because they were crippled. And then each sister tried to get them down, and [Sister Mary Valentinia Morin] had a great big dormitory with patients. It was a big floor. And then the next floor was Sister Lethia's. And the next floor was mine. And we had to try and get them out. The smoke alone would kill them, Sister. Sr. Francis Maria: Were there any injuries? Sr. Anna Denise: What? Sr. Francis Maria: Were there any injuries? Sr. Anna Denise: Well, not there, but then we put them over to Mount Saint Andrew’s was there. And a good many of them died with fright. None of them [unintelligible]. They died with fright. They were so crippled, Sister, it was hard to get them down. Sr. Francis Maria: Sister, was this fire at night? �Sr. Anna Denise: No, Sister. No, thank God it wasn't at night, I think it was in the afternoon, as far as I know. But it wasn't at night, I know that. Sr. Francis Maria: Well, that was a blessing. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, yes. And we got them out, anyway. But, see, they were so sick, Sister, it was hard to get them out. We got them out. And of course, I was the youngest Sister there, and they depend upon a lot. At that time you couldn't say no. Whatever you were told to do, you had to try. Sr. Francis Maria: It was easier in a way. Sr. Anna Denise: What? Sr. Francis Maria: It was easier in a way in that you didn't have to make a decision. Sr. Anna Denise: And Sister Sarah Joseph had charge of the whole farm. She had charge of getting the meat. Then there used to get a great big bake... I forget, it was Ward’s. The name was Ward’s. They'd give them big bags of flour and they’d make the bread. They had a big room, I remember, and two great big ovens. And you see, we had to get up at three o'clock in the morning once a month or every second week and they’d make the bread. But at that time, Sister, you couldn't break your fast, don't you remember? Sr. Francis Maria: I remember, until after communion. Sr. Anna Denise: They'd say to me, "Hurry up." I'd have to come down, and they'd make the bread. Oh, Sister, the smell of that bread would make you eat, but you couldn't touch it. And Sister Sarah Joseph had charge of it. Sister Valentinia and Sister Louise Adele [King] was there, and [Sister Mary Esther Mahoney] was there. And [Sister Mary Simeon Ward], she died here. And Sister Valentinia died here. All those Sisters used to work, so we used to get ... And then after that I'd have to go up and get the patients ready for the priest. Sr. Francis Maria: Now, I hope you had some bread before you did that. Was this before Mass? �Sr. Anna Denise: Nothing. Sr. Francis Maria: And you were young. Sr. Anna Denise: You had no time for that. Sr. Francis Maria: You were young. You must have had such an appetite. Sr. Anna Denise: Even the other Sisters didn't. They were used to that. Sr. Francis Maria: But I'm think thinking about the smell of that bread on an empty stomach. Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah. And those Sisters, they got over ... I guess God took care of us. And those old Sisters, my goodness, what sacrifice they did. So then I'd have to get the patients ready for Father… oh, Father Keough. Sr. Francis Maria: See, it worked. Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah, you got it. Father Keough was there. And he used to hear the patients' confessions. But he'd have to have a bell, because they weren't able to go out and in. And when he was still with the confession, he rang this bell. We'd have to go in and take the patient out and bring the other one in, see? They were crippled. Sr. Francis Maria: Oh, yes. Sr. Anna Denise: They had no elevator, Sister. Food came up on dumbwaiters, and I had a pantry and this woman. Oh, she was a little bit of a nuisance, and she used to take and upset the tray, so I went to her. So when she came out of confession, she says, "Father Keough told me what to do about you. He helped me. He said, 'Don't bother with her pantry. Stay away from it. You don't want to go there.'" But he did this for me. Sr. Francis Maria: �That was his way of helping you? Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah. So she stayed away. Sr. Francis Maria: He was a good psychologist. Sr. Anna Denise: She didn't go in anymore, see? Sr. Francis Maria: Yes. Sr. Anna Denise: But I was nice to her. That didn’t bother, because Sister Melania always told us, "Sisters, you have to put up with a lot. They're sick." And I told you about the rosary, did I? Sr. Francis Maria: No, not yet. Sr. Anna Denise: Well, this woman was very sick, Sister, and she was all crippled. And she was a good Catholic. And I had a nail in her room. And on that nail I'd have to put the rosary. And she went through her eyes. Nails used to go into her hands. But we had no medicine. We had carbolic, but we had a doctor that would come once or twice a year. And he'd always say to me, "Little Sister, you have to wear gloves," you have [unintelligible]. And I had other patients… Sr. Francis Maria: You mean your hands were burned from the carbolic? Sr. Anna Denise: What? Sr. Francis Maria: Your hands were burned? Sr. Anna Denise: You had to put it in water to fix it because we had nothing else. That was the only thing that would wash her. Because, Sister, if we left that hand there, the worms would get in, see the flesh… Sr. Francis Maria: �Sure. Did you find this hard to do? Sr. Anna Denise: No, I was young and strong, Sister. I was young and strong then. I thought when you went to the community you had to do whatever you've got to do. Sr. Francis Maria: We hear so much today about Mother Teresa of Calcutta working with the indigent poor in India and in other parts of the world, and we wonder how she can work with these people who are so ill, but as you say… Sr. Anna Denise: Those people couldn't have [unintelligible], because it was incurable. Because the priest, and this woman used to get them down by [unintelligible], living in the little huts or something, they were poor, see? And we had one [Sister Mary Cortona Byrne], she was [unintelligible]. She used to make the clothes for them, but Sister, she got cancer. Sr. Francis Maria: I'm sure she has a beautiful face in heaven. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, yeah. They put her in the parlor, and there used to be an undertaker in Paterson. He used to come. Of course, they had their own graveyard there. Sr. Francis Maria: Yes, I see. They had their own graveyard at the House of Divine Providence? Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, yeah. They had a big graveyard. Father Keough said Mass and everything, and they got everything. But I was young. I didn't mind it. And you see, I was sent there, and Sister, Lord have mercy on her, Melania and Mary Crowe, the woman had to have a bath. Of course, I'd never bathed anyone in my life. So I put the woman in the tub. And, Sister, I guess I was rubbing her with my eyes shut. I rubbed her so much, we had those fluted caps... in the tub. Sr. Francis Maria: She threw you in? Sr. Anna Denise: She put my head in. The woman got tired of me rubbing with my eyes shut, I didn't know any better. Oh, you know those fluted caps? Sr. Francis Maria: I sure do. �Sr. Anna Denise: All the starch… I went up to Sister Melania. "Mother of love, what happened to you?" Well, I said, "Sister, that woman put my head in the tub." "Why? Sister, dear, you must keep your eyes open when you bathe people." I said, "Sister, I never bathed…" Sr. Francis Maria: You were embarrassed? Sr. Anna Denise: No, I didn't know. I was dumb. I said, "Sister, I never bathed anyone." Oh she said, "I know you didn't. But if you're bathing them, keep your eyes wide open." For years gone by, they had that joke on me, because all the [unintelligible]. Sr. Francis Maria: And you know those fluted caps were hard to come by. Sr. Anna Denise: See, the other Sisters, they were much older. They knew about it, and then you see… Sr. Francis Maria: You had no training for this. Sr. Anna Denise: What? Sr. Francis Maria: You had no training for this kind of work. Sr. Anna Denise: Well, I never did. I was young. And then Keough used to come at Christmas, and he used to visit, eat dinner with us. And then at Christmas, you see, the people in Paterson and Knights of Columbus used to send pails of candy. And we had to take every bag we had and put candy inside, and we'd give it to the patients. Of course, they thought they were in heaven, in heaven on Earth for a bit of candy. We'd give it to them. And then on the 8th of December, Sister Melania gave us 50 cents. Oh, we were [unintelligible] because Sarah Joseph used to take us to Paterson and we used to buy a lot of stuff. Sr. Francis Maria: With your 50 cents? Sr. Anna Denise: Oh my goodness. �Sr. Francis Maria: That was a fortune then. Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah. Everything was cheap then. And Sister Valentinia came home and she said to Sister Melania, "Guess what?" She said, "I was in in that store and I got this little ham, 50 cents." Sr. Francis Maria: No. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, everything was cheap then. Sr. Francis Maria: What could you buy for 50 cents today? Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah, that was in Paterson and I guess he gave it to her cheaper. At that time they had lots of love for the house and the Sisters. Sr. Francis Maria: She probably told them that's all the money she had. Sr. Anna Denise: So, the Sister in the kitchen, I think it was [Sister Anna Josephus Lucey], the Sister in the kitchen fixed it and gave it to us, a little piece. Then at night, we had recreation. And Sunday night, Sister Melania, she was at every exercise. We had to be there for recreation, and she used to sit in a big chair, Sister. And you know who she reminded me of? One time I saw in a book, I don't know what book, Mother Seton with the Sisters around her. And she'd have us around there, and she'd tell us ... I know one story she told me. Sr. Francis Maria: Was she the Sister Servant? Sr. Anna Denise: Oh yes, she was. But one story she told me, she told us the old [Sister Mary Catherine Nevin]. I didn't know her. Sr. Francis Maria: Oh, Mary Catherine Nevin? Sr. Anna Denise: �Yes. The first. That's when she was 50 years old. She stood and she said to the Sisters, "Pray for me. I'm 50 years serving God, that I did His work and everything right – that's what I want," she said. I know that, she tells us other things. And they had a Victrola, but it was those round ones. Maybe you don't remember them. They were like this, the old ones. And I’d have charge of them and I'd have to put the records in. And Sunday night, for dessert we had a big thing of apples. Sr. Francis Maria: The sisters’ recreation time? Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah. But oh, Sister, we were happy. Sr. Francis Maria: You were happy. You worked hard, you were very happy. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, we had no time, Sister. When I used to go down to recreation Sunday, some poor patient that would walk around. I'd say, "If anything happens, call some way." Because they had no telephones or things like that. But, oh, Sister Melania was so good. She was at every exercise, and she was just like ourselves. Sr. Francis Maria: Yes. She is very sweet. Now Sister, were there some Sisters there at the time you were there, who had been there in Mother Xavier's time? Sr. Anna Denise: Yes, I'll tell you who was there. Sarah Joseph was there, and Mary Esther was there. They told us about the big room, as I told you about. And Sister Louise Adele was there. She had charge of the priests – the front of the house and the priests. And then they had a Sister, that I think she was there too. [Sister Cornelia Agnes O’Rourke]. Sr. Francis Maria: Cornelius? Sr. Anna Denise: Agnes Cornelius. She had charge of the meeting, and the prayers, and everything. Then in the convent where we were, Sister, from the top of that room where we were down to the bottom, they had a big glass door and you could see the Blessed Sacrament and then the next floor was the choir, and then of course, down below. But Sister Melania used to always tell us, she'd say, "Sisters, when you go in the chapel, I want no talking. God is there." Sr. Francis Maria: Now, do you remember any of the other stories about Mother Xavier? Do you remember anything they told you? �Sr. Anna Denise: No, I don’t know because I wasn't there. Only what they told me. Sr. Francis Maria: I know, but what they told you. Now she would come… Sr. Anna Denise: The sisters used to go in to see her, and she loved Sister Melania, and she loved to stay there because she could go around, and she used to talk to them and tell them things. Sr. Francis Maria: Talk to the sisters and talk to the patients? Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, they loved it. Of course, I wasn't there. I entered in 1915. Sr. Francis Maria: I understand, yes. Sr. Anna Denise: But they told me this room was beautiful, but I know one time Sister Valentinia went to Paterson with the fifty cents and she bought a lovely cup and saucer. See, they had nice things at the table for Mother Xavier when she came. And she used to say, "Sisters, I want the same as you people have." Melania used to say, "The sisters thought so much of you, Mother, that they thought they'd buy the cup and fix a place." Sr. Francis Maria: Well, that's a very nice insight into how humble a woman Mother Xavier was. Sr. Anna Denise: What? Sr. Francis Maria: She was very humble, Mother Xavier. She wanted no fuss. Sr. Anna Denise: She was like a mother. So she bought this cup. I saw it after. That room was never touched. Sr. Francis Maria: Oh, they kept that room? Sr. Anna Denise: �That was locked up and she used to come. Then there was St. Joseph's Hospital [in Paterson, New Jersey]. There was a Sister before Mary Clare, [Sister Mary Irmina McDonough] or some name like that. But she was a great friend of Sister Melania. And Sister used to go there. She used to give Sister Melania some gauze and medicine for the patients. Sr. Francis Maria: Sharing. Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah, so she used to take us. So this time she took me, and we had [inaudible 00:19:46]. Sister Irmina, that was her name. Sr. Francis Maria: Sister Irmina? Sr. Anna Denise: Irmina. Before Mary Clare got there. And she said to Sister Melania, "I wish could have that little Sister, she could be a nurse." Oh, my heart was broken. And then Sister Melania said, "Oh no, Sister. We need her. We need her very much." Sr. Francis Maria: Sister Irmina wanted you at St. Joseph's Hospital? Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah, to become a nurse. But I was so frightened, Sister. Sister Melania said, "No, we need her mostly there." She said, "Sister Melania, your sisters work 10 times harder than my nurses." She said, "They ain't got all that work to do." But, oh Sister, it was awfully hard. I guess you're tired listening to me. Sr. Francis Maria: Sister, I could go on listening forever. Do you remember how long you were there at the House of Divine Providence? Sr. Anna Denise: Well, I was there ‘til the fire. And after the fire, I was there two years, and we were sent over to Mount Saint Andrew. But they had no room for everybody. Sister Valentinia had to go over, and this one had ... They had no room for me over there, so I was there three years and then I was sent out to another mission. But the other mission wasn’t anything. Sr. Francis Maria: You must have missed it when you had to leave. Sr. Anna Denise: �But they had no room over there, Sister. They had room for all the other nuns, see. Sr. Francis Maria: Sister, can I go back to that special room they had set up for Mother Xavier? Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah. Sr. Francis Maria: Was that destroyed in the fire? Was that room destroyed? Sr. Anna Denise: Everything was destroyed. Sr. Francis Maria: So that lovely cup and saucer that you spoke about? Sr. Anna Denise: Yes, my goodness. At that time, everything was wonderful. [Sister Valentinia would] come and she'd say to Sister Melania, "Look what I bought." Because we had bowls. "Look what I bought." Sister Melania said, "Oh, a cup and saucer for yourself." "Oh, no, no," she said, "for Mother Xavier." Then Sister Melania said, "Oh, that's very nice. We'll put that at her place when she comes." But Mother Xavier didn't want it. Mother Xavier said, "I'll have the same as the sisters." But then Sister Melania said, "Sister Valentinia spent her big money, 50 cents." Sr. Francis Maria: 50 cents. Did you see that cup and saucer? Sr. Anna Denise: Yes. Sr. Francis Maria: Do you remember what it looked like? Sr. Anna Denise: Well, it was a fancy cup and saucer. It had little flowers around it and flowers on the thing. Of course, at that time everything was wonderful and they put it at her plate. Sr. Francis Maria: That was very special for her. She didn't want it. Sr. Anna Denise: �She didn't want it. "I want the same." Sister Melania said, "Mother, listen. She spent her whole 50 cents to buy the cup and saucer," so Mother Xavier said, "All right, I'll use it as long as Valentinia did that." Sr. Francis Maria: Ah, she didn't want to hurt her. Sr. Anna Denise: But you see, they told me before that they loved Mother Xavier. When she’d come, the house was lit up. And Sister Melania said, "Don't do anything special for me. Give me everything the Sisters have the same." Sr. Francis Maria: Mother Xavier would say this. Sr. Anna Denise: And she used to come down, and she used to be for recreation. But they'd all be so happy. She was a great friend of Melania. Of course, Melania was much older. And she loved them. Sr. Francis Maria: When Mother Xavier would come, I suppose she'd rest a bit, she'd be at recreation with you. Sr. Anna Denise: Melania used to say to the Sisters, "Now Sisters, don't go in the room to Mother Xavier ‘til after dinner. She just went to Mass and she wants a rest." Sr. Francis Maria: Give her a chance. Sr. Anna Denise: Sister Melania used to go and see her. Sr. Francis Maria: When you think that she had such a responsibility in the community on her shoulders, and she wasn't young at that time. Sr. Anna Denise: Who? Sr. Francis Maria: Mother Xavier. Sr. Anna Denise: �Yeah, but she loved it. She loved that place. Sr. Francis Maria: She loved to come. As I have read, this was one of her very favorite projects, this House of Divine Providence. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, she loved it. But Sister Melania used to go with her around the grounds, and then she was very good. She'd go and see the sick people. And she used to say to Sister Melania, "Oh, Sister, they are God's people. They are God's people going to heaven." And she used to say to some of the people, "If you get to heaven, don't forget Mother." Sr. Francis Maria: Mother Xavier would say that? Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah, because you see, they had suffered so, and they had nothing. Sr. Francis Maria: She was depending on their prayers. Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah, they were poor people. They didn't have half of the clothes when they'd bring them in. And the women in Paterson were mostly good to work. Sr. Francis Maria: Yes. But there was a great concern in our community for the poor. Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah. Oh, Sister, they were poor. Then you see, when they die ... When the doctors told me, I used to say to them, "You'll be in heaven pretty soon." And then at ten o'clock in that house, in the sun parlor, they said the rosary and they said the prayers, and they used to go around the rooms. Of course, the ones in the rooms wouldn't hear them. But they had to tell them that the rosary was beginning and they'd pray. Sr. Francis Maria: And they would say it from their beds. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh yes, they'd say it and they used to pray for the sick. And they always prayed for the community. And praying for different ones dying. When I think of it now, I don't know how ... It was very hard, Sister. Because you had nobody to help. You had to bathe them. You had to see �that the rooms were clean. You had to see that the food came up on the dumbwaiter. You had to fix your tray. Sr. Francis Maria: Is that what you did in your pantry? You spoke about having charge of a pantry? Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, that was where the trays were. That belonged to the floor. That belonged to your floor. Sr. Francis Maria: Yes. You carried the trays? Sr. Anna Denise: What? Sr. Francis Maria: You carried the trays to the patients? Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah, we had to carry the trays. And sometimes, what's her name, Mary Crowe used to help me with the trays. She was very good. Sr. Francis Maria: Mary Crowe? Sr. Anna Denise: Mary Crowe. She wasn't a sister. And her sister is here, [Sister Maria Melania Crowe]... Sr. Francis Maria: Sister, you mentioned that you did all the work yourselves, the sisters did. You did haveSr. Anna Denise: We had to. We had no nurses. Sr. Francis Maria: Yeah, you had Mary Crowe to help you. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, yeah. We had no nurses. That's why Sister Irmina used to say, "Your sisters work more than the nurses." We had no nurses. Sr. Francis Maria: �There was just one thing I wanted to ask you about, I know that you had no help in the house, but how about the grounds? Did you have any man who helped you? Sr. Anna Denise: Yes, I forget what he was. But he never came in the house. He did that for charity. He came to the grounds for Sister ... He came from Paterson, too. I forget what his name was now. Patrick O'Neill, some name like that. Sr. Francis Maria: It's a good name. Did you ever hear the story of a man, a deaf mute who couldn't speak, who Mother Xavier had here at Convent Station and whom she sent out there to the House of Divine Providence when he became very ill? Sr. Anna Denise: Well, I heard of it, but you see, I was never there in her time. Sr. Francis Maria: I know you weren't there, but do you remember anyone talking about him? Sr. Anna Denise: Well, Valentinia and I think it was Sister Esther, Mary Esther. She had charge of the men's house. She used to tell how he was deaf, and Mother Xavier used to talk to him and the sisters. But of course, Mother Xavier always went to the poor. She went to those cripples before she went to us. When she'd come in the house, and she'd seen Melania, of course. And Melania had to take her round to the different floors. She saw those patients. I don't know how they managed it. She'd go to all the patients. Sr. Anna Denise: And of course those patients, Sister, when they heard they were here, if she wasn’t there, they’d be sick, they loved her. She'd say to them, "You're suffering for God. You're poor, and you'll get reward in heaven." Sr. Francis Maria: Yes, and I think knowing that it was coming from her, it meant a great deal to them. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh yes, they loved ... They had nothing else, the poor things. What did they have? Sr. Francis Maria: Well, Sister, you've given us a very, very beautiful first-hand… Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, maybe I talked too much. �Sr. Francis Maria: No you didn't. Some first-hand personal memories, and you've made me see that House of Divine Providence in action. Sr. Anna Denise: We had nothing. There was one Sister, she used to sew. They didn't have an electric machine. They had that… Sr. Francis Maria: A little foot pedal machine? Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah, and she had charge. Of course, there was never anything new. Because I remember one time, Sister Valentinia, her mop wasn't much good and she threw it out. Now listen to this, Sister Melania was around, she brought the mop upstairs, she washed it. Sister Valentina went to her and said, "Sister, have you got any kind of a mop?" She said, "Yeah, here's the one you threw out." Sr. Francis Maria: Oh, she was so careful about poverty. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, you didn't have it. She didn't have it. You had to be careful of everything. And I know one thing I meant to tell you, this is funny, too. Sister Mary Matthew [Grogan] was there and old Sister Simeon was there. She had charge of the laundry. She's the one that used to help the sister with the cancer. And she used to have a day or two that she'd close the laundry and go down and help. And Mary Matthew was there. But we used to [unintelligible] sewing, and Mary Matthew, she was very funny. She'd have a needle, and she had no thread. She had no thread. Sister Melania said, "Mary Matthew, when are you going to get the thread through the needle?" So she told one of the sisters to give her the thread, but Sister Melania always put it in a nice way. Sr. Francis Maria: Yes, she went through the motions of sewing. Sr. Anna Denise: Yeah, she was nice. And you could go to her. She was like a big mother. Sr. Francis Maria: Yes. Well, your memories are so kind, Sister. And I'm so glad that you were able to recall so much. Your dates and names. Sr. Anna Denise: �They used to tell me when Mother Xavier came, "Oh, the whole house was in glory." Sr. Francis Maria: Oh, that's a beautiful way to… Sr. Anna Denise: Sister Melania used to give [unintelligible]. Of course, the Sisters, I guess they didn't have much to put on, a decent cap or something to see Mother. Sr. Francis Maria: Yeah, I hope you didn't have to wear the cap that you went into the bathtub in. Sr. Anna Denise: They’ll think I'm crazy. Sr. Francis Maria: That is funny, no. Sr. Anna Denise: Of course, we had to have aprons and beads and a cape, and they'd dress up what they had for Mother Xavier, because the whole place would be lit up when she’d come. Sr. Francis Maria: As you said, it was a glory when she came. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, they loved it. Even the patients loved it. She loved the patients because they were poor. She used to say to the Sisters, "Sisters, they're suffering for God. They have nothing. And when they go, they go to heaven." And I said one time to Sister Melania, "I hope they're praying for us." And she said, “Yes, they pray for us." Sr. Francis Maria: And I hope they're still praying for us. Sister Anna Denise, I hope that you're praying for our lovely community. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, I do. I pray every day. Sr. Francis Maria: And I thank you so much. Sr. Anna Denise: �I thank God I have my brain. I can go in the chapel and pray. And you know the sisters here, every time… I say, "You think I'm a prayer book, don't you? Will you pray for this one, will you pray for that." I love to pray. But God is good, Sister. My brain. Sr. Francis Maria: God is very good. Your mind is wonderful. Sr. Anna Denise: All my life I didn't do anything right, don't you know? Sr. Francis Maria: Well, that's the way you see it. Sr. Anna Denise: The woman I kept my eyes shut with, that was wrong. Sr. Francis Maria: When you gave her the bath? Sr. Anna Denise: You had to be told about it. Sr. Francis Maria: That was very, very mild. I'm sure that… Sr. Anna Denise: I think it was dumb. I said to Sister Melania. "Oh," Sister Melania said, "No, Sister. You were innocent." At that time… Sr. Francis Maria: Well, now, Sister Anna Denise, thank you very much for your memories. Sr. Anna Denise: Oh, I kept… Sr. Francis Maria: No, you didn't. Will I see you at the picnic in a little while? Sr. Anna Denise: No, I'm not going [unintelligible] Sr. Francis Maria: You're not going out to the picnic? �Sr. Anna Denise: [unintelligible] Sr. Francis Maria: All right, well I hope I'll be able to talk to you again. Thank you for sharing. Sr. Anna Denise: And I thank you for listening to me. Sr. Francis Maria: Oh, I loved it. I had an absolutely beautiful time. � 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 Saint Elizabeth, Convent Station Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Murphy, Sister Anna Denise, S.C. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Cassidy, Sister Francis Maria, S.C. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data cassette tape Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:32:19 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 Sister Anna Denise Murphy, S.C. Oral History Subject The topic of the resource Murphy, Sister Anna Denise, S.C.; House of Divine Providence Ridgewood, NJ; Sister M. Melania Crowe; Mount Saint Andrew Villa Ridgewood, NJ; Paterson, NJ, Mother M. Xavier Mehegan Description An account of the resource Description of Sister's early years at the House of Divine Providence; stories of Mother M. Xavier Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Murphy, Sister Anna Denise, S.C.; Cassidy, Sister Francis Maria, S.C. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 6, 1983 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Neary, Sister Noreen, S.C. (Editor) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio/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 Sister Anna Denise remembers her early years at the House of Divine Providence and recalls stories of Mother M. Xavier Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant July 1983 Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/b4f6dbc3ce6935c31e77f68c4d421389.JPG e706ba8fc4b540a6bc4628be4547a171 https://www.scfederationarchives.org/files/original/f7dce71ee17ef74a143801b884dec1be.pdf 67e02f8e7f33631c9a3752a9a7c8b86b PDF Text Text INTERVIEW WITH SISTER CELESTIA KOEBEL October 31, 2013 I=INTERVIEWER Sisters Andrea Koverman and Tracy Kemme S= SISTER being interviewed.... Sister Celestia Koebel M= Sister Monica Lucas....close friend of S. Celestia present and assisted at interview I: Tell us a little bit about your life before you became a Sister. S: I was born in Chillicothe, Ohio. I have three blood sisters. Mary, the oldest is deceased; Ann, who is also a Sister of Charity; Jodie, my younger sister is married and has a family. She lives in Florida. Three of us were nurses. Mary was an RN, and Jodie went through nursing, too, and then of course, I went through nursing. When I entered, I did not have a good feeling about teaching, so I kept telling people that I would like to go into another field, mainly nursing. So, two other Sisters and I were placed in nursing which was not the usual route after having taken first vows, it was usually teaching. So, I went into a three-year program at Good Samaritan Hospital here in Cincinnati I: Was your mother a nurse? S: No, she was a simple housewife. My Dad was a CPA, had a full-time job and then kept books for other establishments on the side. I used to help him put the checks in order when he had to do the reconciliations. He died when I was in nursing I entered in 1946 and was in nursing in 1947, 1948 and 1949.1 liked nursing very much, and I always appreciated the fact that the three of us were picked for nursing. Sister Helen Cranley, who is now in Mother Margaret Hall, was one, Sister Ann Seton Gallagher, who is deceased was the third one. I: Do you have any memories or stories of when you were growing up with your siblings. What life what life was like in your family home? M: Tell them the fishing story. S: We were out in the middle of a creek in our hip boots when my Dad had a strike. We were standing on a log that was really in the water, so he told me to put my pole out there, and WHAM! I pulled so hard that the poor fish went back into the water, but I just picked it up. That was the first time I ever caught a fish. I used to go fishing with my Dad because he worked very hard to support his family, but he liked to get up at 4:00 a.m. To go fishing before he went to work at 7:00 a.m. I would go with him frequently and then I would go back home and slip back into bed. We had a very close family. We did everything together. All of us girls went to the Mount after we graduated from high school. I had Sisters of Charity �teaching me all during my school years. We went to St. Mary's in Chillicothe where the SCs were there. We kind of grew up with the Sisters. We all went to College at the Mount on scholarships because our family didn't have a lot of money, but we worked hard in school and were able to get scholarships. I: So what did you study at the Mount? S: As I said,I knew that I didn't want to be a teacher, but I let it be known that I would like to be in nursing. I went to school two years and then I entered. My sister, Rita, the second oldest, had entered, and I got the idea that it was pretty neat so I entered too. My oldest sister, Mary went into nursing at Good Samaritan and then eventually got married and had a family as did my youngest sister Jodie. M: What kind of nurse did you become? S: I became an OB nurse. I think that I went into that right away. The first year I was out West at St. Mary Corwin in Pueblo. After that I was sent to Good Samaritan and was an OB nurse there. That was when we used to deliver about 500 babies a month. I: So you entered the Community because your older sister did? S: I think I got the idea from her, but I probably would have otherwise anyway, I'm not sure, it's hard to tell. I: How much older was she than you? S: Three years. I: Did you think about becoming a Sister earlier in life, like when you were in grade school and high school with the Sisters of Charity? S: I didn't think too much about it I don't think that I really felt that I had a vocation until I was probably in College. I: What are some memories of your early years as a member of the Congregation when you were in formation and in the novitiate? S: Oh! We did a lot of things. We tried to be very good and got our prayers and obey and everything, but every once in a while we would get into a little bit of trouble here and there. We were young and we had to see what we could get away with. I: Can you think of any particular incident? �S: No. M: Can you think of anything, because, as a nurse, you were sent out quickly didn't you to Good Samaritan? Can you think of anything that the young Sisters did. Roz has got lots of stories. Do you remember when Grace Marie was your Superior or anything? S: Oh! I think that Sister Grace Marie was instrumental in my being picked to go into nursing. She was not only the Administrator at Good Samaritan, but she was also Coordinator of Health Care Services, and she was instrumental in picking people to go to school, and she was a good friend. I: Did you live in community when were at Good Samaritan? S: Yes. We had a whole wing that was for the convent because there were so many Sisters there at the time... probably about 20 or 25 Sisters. I: That's a lot! Nursing School was pretty regimented in those days wasn't it? Didn't you have curfews where you had to sign in and sign out? M: Tell her the curfew story in Dayton with Sister Mary Romana when she was the Superior. After her term as Mother, she became Superior at Good Samaritan, Dayton and you were OB nursing Supervisor. S: Was I Supervisor there? Yes, I remember. Sister Edward Cecile and I used to be late getting the office closed, and I had been late leaving the floor. Mother would lock the convent doors at 8:15 because we were all supposed to be in by that time. She would lock both the elevators and the doors so we had to get Security to let us in. We would kind of tiptoe by her office because often times she was still sitting there working. Sister Edward Cecile (Roz) was there too. She worked in the office. She was always one for a good time. Be sure you interview her! M: Sister Grace Marie is the one who asked you to go into Hospital Administration and sent you to St. Louis University. I: Were you interested in doing that? ? S: Yes. I went to school and got my Masters in Health Administration. That was a one-year program at St. Louis University, and the second year out in a hospital. They sent me to Providence Hospital in Seattle, Washington. M: Tell them the earthquake story. S: Good Friday, I was in the chapel praying and I thought that it was a little strange that the votive light �was kind of moving back and forth. I didn't think too much about it until later when I found out that it was an earthquake that had occurred that afternoon. It wasn't a bad one. I really liked Seattle and I enjoyed the Providence Sister, Sister Gertrude, who was my mentor when I was in the residency program. So, I got to take long train rides because we didn't fly in those days. Going out to Seattle, Washington was quite a trip. I: Were you by yourself? S: Well, I could to that by myself, but there were certain things we couldn't do by ourselves, like shopping, etc. But going on a long trip to Seattle, I could do that by myself, (chuckles all around). So, then I finished my residency which lasted two years, one year in St. Louis attending classes and one year in Seattle. I had another Sister-friend. She was from the East Coast. She and I used to walk a mile down the road (rain or shine) from where we lived in what was like a hotel. But it was really a dorm for St. Louis University. It was good for us. I: After your year in St. Louis, then you went to Seattle? S: Right. I: What did you do after that? S: I graduated from St. Louis University with a Masters in Health Administration M: After you graduated you were sent to Albuquerque to build a hospital. That's where you spent 25 years. S: There was an old hospital there that needed renovation or replacement. On one of my trips East, Mother Mary Omer informed me that they had agreed to build a new hospital. It was an interesting process, because I had no experience but I would meet with the department heads of our other hospitals in the West and say, "Now, if you were building a new hospital, now would you do it?" So ,1 got a lot of help between them and working with the Architect. We tried to get it right. I: So you were instrumental in designing the hospital? S: The hospital opened on June 6, 1966 as St. Joseph's Hospital. I: I know that hospital, it is huge and there is a big memorial to Mother Seton �M: that was in Celestia's honor. She went out two years ago, they had the dedication for the Memorial Park. I: Lots of Sister of Charity worked there right? S: Oh yes. But it is not ours anymore. There were many Sisters of Charity in Albuquerque at the time. There were many in the hospital and then there were some in Old Town, St. Vincent's Academy and other places. There were about seven Catholic schools in Albuquerque at that time staffed by the Sisters of Charity. I: After the building of the hospital, what was it like? S: It worked out pretty well. It was quite a step from the small hospital, we had to get used to this 12story structure I: It is still a vibrant, thriving hospital, so it is still a legacy even though it is no longer our Community's hospital. I: It has to be a little scary to be in charge of that big a project without having any experience S: Well, that is why I used so many people to help me out. M: I can remember one day when we lived in the old convent (which has since been torn down). She and I were going out and I said that I would meet her at the garage (and the garage was very small) and we both had learned to drive in New Mexico. I went out, and she was in tears, and she said, "I have got to back and ask for $10,000,000 ! S: But I did go, and I got the money, and I did survive. I: How long were you there at the hospital? M: She was there 25 years. She probably would have stayed longer, but Sister Grace Marie Hiltz died and the Community begged her to come back and take over SCHCS (Sisters of Charity Health Care Systems). So she came back although she would have preferred to stay in Albuquerque. M: (continued) She was involved with SCHCS for about ten years and together \ with two others got the brainstorm of forming CHI (Catholic Health Initiatives) S: Diane Moore out of Catholic Health Associations in Omaha where she led a group of eight or so hospitals in her part of the country. She lived in Omaha. And with her and with Ron Aldridge who was the head of the Franciscan Health Systems from Astin, Pennsylvania. The three of us met together to see what we could do together. And, finally, in 1996, we founded CHI which was a separate �entity which took the place of the other systems. And then, the Sister of Charity of Nazareth Health Care System in Bardstown, Kentucky came in and joined us within a year. It was a very interesting process, because, here we were CEOs' appointed by our religious superiors, trying to convince these superiors that we needed to let go of our health care institutions and agree to be led by another organization. I: Can you remember what led you to think that something like this should be formed? S: It was the fact that health care was getting very complicated,and that we didn't have the Sisters interested in getting in and getting trained anymore. There were fewer Sisters at this time, and we felt that it was important to keep the viability of the institutions alive. I would also say that other Catholic institutions were looking to doing the same kind of thing that we were so it kind of became a trend at that time. So we founded CHI. I have a whole book on it written by S. Maryanna Coyle and Pat Cahill who at that time was the head of the Catholic Health Corporation in Omaha made up a many hospitals around the Omaha area. We were all trying to educate and motivate our leadership to have a new model for health care. I: Was there much resistance in the Community for that? S: I wouldn't say a lot. It was a leadership decision, of course. The Sisters were all informed about it but the leadership could understand how complicated health care was getting at that time. So, I would say that the fact that these other hospital systems were willing to work with us probably made it easier for our leadership to accept. M: They did a good thing. First of all, they took a year to educate all the staffs, the boards, etc. and then for another year the team traveled to every convent and we had meetings where they explained the plan. They would get questions, and they would send back the answers. Besides that, Celestia was a firm believer in the laity. Some of the Sisters didn't want the responsibility of leadership. So it was one of the marks of her whole , group to bring in the laity. After they had gone around for a year or two, it was brought to a vote at the Chapter and it was accepted unanimously. She (Celestia) almost fainted. S: It was a great moment. We knew that it would affect the Sisters who had worked in health care all their lives to accept this...that we were sort of giving up our health care institutions. But I think what probably helped was the fact that other health care systems were coming with us, joining with us. I: That was so forward-thinking. We keep hearing in all our formation process comments about health care �and your work and your vision was so forward-thinking on that. M: From what perspective have you heard about it? I: Just visiting other communities. We've taken some trips to other Communities and talked about how they have dealt with their hospitals and health care in general. Everyone has seen this as sort of an example of a good thing, and the time was right too. S: Health care was becoming too complex, and there were not enough Sisters involved or willing to be involved in the leadership. M: And they didn't have the money, that also was a big thing. S: We founded CHI in 1996, and within a year the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth joined us. I: Can you explain a little bit about what that meant, because, if I understand correctly, now that none of the hospitals were sold, right? What exactly happened to all the hospitals? S: We created CHI which was the sponsoring group for the new Health Care System. So, in essence, the Congregations turned over the ownership to it. It did take a lot of education on our part to help the members understand why we were doing this. But, we were able to pull it off. Sister Marianna Coyle was President at that time, and she was a firm believer that we were doing the right thing and she helped us a lot. I: Was there a period of transition after that was formed? Did you stay involved with the hospitals, or did you step out of it? S: People were given the choice. If they were in a position in a hospital they were given the choice to either stay there or not. But, it was almost the decision of the new group's leadership to pick leaders for the institutions at that time. I: So, did you stay in the position of leadership in the hospital? S: No. By that time, I was the President of SCHCS, so I had left any leadership position in any individual hospital. I: What did you do? �M: When CHI was formed, the three of you decided that you should not be a part of that new CHI. S: It wasn't such a big thing except to the individual hospital's administrators. I: So that people who were employed there simply became employees of CHI? I: Were you living in Cincinnati at that time? S: Yes, I was President of SCHCS for 10 years and at the end of that time, I became a member of many Boards I: Did you enjoy that, traveling around and being on Boards? M: Tell them how you were on 9/11. You were out in Seattle and you and your partner decided what? S: I was a Board member at Providence Hospital then. Another woman and I wondered how we would get back home since there were no planes flying. We thought about renting a car and driving, but we were not that eager to get home. I: What did you do after retirement? Did you really retire? S: By that time, I wasn't too young.... how many years ago was that? M: Well, you retired about 10 years ago, but you only retired from Board membership about 8 years ago. And a few years later you started having health problems that has been 6 or 7 years now. S: And I'm now 85! I: When you were commenting about how involving the laity was always really important to you, it made me think of our class on Vatican II and I was just wondering about whether you had any memories about when Vatican was happening. How did that affect your work and your life? People have told us that Vatican II came out and there many changes in the liturgy, changes about how common life was lived, the dress of Sisters etc. I don't know if you were in leadership at the hospital at that time or what. S: I think that all that was happening while I was still in Health Administration in Albuquerque. M: We received a memo saying that the Sisters would change their black habits for blue or not. There were 30 Sisters on staff at the time. Celestia was Administrator and I was Superior and every one of the Sisters decided to change. Sister Grace Marie came out West about that time and she told us that the �nuns back East were saying that our Sisters had been forced to change, (laughter) The nurses had more dealings with the laity and the doctors than a teacher would. The hospital Sisters, for the most part, welcomed the change because their conversations with adults were always meaningful, educational and collaborative. S: It wasn't too difficult for us to change. I: So you welcomed the change.... it felt natural? S&M: Yes M: I've never seen anyone who has been able to meet change like her (Celestia) she is not excitable about things. that's her temperament. S: This book (CHI) was written by Pat Cahill and S. Maryanna Coyle about the time that all this was happening (AT THIS POINT SHE OFFERED THE BOOK TO THE NOVICES TO USE AS A REFERENCE FOR MORE INFORMATION BUT DID SAY THAT SHE WANTED IT BACK). I: Thank you, we would enjoy looking at that. M: That's about one of the last things Maryanna did. A couple of weeks later she called us and asked us to go out to dinner, and she told us that she had cancer. She lasted about a year and a half after that. Monica (addressing Celestia): What did Maryanna say about CHI? That it was a good idea? She had not really bought into it at the beginning. She said that the reason that she wasn't too sold on it was because it had not been her idea, (laughter) I: Can you talk about the Community charism or what sustained you through all your years as a Sister of Charity? S I was always happy in my vocation and when all this happened, it didn't affect me much. My sister (S. Ann Koebel) was OK with it too. Others could do whatever they wanted to do, but I felt that I still had a vocation and wanted to live it out. I: What do you like specifically about the charism of our Community? S: That is hard to answer, because I don't know what other Communities charisms are.. I: What do you like about this Community, how about that?... what's the best thing about being a Sister of Charity? �S: I think that our Community has grown with the sociatal changes that have happened; have accepted that, and we haven't tried to hold on to a lot of things. I was just happy in my vocation and I wanted to stay there. Fortunately, I didn't have the temptation to do something else. M: I think the charism, you know, taking care of the poor, ministering health-wise, and social justice issues and things like that, we may not be involved in per se, but we pray for those who are and we are glad that the Community is open to them. Open placement is something we had not experienced before, and when we did, it was a little bit difficult because we were held responsible for what we chose to do. The hospitals, I think, saw more of the Sisters who left because they were sent to the hospital for us to get them ready, getting them dressed etc, In Santa Fe, they had a lot of young Sisters, too and for whatever reason, a lot of them left from there. Celestia made sure that when they went out, we as a Community were behind them, had jobs for them etc A few stayed at our hospital for some time. S: Well, that was what we did in those days, it was all part of being a Sister of Charity, and we, at the hospital, probably had more resources to help them. I: You were talking before about having fun times out in the West. You've had some pretty big jobs but what have you done for fun throughout your life as a Sister of Charity? S: Well, we were able to take trips. In my job I was able to go out of town periodically to attend professional meetings, and when I could , I would take someone else with me. Or sometimes, I would stay maybe a day or two extra to enjoy the place. That helped. I: It sounds like you have a strong spirit of adventure. M: She went up in a hot air balloon and sometimes when we had golf tournaments some people would offer rides in a small plane, and, she once had a beer with Willie Nelson in his bus. (LAUGHTER AND EXCLAMATIONS!) I: Tell us how that happened. S: He was entertaining at one of our golf tournaments and invited me in. M: The guy she really liked and got to come every time because he became a sponsor, was Charlie Pride... she still gets a Christmas card from him. I: Do you like to read? S: I love to read. I read a lot. I like a good novel. �I: Did you ever play golf? S: Not really. I was too busy trying to raise the money I: Do you like Willie Nelson's music? S: I really don't know. I like classical music I: Have you gone down to the symphony? S. Yes, I have. We have a great symphony here. I: Throughout your life as a Sister of Charity you've seen lots and lots of changes in the Community and in religious life. Do you have any thoughts about the future of religious life? S: Changes, yes. But, changes probably brought on by changes in life in general. I think that religious life is always going to adapt to changes socially, too. That just kind of happens. But our primary goal as vowed religious isn't going to change. END OF DISC #1 THERE IS A SECOND DISC BUT IT CONTAINS ONLY A FEW WORDS OF GRATITUDE FROM THE NOVICES FOR THE PLEASURE OF THIS INTERVIEW � 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 Cincinnati Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Koebel, Sister Celestia, SC Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Koverman, Sister Andrea, SC; Kemme, Sister Tracy, SC Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio/mp3 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1 Hour 27 Minutes 36 Seconds Location The location of the interview Cincinnati (Ohio); Albuquerque (N.M.) 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 Sister Celestia Koebel, SC Interviewed by Sister Andrea Koverman, SC and Sister Tracy Kemme, SC October 31, 2013 Subject The topic of the resource Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati; Monasticism and religious orders for women -- Catholic Church -- History; Catholic hospitals -- History Description An account of the resource An interview with Sister Celesia Koebel by Sister Andrea Koverman and Sister Tracy Kemme. This recording is a part of the oral history series housed at the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati Archives. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Koebel, Sister Celestia, SC; Koverman, Sister Andrea, SC; Kemme, Sister Tracy, SC Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/31/2013 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Online access is provided for research purposes only. For rights, reproduction, and use requests or more information, please contact the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati Archivist 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 Sister Celestia Koebel, SC Interviewed by Sister Andrea Koverman, SC and Sister Tracy Kemme, SC October 31, 2013 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1928-2013 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati Archives Oral History Series Healthcare Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati