Читать книгу A Tree Rooted in Faith - Alberta Dieker - Страница 8

It is necessary here to return to Switzerland in 1876. For Sister Bernardine Wachter this was a crucial year, bringing with it an overseas journey and a definitely external life. Curiously enough, one of the stated reasons for her leaving her native Germany for a Swiss convent was to be able to participate in perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in a convent devoted primarily to that apostolate. As the reader is already aware, Sister Bernardine was asked to leave that convent at Maria Rickenbach, and spent some time (how long is not known) at a neighboring convent school in Sarnen. Whether this experience influenced her or what motivated the desire to leave Europe for mission fields and primitive conditions remains a mystery.

According to the necrology, Sister Bernardine volunteered for work in America,1 answering a call for help from the Engelberg monks who had left for Missouri in 1873. How much discussion went on in the convent, how many volunteers presented themselves, and how the final selection was made one can only guess. In a letter written from Maryville on February 21, 1876, Father Adelhelm Odermatt told Mother Gertrude Leupi, superior of Maria Rickenbach, “I was highly surprised to read in your letter that no Sisters wanted to come to us.” He added that he went to Conception to talk this over with Father Frowin Conrad, who wanted at least three sisters “from home.”2

Three sisters from home were not forthcoming, and whether this was for lack of volunteers or reluctance of the young community at Maria Rickenbach to part with more members is unknown. Instead, two sisters, Scholastica von Matt and Bernardine Wachter, along with the young recruit Anna Jann, comprised the second group to leave for Missouri. Were these two the only sisters to volunteer? What role did Abbot Anselm Villiger of Engelberg play in the final selection? The pious prose of Sister Bernardine’s necrology says,

“. . . although her superiors did not like to lose her they gave their consent to her departure.” Abbot Anselm was well aware that it takes generous souls for foundations of religious houses, and that it was of supreme importance to send capable sisters, well grounded in the spirit of their Institute, in order to make the new colonies a success.3

It would be interesting to know how other members of the community at Maria Rickenbach reacted to the choice of Sisters Bernardine and Scholastica for the American missions. Apparently, the time and resources of the community were taxed to outfit the emigrants. On April 5, the superior of the little group at Conception wrote to the Swiss motherhouse, “Last night I received a letter from our Most Rev. Spiritual Father, (Anselm Villiger) asking me to tell you what the Sisters should be provided with and what they should bring with them. In the line of clothing, let them bring whatever their poverty permits, especially good high shoes, some strong material for mending habits and stockings. Even if they are only scraps, we will be satisfied. You can’t imagine what poor material they have here in America.”4 She goes on to suggest that they would be grateful for bedding and linen yardage for coifs. A thoughtful note is added: “The travelers should provide themselves with wine and some food already when they set out from Rickenbach; it isn’t easy to have to get off the train so often.” How much the sisters actually took to America has not been noted.

Others may have had doubts about Sister Bernardine’s fitness for missionary life, but she was convinced that she belonged in America and that the journey should be made at any cost. How determined Sister Bernardine was in her resolution is well shown by the following incident. On the day appointed for their departure she was unable to rise in the morning, and was suffering severe pains (Seitenstecken). The sisters thought she should desist from undertaking the journey, arguing that it was plainly God’s will that she should remain in the motherhouse. Another sister volunteered to go in her place. But Father Abbot insisted that Sister Mary Bernardine go to her destined mission, and she simply said, “He who calls me to serve Him in the New World will also give me strength for the journey.”5 With this kind of confidence, Sister Bernardine got up and was on her way to the seaport at Havre with her companions that very afternoon of June 5.

Accompanying the sisters were recruits for the monastery at Concep­tion. Mention is made of Peter Villiger, Anton Dillier, and young men referred to only as Huber, Odermatt, and Clemens. Apparently all were candidates either for the priesthood or the lay brotherhood. Judging from Sister Scholastica’s account, they were all young and lively, and enjoyed the excitement of the trip.6

From the port at Havre, Sister Bernardine sent two letters back to Switzerland, one to Abbot Anselm and one to Mother Gertrude. The train ride itself took two days. Apparently they sat up, because they arrived sleepy and rumpled. There was a problem getting to their luggage in Havre, so they still had to go about in dirty clothes. Being tired, they slept until six on the morning of June 9, then went to a church where they attended two Masses. In the afternoon they found a German church, where the friendly pastor recited the rosary with them, and exhorted them with good words for their journey.

On the morning of June 10, the Swiss party boarded the Labrador, described as one of the fastest and most beautiful ocean-going vessels of its day, 305 meters long and 42 wide, with two huge stacks. Sister Bernardine noted that they were traveling second class, so they had portholes in their cabin. Third class, she noted, “is too far below and leaves much to be desired.” Other details of the journey have been preserved by Sister Scholastica, who began a letter to Mother Gertrude on board ship and mailed it from New York.

Many of the passengers became seasick early in the voyage. “Without having experienced it, one cannot imagine how slack and depressed, unwilling and incapable of doing anything one feels in this condition. Peter Villiger felt so miserable that he wished to die. Sister Bernardine had to lie down at once and got as weak as if her life had come to its end. She also suffered from much pain in her side.”7

By June 18, a week into the voyage, everyone was up and around, and Sister Bernardine was able to take her meals at the common table. With an eye for detail, Sister Scholastica described the meals: for breakfast, coffee with milk, or soup; second breakfast was served at nine; dinner at four in the afternoon included two kinds of meat and fish, with vegetables and dessert. Water and wine were always available. “Butter is always on the table; they say it is strongly salted. I cannot even look at it. Is it not strange—to have the finest dishes before you, and you have to force yourself to eat?” A cup of boullion was served at noon, and tea at nine in the evening.

Sister Scholastica wondered what some of the shyer members of the community at Maria Rickenbach would do “if they in our stead had to sit at table with all these gentlemen.” She noted that her place was beside a very attentive Frenchman who called her Madame. Opposite her was another Frenchman who “keeps talking quietly and politely with two officers.” She mentioned an elderly man who directed an institute for homeless boys in Milan, and spoke Italian. Anna Jann sat on the other side of Sister Scholastica with Peter Villiger beside her. After Sister Bernardine recovered from seasickness, they arranged a place opposite Peter for her. The meals were enjoyable for Sister Scholastica, for she mentioned laughing heartily at the captain (who talked in Swiss dialect to the French waiters) and at the stories told by Huber and Odermatt.

Apparently, Sister Scholastica’s shipboard behavior did not meet with Sister Bernardine’s approval. In a letter written from America on July 17 to her Spiritual Father (evidently Abbot Anselm) the former noted, “I also suffer much from natural antipathy to Sister Bernardine, as she was a little too rigorous with us during the voyage. If I am made to do something against my better insight, out of constraint, it is only forced upon me and repels me. One must not always do or say what is strictly ascetic; not even a religious. The people outside also like rather to find a joyful face and an obliging manner in us.” She went on to say that she had no trouble getting along with the other sisters, and did not know why she had the difficulties with Sister Bernardine, “though I know her noble intention for which I esteem her highly.”8

Sister Bernardine also wrote back to Maria Rickenbach about their ocean voyage. She mentioned nothing about the behavior of her companions, nor of her own seasickness. Her description of a beautiful day on the ocean reveals a sensitivity to natural beauty that is noteworthy:

I had the greatest joy on the Feast of the Holy Cross (June _) at sunset. For several days we had had stormy weather. Towards evening on that day, it suddenly cleared up, and once again one could see the immense sheet of water, and one felt fresh and newly animated at the view of the blue sea under the warm light of the sun. While we were having our evening recreation on deck, an Italian sculptor came and called to our attention that the sun was setting on the other side. The ball of the sun appeared to be floating about one foot over the surface of the sea, and one could look at it without being blinded. Could the passengers have walked on the water like St. Peter, I think everyone would have rushed over, not to let it sink into the depths of the sea. Even when the sun seemingly dipped into the water, one could not look away until the last glow had vanished. Soon darkness was to cover the ocean. So when the evening sky turned pale, we turned and talked about something else. Then I suddenly observed the silvery mild evening star. Never in all my life did it appear so pleasing to me as this time.9

The tone of the two sisters’ letters is completely different. Sister Scholastica was enjoying every moment out of the cloister, appreciating the banter and carefree activities of the other passengers, delighting in the food and service, undoubtedly better than convent fare. Sister Bernardine spent the early part of the voyage in bed. This is not surprising, since she was sick before she left Maria Rickenbach. If she mixed with the other passengers, or enjoyed the food and company, she gave no indication in what remains of her letters. She apparently preferred her own thoughts, and waxed eloquent in her enjoyment of the natural beauty around her.

Were these two sisters aware before the journey of the difference in their natural temperaments? Did their superiors perceive this when they designated the two to go to America together? Whatever the case, the natural antipathy between these strong and determined women would later be intensified in the confined quarters and overworked atmosphere of the Maryville convent, and would be a factor in their separation into different religious communities.

The party from Switzerland arrived at Conception on June 27, 1876. It would be interesting to know the details of their arrival in New York harbor, their problems (if any) on coming through customs, of their trip across the countryside to Missouri. Apparently some of their baggage was lost in transit, and they had to leave New York without it. On July 17, Sister Scholastica wrote to Abbot Anselm, “Yesterday came the information that our small luggage that had been left behind in the New York Depot is being sent by railway. The Sisters thought it was lost. But our Lord accepted my prayer and promise: thanks to Him! My coat, shawl and many small things I need are in it.”10

In the same letter, Sister Scholastica gave some of her first impressions about her new home: “Do you ask whether I like it in America? Yes, but not everything. The rising and setting sun, the starry sky at night are marvelous. But the dirt on the paths we have to take to get to church and the pigs searching in the garbage; these are not so attractive.” She expressed her happiness at seeing the sisters again (those who had left Maria Rickenbach three years previous), but said the appearance of their clothes indicated that they did not have much time to take care of themselves. Again indicating her attention to detail and her intense interest in people, she wrote, “It looks strange to me that even grown up people, wearing a modern hat, veil, and shawl, walk without shoes and stockings.” The people were kind to the sisters, bringing them beans, potatoes, apples, eggs, meat, chickens, ducks, geese, turnips, and molasses, which, she explained, “is a kind of syrup.”

Sister Bernardine also wrote back to Switzerland during that first July in Missouri. Besides the information about the journey, her letter to Mother Gertrude expresses a note of homesickness: “A distance of more than a thousand miles separates me from all my beloved ones at Maria Rickenbach, but I am consoled by the thought that still we are united every morning, striving together to live on and on from (in?) the one true God.”11 She said that the sisters at Conception had received them with great love. She described the convent as a friendly little house, especially beloved because from her dormitory window she could see the window of the church, through which the soft glow of the sanctuary light indicated the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The monastery was small, but so attractive that she wished all the sisters at Maria Rickenbach could see it. Although the sisters could not yet have regular adoration hours in the church, they did have daily Mass. English lessons occupied the morning, while working together in the garden took up the afternoon.

Sister Bernardine also wrote to Abbot Anselm that she was homesick now and then, in spite of the fact that she felt at home in Conception, “because I am where God wants me to be. I cannot explain why nothing here appears strange to me, and I scarcely become conscious that I am on the other side of the world.”12 She mentioned the prayers that were said daily, and then went on to give her impressions of the spirit of the house and of the sisters living there. Already some of the tensions that would later bring about a separation of the group seemed to be present. To these we shall return later.

A digression is necessary at this point in order to look at the town of Conception, and to give some idea of what the sisters found when they arrived there.13 The founding of a colony specifically for Irish immigrant families was instigated by the Reading Land Association of Reading, Pennsylvania, along with an Irish priest, the Reverend James Power. The latter was seriously concerned by the plight and increasing numbers of immigrants from his homeland. Seeking refuge from the ravages of the potato famine of the 1840s, the Irish who came to America were often faced with prejudice, unemployment, slum living, and other conditions almost as distressing as those from which they had fled. The depression of 1855 added to the already serious overcrowding and unemployment of America’s eastern seaboard cities. Since the railroads were moving west and were rewarded with large tracts of land, their promoters were eager to establish colonies and towns along the way. Out of these circumstances grew the Reading Land Association with a plan to furnish farm sites for Irish families in Nodaway County, located some fifty miles north of St. Joseph, Missouri. Like many of these ventures, the Nodaway County project fell short of Father Power’s and the Association’s expectations. Only a small nucleus of Irish Catholic families settled there in 1859. Instead of a flourishing parish and town, one small building, called the Colony House, had to serve as church, school, and meeting place for the struggling pioneers scattered about on the unbroken prairie. They were without a resident priest, since Father Power could not persuade his bishop to release him from the Pennsylvania diocese.

After the Civil War, an influx of German Catholics increased the population of Nodaway County and intensified the demands for a church and a resident priest in what had become known as Conception Colony. The indefatigable Father Power, released from his Pennsylvania diocese, devoted himself completely to the Missouri community, even promising his parishioners that not only would they someday have their own church, but they would also find a monastery and convent established in their town.

Father Power recognized, rightly, that while the Irish immigrants often came from farms in their homeland, they were ill prepared for the breaking of prairie sod and the large scale farming that Missouri land required. He was well aware of the work of the Cistercian monks, especially of their agricultural skills. His dream was to transplant a Cistercian community from Ireland, where they too were suffering from the devastation of potato blight and the general poverty of the land.

This dream did not materialize, so Father Power turned to the Benedictines, already established in monasteries at Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and at St. Meinrad in Indiana. At about the same time, in 1872, Bishop John J. Hogan of the newly created Diocese of St. Joseph, Missouri, appealed to Abbot Martin Marty of St. Meinrad Abbey. Abbot Martin, meanwhile, was corresponding with his old friend, Father Frowin Conrad of Engelberg. Out of this correspondence came the decision of the monastic chapter at Engelberg to send two of their men to Missouri, with the possibility of making a foundation on land promised them by Bishop Hogan.

By the time Fathers Adelhelm and Frowin had reached America, the promised land had already been given to someone else, but Bishop Hogan offered to help them locate at Conception, on condition that they serve the Catholics of Maryville as well. Following Abbot Martin’s advice, the two Engelbergers remained at St. Meinrad’s until a suitable dwelling had been built for them at Conception. From the Indiana monastery, Father Fintan Mundweiler had been sent to look over the Missouri site. He described the country as one great rolling prairie, with a horizon reminiscent of the ocean. Woods were to be seen only along the creeks and rivers. The soil seemed very productive, for trees and grapevines had been planted and were growing well.14 By this time, a small church had been built at Conception, serving a congregation of about a hundred families, now only thirty-five of them Irish and the rest German speaking.15

When the Engelberg monks finally reached Missouri in September of 1873, Father Adelhelm became sick at Maryville, so Frowin had his first sight of Conception in the company of Father Fintan. The homesickness of a Swiss for his beloved mountains is subtly indicated in his report back to Abbot Anselm. “When we were still seven miles away we could see the little church. The countryside, illuminated as it was by the evening sun, looked like a huge plateau from which no mountains can be seen because one is apparently so high above them.” He added that construction on the new monastery had been halted because it was harvest time.16

However, Father Frowin was optimistic. “We shall have a stately two-story building and we hope to take possession on St. Martin’s Day (Nov. 11). The little church makes a rather poor impression; it reminds me too much of Bethlehem.” A small rectory had been built near the church, and has been described as “a small frame building of the most artless construction.” Undaunted, Father Frowin moved in. By December 23, the monastery building was habitable, a frame structure twenty-five feet high, twenty-five feet wide, and fifty feet long. In the meantime, Father Adelhelm had remained at Maryville, along with a number of candidates for the monastery. They occupied the school and rectory until quarters would be ready for them at Conception.

Almost immediately upon their arrival, the Benedictine monks expressed concern for the education of the children within their far-flung parishes. As early as November, Father Frowin had written to Maria Rickenbach to ask for sisters who could establish schools at Conception and Maryville, and, of course, a convent, presumably near the monastery.

When the first group of five Benedictine sisters did arrive on September 5, 1874, not only was there no one to meet them at the railway station, there was no convent for them to live in. The only solution was to have the sisters share, for the time being, the Maryville rectory with Father Adelhelm. Of these quarters, Sister Beatrix wrote, “Our convent will be a tumbled down frame building which is so badly in need of repair both inside and outside that in bad weather not even the priest at the altar is protected from the rain.”17

The Swiss women, too, missed their Alpine surroundings:

Our new home will be in nice hilly country but there are no mountains like those of Maria Rickenbach. The rolling prairie stretches away as far as the eye can reach. There are very few shade trees and the place is exposed to every wind that blows. At this time of the year the weather alternates between extreme heat and extreme cold and the winter proper has not yet begun. Still, I have come closer to freezing to death here already than I ever did in the depth of winter at Maria Rickenbach. We find it necessary to think of some warmer covering for our heads, even though as nuns our heads are pretty well wrapped up already.18

The sisters remained at Maryville until December 1875, when their combination convent and school was completed at Conception. Three of them moved to their new home, while the other two remained in Maryville to maintain a school there. Apparently, Mother Gertrude back in Switzerland had some concerns about the building and the speed of construction, for Father Adelhelm wrote to her in February of 1876, “There is no reason for worry about the new construction at Conception. I think the Sisters’ new convent is sufficiently dry. It was quick work, yes, but here in America all is done in a hurry. Don’t worry; nobody will get sick on account of too much moisture in the building; the Lord takes care of his spouses.”19

Thus, when Sisters Bernardine and Scholastica arrived in the summer of 1876, they found a newly built frame building, which would serve as their convent home and as a school. The church and monastery building completed what would today be called the physical plant from which the Benedictine monks and nuns of Conception were to live their religious life and carry on their work.