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- Herausgeber: Arcadia Press
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
Originally published in 1932 and long unavailable, this memoir by a strong-willed and resourceful nun is a valuable addition to the story of women in the West. Sister Blandina (1850-1941) served in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico from 1872 to 1894 as a member of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. Sister Blandina dedicated herself to teaching Hispanic children, tending the sick, visiting prisoners, assisting orphans, and raising money to further missionary activities among Hispanics and Native Americans. She quickly recognized the essential injustice of the settling of the West and observed that the Native Americans' "right to the land we call America is unquestioned."
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Sister Blandina Segale
AT THE END OF THESANTA FE TRAIL
Copyright © Sister Blandina Segale
At the End of the Santa Fe Trail
(1948)
Arcadia Press 2019
www.arcadiapress.eu
Storewww.arcadiaebookstore.eu
TABLE OF CONTENTS
AT THE END OF THESANTA FE TRAIL
ORIGINAL AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTO the keeping of this Journal of my life in the Southwest, there never entered the thought of its publication. The reward for the work involved was to come if Sister Justina and myself would meet and read it together.
A short time ago, the editor of TheSantaMariaMagazine prevailed upon me to allow its publication in that periodical. After the appearance of a few installments, requests for the Journal in book form began to come from many places in the United States, especially from New Mexico, whose Governor and Secretary of State, with the Archbishop of Santa Fe, found historic value in its record of events made by an eye-witness.
But the crowded hours that allowed no time for the leisurely writing of my Journal still prevail for me; and I realized if the urgent requests for the book were to be met, my wish to re-write it must be set aside. For the shortcomings consequently to be found in AT THE END OF THE SANTA FE TRAIL, let the busy life of a Sister of Charity offer excuse.
SISTER BLANDINA
ORIGINAL FOREWORD
THIS simple story of the missionary work of a Sister of Charity in the Southwest of territorial days rivals in many of its pages the most thrilling romances written of that period. It is not given to many women — and especially to a religious — to take part in the upbuilding of a new country and to become familiar with the various phases of pioneer life which Sister Blandina so vividly records and which she evidently considered merely a part of her days work.
AT THE END OF THE SANTA FE TRAIL is an inspiring record of educational and charitable work carried on for many years in Colorado and New Mexico for Indian and Mexican, Catholic and non-Catholic, rich and poor, the criminal and the law-abiding. Page after page bears witness to the initiative, the faith and the intrepid courage of this true daughter of Mother Seton. No work was foreign to her, provided it was God’s work. One knows not which to admire the more, her instant grasp of a difficult situation or the coolness and resourcefulness with which she met it.
Humanly speaking, Sister Blandina was not fitted by birth, environment or education to meet the conditions that confronted her in the Trinidad, Santa Fe and Albuquerque of frontier times. Carefully shielded in the home of her Italian parents until she entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Charity, she was assigned after her profession to teach in the parochial schools. It was while pursuing this peaceful routine at Steubenville, Ohio, that she was informed by her Superior that she was to proceed without delay to Trinidad, Colorado — and that she was to travel alone!
Life as she had known it ceased for Sister Blandina when she arrived at the terminus of the railway at Kit Carson. Stepping into a stage-coach, with a cowboy for a fellow passenger, she entered a world immeasurably removed from the one in which she had been living. Her impressions of this new Western world, how she solved its problems, how she adjusted herself to its primitive conditions, how she met the extraordinary demands made upon her, she recorded tersely in a diary intended only for the eyes of her sister, also a religious of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati.
It is a story that appeals irresistibly to the imagination. The picture she sketches of life in the West in those pioneer days is one of rude and sharp contrasts, inseparable from the period of construction and conditions of the frontier.
We see her throwing the weight of her influence against lynching, which was at that time the unwritten law of the West. Never before nor since was a stranger sight witnessed in the streets of Trinidad than that of the young Sister of Charity, accompanied by the Sheriff, walking with a doomed man to the bedside of his victim to beg for forgiveness. Lynch law received its death blow that day in Trinidad.
Again she is seen fearlessly confronting the notorious outlaw, “Billy the Kid,” demanding safety for the physicians of Trinidad, whose lives he had threatened, and not only winning his confidence but inspiring him with respect for every member of the religious garb. Who shall say what effect her ministrations to a neglected member of his band of outlaws may have had on the soul of this misguided youth?
On another occasion she fearlessly offers her services to quiet the Apaches who, angered by the ruthless murder of one of their tribe, are about to start on the war-path. Where in the pages of romance shall we find anything more thrilling than the graphic picture drawn of the young Sister, crucifix in hand, walking out unaccompanied to parley with the scouts and prevent the threatened uprising?
These are some of the high-lights of AT THE END OF THE SANTA FE TRAIL. There are many others of equal interest. Indeed, the book throughout is a revelation of the beauty of the life of prayer, labor and sacrifice. Only a religious woman, prompted by supernatural charity, could have found such joy and contentment in the service of God’s erring or neglected children under the trying conditions she was called upon daily to meet. The book should make a wide appeal.
JOHN T. McNICHOLAS
Archbishop of Cincinnati
LIFE SKETCH OF SISTER BLANDINA SEGALE
“GESU” was the first word the little Italian child, Rosa Maria Segale, learned to write at her home in the hilly village of Cicagna, Italy. Lingering over the sweetness of its sound, she smiled at her accomplishment and then laboriously added, “Madre.”
Nearly a century later when she lay dying in the infirmary at the motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity near Cincinnati, Ohio, Rosa Maria Segale, now known as Sister Blandina, serenely whispered, “Gesu, Madre,” smiled, turned her head, and died.
Rosa Maria Segale was born on January 23, 1850, in the northern Italian village of Cicagna which lies about fifteen miles above Genoa in the thickly populated section of the Ligurian hills. Her mother, Giovanna Malatesta, was noble and good. To her the elder Genoese women came for wise counsel in Italy and later in America. Sister Blandina wrote of her mother, “My father kept secret my mother’s illustrious family name, for those were days of revolution in Italy. In the Middle Ages my mother’s family had absolute control or they would know why.”
Francesco, her father, was a proficient overseer and owner of two well-cultivated orchards. For generations the Segale family had lived and died in their stone houses in the rocky and rugged Ligurian hills. Known to the villagers as IISignorino (The Little Lord), Francesco was quiet, refined, sensitive, and adored by his five children.
After the baby Rosa Maria was baptized, Giovanna took her, as was her custom, to the mountain sanctuary of Mont’Allegro, to present her to our Lady, Santa Maria. Over the high altar of the church is the Byzantine painting, TheDormitionoftheVirgin, which legend decrees was miraculously transported from Dalmatia. Offering her newly-born, Giovanna prayed, “To help mankind, Madremia, to comfort the sorrowful… to harbor the harborless… to visit the sick… to teach your ways to mankind.”
When Rosa was four years old her father and mother gave away their stone house and their orchards, and left revolution-tossed Italy for America. Accompanied by Andrea, 11; Maria Maddelena, 8; Catalina, 6; and Rosa, they set sail from Genoa and landed at New Orleans three months later. Cincinnati was their objective. A few Genoese had preceded them there and the city appealed to them because Giovanna hoped to be able to help her countrymen there, and because the Segales had heard that Cincinnati was built upon seven hills. “It will remind us of Cicagna,” Giovanna had encouraged Francesco.
The early Cincinnati days were filled with loneliness, language difficulties, dire poverty. Concerned about her children’s future, Giovanna hired an English teacher and somehow managed to pay for the lessons. The Segales all lived in one room at Main and Canal Streets. There little Catalina died. An immigrant, Mr. Novello, finally prevailed upon a friend to allow Francesco to open a fruit stand on his corner, Front and Sycamore Streets. From the beginning Francesco’s business thrived, and when Bartolomeo, the older boy, completed his studies in Italy and came to America, he persuaded his father to open a confectionery store. From then on Francesco was quite successful.
Little Rosa made her First Holy Communion after a year of preparation on April 21, 1861, at the Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains. She was confirmed that same afternoon by the Most Reverend Archbishop John Baptist Purcell. She attended schools conducted by the Notre Dame Sisters, the Sisters of Mercy, and Hughes Intermediate School. Meanwhile the Segales had purchased a home at 461 West Fifth Street. There the other children were born. When Rosa completed grammar school she was allowed to attend Mt. St. Vincent Academy, Cedar Grove, a school conducted by the Sisters of Charity, in Cincinnati. Ever since she had come to Cincinnati, Rosa had observed the Sisters of Charity as they went about performing works of mercy, working among the sick, the orphans; and she loved them. She knew that during the Civil War they nursed the soldiers on the battlefields. One day she surprised her father by saying, “Father, as soon as I am old enough, I shall be a Sister of Charity.” After completing her musical course at Cedar Grove, she entered the Sisters of Charity motherhouse at the age of sixteen, September 13, 1866. Her beloved sister and lifelong companion, Maria Maddelena, refused several marriage offers that same month and followed her younger sister to the Sisters of Charity motherhouse. She was known as Sister Justina.
After pronouncing their holy vows on December 8, 1868, Rosa secretly prayed to be sent to the faraway west — Santa Fe — where the Sisters of Charity had gone in 1865. Sister Blandina’s desire was fulfilled, in 1872, after she had been on mission in Dayton and Steubenville, Ohio. During her twenty-one years in the west, Sister Blandina kept a journal of her experiences which were published in 1932 under the title, AttheEndoftheSantaFeTrail. The present work is a new edition of Sister Blandina’s journal.
Recalled to the motherhouse, in 1894, Sister Blandina’s next missions were in Ohio, at Fayetteville and Glendale. In August of 1897, Mother Mary Blanche, mother general, entrusted the care of the Italians in Cincinnati to Sister Blandina and Sister Justina. From this time on the two sisters were never separated. This work of reconverting the immigrant Italians was dear to the heart of the Archbishop of Cincinnati, William Henry Elder, who had watched anxiously as proselytism spread among the Italian people. The work of bringing their own people back into the Faith was a labor that kept Sister Blandina in the basin of the city for thirty-five busy years. Never did she slacken in her work. She herself gave instructions to 80 per cent of the Italians in the city. Her battle cry, “The Charity of Christ Urges Us,” was well lived.
During that first hard year in the basin of the city, Sister Blandina wrote: “What we really need is not a school, but a center; a cheery, homey place where the immigrants can come; where the poor can receive charity and the rich bestow it. The Italian immigrants are so lonely. If we care for the children’s religious life they will make good Catholics but the parents will draw within themselves and become very bitter unless we help them… If this is His work it will succeed despite all opposition; if it is not His work we do not want it to succeed.”
The present home of the Santa Maria Institute at 21 West Thirteenth Street is a far cry from those first cross-filled years. Their first institute for their people opened in 1899 at the old motherhouse of the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis at Third and Lytle Streets. Through the kindness of Archbishop Elder and the Sisters, this property was placed at their disposal. From 1897-1899, Sister Blandina and Sister Justina lived with the Sisters of Charity, using the convent as headquarters for their school and social work. They opened three schools for Italians: at Springer Institute, Holy Trinity, and at Lytle Street.
It would be impossible to enumerate all the works undertaken by the Sisters at the Santa Maria Institute from 1897 to the present, because according to Sister Blandina’s philosophy, individual needs are sufficient reason for the inauguration of a work. By 1905, the Sisters were able to report to the papal delegate, Archbishop Diomede Falconio, when he visited the Santa Maria, that there was no organized proselytism in Cincinnati. However, proselytism did not cease. Far from it. In 1912, it ran rampant through the city, and to combat the new menace, the Sisters moved from their second home at 534 West Seventh Street to 640 West Eighth Street, where their property finally included four houses.
Among the undertakings of the Sisters, the following are typical: handling of juvenile court cases; Americanization centers at Walnut Hills and Fairmount; free employment bureau; reclamation of girls and women; classes for all nationality groups; day nursery; kindergarten; milk station; housing of homeless girls and women; visitation of the sick, the imprisoned, the unfortunate; distribution of food, free clothes, books; Sunday School classes; Boy and Girl Scout troops; Legion of Mary; classes in homemaking, singing, dramatics; clubs; Braille work.
When the juvenile court was organized in Cincinnati, Sister Blandina was asked to be present at the first meeting. Later the court appointed her a Cincinnati probation officer. The Santa Maria had its own juvenile court. In five years’ time the Sisters had restored 157 women to normal living. In an attempt to rid the city of white slavery, Sister Blandina brought a case to court. Her action was highly commended by local attorneys, especially Mr. Ledyard Lincoln, prominent lawyer.
In September, 1916, their golden jubilee as Sisters of Charity dawned: 1866-1916. Sister Blandina briefly records the day: “Fifty years ago we made our Holy Vows on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with a number of other Sisters. Several of them have been called Home. Today our people have given us $125.00. I am deeply moved. We shall use this money to provide books for poor children.” Six years later their own Santa Maria celebrated its silver jubilee. That occasion was heralded throughout Cincinnati, and the Sisters were delighted. High Masses of Thanksgiving were sung at the convent, 640 West Eighth Street; St. Anthony Welfare Center; and Sacre Cuore Church. On December 10, there was an elaborate celebration in Memorial Hall. The night of the celebration the Sisters quietly reminisced in their convent home. Rarely were they present at the harvest. The harvest belonged to God and to whomsoever He chose. Theirs was the laborer’s part; theirs to bear the heats of the blistering sun; the ingratitude of those who did not understand. But they knew that they were indeed rich, and they wondered at the magnitude of their happiness.
The extent of Sister Blandina’s dependence on Sister Justina came as a terrific blow when, on July 31, 1929, Sister Justina died at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati. Her illness was brief; an appendectomy performed July 20, and eleven days later, at the age of 83, she was dead. Among the many letters Sister Blandina kept was the following:
August 12, 1929
My dear Sister Blandina:
May the Lord sustain you in your great loss. You have lived for God so long and so near to Him that, I am sure, you have generously given your saintly sister to heaven.
I wish with all my heart that I could have been here to pay a last tribute to Sister Justina at her funeral Mass.
I shall never forget my last conversation with Sister Justina. From her dying bed and in a weakened condition she aroused herself. She expressed her undying love for her own Italian people. She recalled in general terms the struggles that she and you faced to protect the Italian people in this Community in order that they might not lose the priceless heritage of their faith.
May Sister’s great life of sacrifice in a truly missionary work prove to be an inspiration to other Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati to take up the Apostolate of Sister Justina.
Faithfully yours,
John T. McNicholas
Archbishop of Cincinnati
When she was 81, Sister Blandina went to Rome. As the news of her intended journey became known, a highly esteemed writer of the CincinnatiPost, Alfred Segal, wrote the following in his column, “Life as He Sees It.”
“Sister Blandina starts back to Italy Sunday, after seventy-seven years… Four years old she was when she left her native land; at eighty-one she returns.
“She is going to see the Pope about placing Mother Elizabeth Seton among the Saints, but people say that Sister Blandina is saint enough herself, canonized by sixty years of faithful doing.
“Trinidad, Colorado, knew her for a saint sixty years ago when she went there to teach. And if Trinidad was a rough place when she entered it, gentler it was when she departed. Rude men reverenced her walking among them as she did, unafraid; she offered a holy presence by which the power of pistols was shamed. She built a schoolhouse at Trinidad and went her way.
“She went to New Mexico and established a trade school for Indians. She made a hospital for the workmen who were building the Santa Fe Railroad and were dying in numbers from the hardships of the trail. The Apache Indians were in truculent mood; Sister Blandina went into the wilderness to meet their scouts and by gentle words made peace.
“Cincinnati became aware of Sister Blandina some thirty-five years ago. She came here with her sister, Maria Maddelena, also a nun, by name Sister Justina, and founded a social center for Italian immigrants which they called the Santa Maria Institute… They offered shelter to women stranded and without work; gave food to hungry men and found them jobs; guarded the children of working women in their day nursery; visited homes, looked after erring children, visited prisons… Thirty-five years of this.”
One day in March, 1933, on the feast of St. Patrick, to be exact, her summons came to return to the motherhouse. She delayed not a moment, and two days later she left the Santa Maria Institute and returned to the motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity at Mount St. Joseph, a suburb of Cincinnati. Change of residence did not change Sister Blandina. Her fingers were ever busy, her correspondence enormous. People sought her sage advice, and younger people found in her a kindred spirit; for her interest in youth and their problems was ever of paramount importance.
The aged Sister spent hours in the motherhouse chapel praying for Gods holy will to be done in all things. Frequently she would plead: “Remember, my Gesu, to send our Community sufficient and worthy aspirants to the religious life so that we can adequately care for our work for You.” And then she would smile quickly as she added, “And don’t forget the Santa Maria Institute, nor the West, my Gesu.”
The radio she loved, and the operas, which she knew thoroughly, were her special delight. Political speeches she listened to with avidity. The Rt. Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, speaking over the Catholic Hour, held first place. The last program she listened to was Monsignor Sheen’s. Before his talk the next Sunday she was dead.
One day before a fall, in 1937, which resulted in a broken hip and almost a year of complete inactivity, Sister Blandina walked across the beautiful motherhouse grounds, past the academy, the college, and on out the tree-lined road below which the Ohio river flows. Climbing a little hill, she paused before the delicately wrought iron crucifix guarding the entrance to the Sisters’ cemetery. El Campo Santo, they used to call it in Santa Fe.
She made the Stations of the Cross before visiting Sister Justina’s grave, but when she did stop there to breathe a prayer, she found that she wanted to stay always. Not because she was afraid of life. No, life to her was Christ whose presence in the Blessed Sacrament had become increasingly dear since Sister Justina’s death. But here in this cemetery she was among her friends and co-laborers who had worked for the Master. And her soul was yearning to be forever united with Him. Now she was the oldest living member of her congregation which numbered well above twelve hundred souls. Here lay her dearest Maria Maddelena protected by the tall, straight pine trees. Below the flowering hill flowed the Ohio. How she loved that river, and now that her life was scissoring time she would soon sleep to its lulling music. She looked down the terraced rows of white crosses into the center of the valley where there was a life-size crucifix, a white corpus on black wood. No shamming in that representation. She asked to have her purgatory on earth so that death would unite her instantly to Him. She saw again in retrospect the Southwest; the hot tenements of Cincinnati where she and Sister Justina had worked, and her heart almost broke within her, so great was her desire to begin again for God.
To the Sisters who came into her room in the infirmary she would say, “Child, pray that God may give me the grace to endure, to persevere.” When terrific headaches would strike her, she would smile, “From my mother I have inherited these bad headaches. My mother’s name was Malatesta, which means, ‘bad head.’ And all my life I have had this ‘bad head.’”
“How do you feel this morning, Sister?” the Sisters would ask her.
“Just as God wills,” she ever replied.
In response to, “What can I do for you, Sister?” she would answer, “No, child, not for me, but for God.” Then she would say, “He must be very pleased with you, child. Always keep your chin up, and your eyes on God.”
The end came February 23, 1941, just a month after the celebration of her ninety-first birthday. Her Sisters in Christ and her friends watched and prayed. And throughout the city news spread that Sister Blandina was dying. Men bared their heads, went into churches, and knelt in quiet corners with bowed heads and aching hearts. The Italians of Cincinnati were grief stricken. Had she not instructed 80 per cent of them herself?
But Sister Blandina was worrying about neither past nor future. She was a little girl again in Cincinnati, sitting in a fruit wagon and looking into the faces of the first two Sisters of Charity she had ever seen. And then she was turning to IISignorino, her father, and saying to him, “Father, as soon as I am old enough I shall be a Sister of Charity.”
And she had been a Sister of Charity in the fullest sense for over seventy years, for “God is Charity, and they who dwell in Charity dwell in God and God in them.” In great quietness she died as the Sisters prayed, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy.” Her last aspiration was, “My Jesus, Mercy… Gesu… Madre.”
The newspapers made much of her death, and to Sacre Cuore Church in Cincinnati her remains were carried with special permission, since a Sister of Charity dying in Cincinnati is always buried from the motherhouse. At Sacre Cuore a solemn requiem Mass was sung with the auxiliary bishop, George J. Rehring giving the absolution.
Then began the journey to the motherhouse cemetery. It was difficult to believe that the vivacious Sister Blandina was being borne by others in this long procession. For so many years she had carried the burdens of countless souls. The cortege traveled the same road Sister Blandina had taken a few years before when she walked above the wide Ohio to El Campo Santo that day and found she wanted to remain there. The leaves were gone now and the ground frozen as they laid her to rest near Sister Justina where she could lovingly watch over her just as she had ever done in life.
But the sun came out just as the officiating priest blessed the grave, and her smile must have lingered as she looked again at the life-size crucifix and began to rest at the feet of her Gesu.
Sister Therese Martin, S.C.
Feast of the Sacred Heart
Denver, Colorado
June 13, 1947
PART I: TRINIDAD
SISTER BLANDINA was stationed at Steubenville, Ohio, when she received a letter from the Motherhouse in Cincinnati, telling her to proceed at once to Trinidad for missionary work. Hastening, to obey, Sister Blandina confided to her sister, Sister Justina, that she believed her happy destination to be an island off the coast of Venezuela.
Sister Blandina went alone by rail, construction train, and stagecoach to her destination, Trinidad, in the territory of Colorado, arriving there frightened yet courageous on December 9, 1872. Sister was twenty-two years old at the time.
From the outset she chose St. Francis Xavier as her patron in her new missionary surroundings. Her watchword, “May angels guard your every step,” was first said to her by the Most Reverend Archbishop John Baptist Purcell, second Archbishop of Cincinnati.
Practical in each aspect of her life, she began to review her Spanish as soon as she arrived in Trinidad, and advised the other Sisters to do so. Every hovel, every needy soul knew the black capped little figure who walked right into the homes and hearts of the pioneers in the Trinidad country.
Friend to Mr. George Simpson, for whom “Simpson’s Rest” above Trinidad was named; his wife, Doha Juanita; Dr. Michael Beshoar; the Circuit Court Judges; Rafael, the Indian Chief; Sister Blandina was the first person to stop lynching laws in Trinidad. Nor did she quail when she asked Billy the Kid and his gang not to scalp Trinidad’s four physicians, although Billy had come to Trinidad for the express purpose of killing these four men. For four years the frontier town knew her, watched her, loved her, and finally asked to assist her when, with her own hands and no resources, she built a public school for their children.
For nearly four score years her adopted townspeople have revered her name. A brief command sent her on to Santa Fe over Raton Pass in December, 1876.
1
On Train from Steubenville, Ohio, to Cincinnati. Nov. 30, 1872. My Darling Sister Justina:
How interestedly you, Sister M. Louis, and myself read Eug6nie de Guerin’s Journal and her daily anxieties to save her brother from being a spiritual outcast! This Journal which I propose keeping for you will deal with incidents occurring on my journey to Trinidad and happenings in that far-off land to which I am consigned.
The Journal will begin with the first act. Here is Mother Josephine’s letter:
Mt. St. Vincent, O.,
Nov. 27, 1872.
Sister Blandina, Steubenville, O.
My Dear Child:
You are missioned to Trinidad. You will leave Cincinnati Wednesday and alone. Mother Regina will attend to your needs.
Devotedly,
Mother Josephine.
This letter thrilled us both. I was delighted to make the sacrifice, and you were hiding your feelings that I might not lose any merit. Neither of us could find Trinidad on the map except in the island of Cuba. So we concluded that Cuba was my destination. I was to leave Steubenville quietly so that none of my obstreperous pupils might cause the incoming teacher annoyance. Hence I went to Sunday Catechetical class as usual — 2 P.M. I was to take the 3 P.M. train for Cincinnati. I said to my hopefuls, “Instead of catechism, I’m going to tell you an Indian story today.” The schoolhouse roof was not disturbed, though the hurrahs were loud enough! The moral of the story was “Indian Endurance.” Dismissed them at two-thirty without one word of goodby except the daily one. You remember how surprised I was to see a crowd at the station to wish me “Godspeed”; I thought I was to slip away without anyone’s knowledge except our own. Mr. Tait and Mr. McCann wished to speak to me alone. Both had been in the West. “You will have a long travel on the plains,” they said, “before you reach Trinidad.”
“Where is Trinidad?”
“A little mining town in Southwestern Colorado.” So then I knew my destination which, of course I would have been told at Mt. St. Vincent. Both gentlemen said they have traveled on the plains on the Santa Fe Trail, and they seemed to have made it a matter of conscience to inform me on the subject of cowboys. This in substance was their conversation with me:
“Sister, you may be snow-bound while on the plains.” I looked my assent, I knew I could not stop the snow.
“Travelers are sometimes snow-bound for two weeks, and you are alone. This, though, is not the greatest danger to you.”
Mentally I was wishing both gentlemen somewhere else.
“Your real danger is from cowboys.” I looked at the speakers.
“You do not seem to grasp our meaning. No virtuous woman is safe near a cowboy.” Both gave up trying to make me understand what they considered danger. Why should snow or cowboys frighten me any more than others who will be traveling the same way! So you see, dearest, I’m not going to so long a distance as we thought. At three o’clock A.M. the baggage checker came through our coach. I looked to see how much the pocketbook contained — just twenty-five cents. If I used it to ride to the Good Samaritan I’d be minus the fare to Mt. St. Vincent, so I made up my mind to skirt around from the Little Miami to the Good Samaritan Hospital.
At four A.M. I rang the front doorbell — no response. I sat on the stone steps and waited till I heard the rising bell, then I waited another fifteen minutes when again I rang the doorbell. Sister Anthony came.
“Why, child, where did you come from; how did you get here? I’m sure you are cold.” I said I came from Steubenville.
“Oh, yes I dear Father Bigelow died there. He was good to this hospital. Last year he sent a barge of coal to us.” I said he was good to anyone in need. He died possessed of three dollars and fifty cents. His hand was always open to any kind of distress.
I did not mention to Sister Anthony that I walked from the Little Miami Station.
After Mass, breakfast and miles of sympathy and “God Bless You” from the Sisters at the Good Samaritan, one of the nurses accompanied me to Fifth and Vine Streets, where I was to take “Barney’s Bus” for Mt. St. Vincent. The bus was to leave at ten A.M. I waited till three P.M. then asked one of the clerks if he thought Mr. McCabe would run the bus that day.
“I fear no bus will run to-day. There is an epidemic — epizootic among the horses.” I asked if Mr. Segale’s place of business was anywhere near. He pointed to Wood’s Theater and I started to the place indicated. Brother Henry managed to find a “hack” to send me to Mt. St. Vincent. On the way, between the first ascent of the hill and the Seminary, I met Sisters Gabriella and Delphina walking in the slush and cold on their way to the Orphan Asylum. I stopped to take them in. They returned with me to Cedar Grove, from there the driver was to take them to the Asylum in Cumminsville. Sister Gabriella said to me, “I would gladly go where you are going instead of shouldering this heavy burden.” Sister is to be mother to three hundred orphans, taking Sister Sophia’s place.
The Sisters are showing great sympathy. I heard Sister Benedicta say, “She does not mind going so far and alone — I’ve not seen her shed a tear.” Nor will you, my dear Sister. The tears will flow where none but He and myself will know. Still, I’m delighted to go. I did not tell you, dearest, that one year ago last November I wrote to Mother Regina saying I envied the sacrifices the Sisters were making who were sent far away to do God’s work. I’ve received my answer with compound interest. You know that up to date the Sisters going on distant missions were consulted and none were sent who had parents living. I am pleased that that record is broken in my case.
Mother Regina told me to spend a day at home.
Dear Lord! Give me strength. I anticipate a scene.
I spent Wednesday, December 5th, at our old homestead. Mother kept open house all day. Friends came in groups. Mr. Leverone and bride, his mother and the bride’s mother, Mrs. Garibaldi, the Misses Gardelli and a host of others. Mrs. Garibaldi threatened to take off my habit. I said, “Hands off! Have you any right to detain Mary if John wishes to take her to California?”
“Oh, that is different.”
“Yes, as different as heaven and earth. I have chosen my portion, Mary has chosen hers, each abides by her choice.”
John Leverone’s mother acted most sensibly all day. She was soothing oil to all the protests made to my going. Our dear mother kept quiet. When we were permitted a lone interview she asked, “Do you want one of your sisters to accompany you?” I answered, “I prefer to do just as my superiors have told me.”
“Well, then I will give you a thousand-dollar check so that in case you desire to return you will have the wherewith.”
“No, no, dear mother, I fully realize the responsibilities I assumed. As you are aware, I realized them from the first day I entered the Novitiate.”
Mother replied: “And I want to tell you I never doubted your vocation. I agree to your sacrifice, my dear child, keep on serving God, I will never interfere. Now that I have your explicit answer, friends cannot urge any logical reason to prevent your going.”
All day the visitors reminded me of a disturbed ant hill. When mother and I were alone she spoke the Genoese dialect. It was like hearing sketches of a favorite opera. Wednesday at 2:00 P.M. I went to visit our Ecclesiastical Superior. The Most Rev. J. B. Purcell offered me several gifts. But St. Francis Xavier is my patron, so I’m not going to possess any superfluous article. I only regret I could not pass our home without going in, as St. Francis Xavier did. If I aim high I surely must reach some upper strata of detachment in His service. One thing I take with me, the impressive blessing given me by His Grace, part of which rings clear — “May angels guard your every step.” He was extremely sympathetic at my having to go alone.
I went to confession to Rev. Dr. Callaghan. You may recall how we enjoyed his lecture on the “School Question” delivered in Steubenville. After mother had a short interview with me, father managed to see me alone. He took hold of me and asked, “Have I ever denied you anything?”
I signified no.
“You have never disobeyed me in your life?”
I assented.
“Now I command you — you must not go on this far away mission! Are you going?”
“Yes, father.” He let go the hold on my arm and walked toward the door. Not without my seeing his tears falling fast. He did not realize his hold on my arm gave me pain — not to speak of the heart-pain for him.
In the railway station at St. Louis between train time, I got off to purchase a pair of arctics. I saw several Italian women selling fruit. One of them had a daughter standing near. I asked the mother if she would permit her daughter to accompany me to the shoe store, which was in sight. The mother looked at me earnestly then said to her neighbor peddler, “How do I know who she is, she looks like a monaca (sister) but she might be a strega (witch).” I thanked the true guardian of her daughter and went to make my purchase alone. I spoke English to the peddler.
If good Sister Benedicta who thought I did not mind — because I did not cry — had seen me during the greater part of last night she would but too truly have said, “That heart is human in every fiber.” That I succeeded in dignifiedly getting away from home is Thy Grace, oh, my God! Forty-two persons accompanied me to the train, among them friends of old, but my purpose never faltered, not even in shadow. Such tactics as I executed yesterday! I see one trait strong in me, the straight service of God. Not the father whom I had never seen cry, nor the most patient, dearest mother whose heart is crushed at my being sent alone, much less the friends who used every argument to make me say I would not go — could elicit the faintest trace that I was not more pleased at my going alone than if I had had a dozen with me.
Sisters Antonia and Gonzaga came to the waiting room. I asked the company to permit me an interview with the Sisters. When going toward them, one of my dear old friends said, “Look, we cannot doubt she is happy.” This was not intended for my hearing, the noise caused the speaker to raise her voice. Sister Antonia asked me how I had spent the day. I narrated some incidents. “I’m an ancient religious, but I could not have gone through the ordeal as creditably as you did.” What if I had mentioned all the heart sighs I had witnessed! When it was time to board the train I asked that my last interview be with my mother. Cannot you picture her sad, endearing look of appreciation? I’ll skip the last talk with mother — some of it was in silence.
2
It is dark and lamps have been lighted. My God! if I could love my vocation more, the conversation going on round me would produce that effect. There opposite me sits a young lady giving her experience of missionary life. The elderly gentleman must be her father. He looks at me so often that the indications are he will soon turn his conversation to me. Holy Spirit, give me proper words.
“Are you a missionary, too?”
“I hope to be. Are there missionaries on the train?”
“My daughter is. Just now she is taking a rest. Where are you going?”
“To Trinidad, in the Southwest of Colorado.”
“Are you going to teach the Greasers — Mexicans? Some call them ‘coyotes.’”
“Oh!” How much undercurrent of thought I had in that “Oh!”
“Come here, daughter, and tell this lady some of the things you know about Gr — Mexicans.” (The daughter posing affectedly and trying to be dignified at the same time.)
“I have been teaching the Mexicans for a Missionary Society.”
“Do you speak Spanish?”
“A little”
“Do they speak English?”
“Not those I taught.” Apparently she wanted this fact placed to her credit.
“How, then, did you teach them?”
“Religion, do you mean?”
“Anything.”
“Well, I pointed to a table and they would say ‘mesa.’ I showed them a book and they would say ‘libro’ — then I would tell them the English.”
“Oh, I see. Then you learned the same number of Spanish words that they learned English ones.”
“Do you intend to teach by the same method?”
“No, not exactly. On the average how many words did teacher and pupil acquire in a month?” (Evaded the question.)
“I taught four months, from August to the end of November. The pupils could tell me the names of objects if I pointed to them; they could say house, sky, clouds, trees. I found the work laborious and the salary, though it is more than a public school teacher receives, ought to be raised. What salary are you going to get?”
“I made a contract to let my salary accumulate and draw interest.”
“For a long time?”
“For just as long as my capitalist sees fit.”
“I would not do that. You cannot tell how long the funds in these Missionary Societies will hold out.”
“Never fear! My investment is more solid than the Rockies — they may crumble, but His Word will not.”
“Please explain your business method.”
“It is very simple to any Catholic. He or she makes application for admittance into a religious community and offers himself or herself to give service to God. The service rendered is according to the rules and constitutions of the Order for which he or she feels called. After we have tested ourselves and superiors have tested us, we, of our own will, bind ourselves by sacred promises — one of which, in our community, is not to use money for personal use — only for the good of others. Do you not think that a sure investment?”
“Do you mean you work all your life and give the money to others?”
“You are clothing my meaning with new words, but it amounts to the same.”
“And will you teach Mexicans and retain no recompense?”
“Whomsoever I may teach or any amount that may come to me from teaching will be used to enlarge our facilities for the welfare of others.”
“Pa, that is more than our religion requires of us.”
“And, daughter, if our church required it, we would not do it.”
“A religious worker or teacher in the Catholic Church, having kept the decalogue, desires to mount a little higher. The Church does not oblige any one to this life.”
“I never met a Catholic before. When do you expect to return?”
“Never, as far as I know.”
“But you can return if you want to?”
“That comes under another one of our promises, to go and come as we are told.”
“Why did you make such promises?”
“To follow the teaching of Jesus — ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all thou hast, give to the poor, then come and follow Me.’ This is a counsel more difficult to follow than a command — yet not of obligation.”
“I would like to speak of our meeting at our next missionary conference — will you tell me your age?”
“Twenty-two.”
Then followed a great commotion on the train, men running excitedly, one gentleman stopped to tell us the train ahead of us had jumped the track.
3
Kansas City, Dec. 6, 1872.
Number one! Number two! Number three! I went toward omnibus number three. “Any convent in this city?” I asked. “Yes, ma’am, step in.” When the bus drove on the convent avenue, I saw the whole place was lighted up. I rang the doorbell and it was answered instantly. I said to the Sisters, “Did you expect me?”
“No, Sister.”
“How, then, did you respond so quickly?”
“We expected a Sister on this train. We are staying up with a dead Sister who will be buried tomorrow. In your case it is fortunate the Sister did not come — you can occupy the room prepared for her — the only spare room in the convent.”
Previous to this explanation, I had quickly reasoned: Superiors at home watched the papers — saw the railroad accident — wired the convent — the result being the illumination and Sisters waiting. It did not occur to me that there might be more than one convent in Kansas City.
The next turn of affairs brought me to the reality of my position. The two Sisters who had opened the door went to report the non-appearance of the one expected and my coming. Presently the Sisters returned, but their countenances had a dejected look. I became apprehensive at once and asked:
“What is it, Sisters?”
“Our Superior wants to know if it is customary for your Sisters to travel alone?” said one.
“No, Sister, it is not.”
