USA > Ohio > Women of Ohio; a record of their achievements in the history of the state, Volume II > Part 16
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It was an Ursuline nun from the Paris convent, Mother Bernard, who in 1608 introduced the solemn public ceremony attached to children's reception of First Holy Communion. This solemnity is now universally observed by the Catholic Church.
Madame Marie Guyard, a widow of Tours, France, as Mother Mary of the Incarnation of the Ursulines of Tours, was the first nun to penetrate the wilderness of the North American continent. She arrived in Quebec on Aug. 1, 1639. Quebec was then a hamlet of 250 inhabitants. Two other Ursuline Nuns, and three hospital nuns of the order of St. Augustine accompanied her. Their benefactress, Madame de la Peltrie, a widow of considerable fortune, who had no desire for the religious life, but who did have a burning desire to devote her life and fortune to missionary work among the Indians, encour- aged Mother Mary of the Incarnation to venture forth. She financed the trip and accompanied the nuns to the New France.
Nearly a century later, in 1727, another band of nine Ursulines from Rouen, France, headed by Mother St. Augustine, set up the first convent and the first convent school on American soil, in New Orleans, which at that time was a French possession. They came on the invitation of Governor Bienville, the governor of New Orleans.
Ursulines initiated the parochial school system in the area now known as the Cleveland diocese, and in 1850 on their convent site on Euclid Ave., they set up their first free school, in buildings which once served as a barn and a stable. In 1871 Cleveland Ursulines established the first Catholic College for Women in Ohio and the first College for Women in Cleveland and were empowered by an act of the State Legislature "to confer all such degrees and honors as are conferred by colleges and universities of the United States."
This was just six years after the establishment of Vassar college, claimed by educators to be the "legitimate parent" of the colleges for Women because Vassar insisted upon the same standards as were required by men's colleges.
The Ursuline nuns of Ohio were the first religious from convents east of the Mississippi to answer the plea of Bishop John B. Brondel, then Vicar Apostolic of Montana, to establish schools among the Indians. This was in 1884.
Sara Therese Dunn of Akron, Ohio, educated by the Cleveland Ursulines, professed a religious in the Toledo Ursuline convent, and given the name of Mother Amadeus, was among the 36 Ursulines to volunteer. Six were selected and Mother Amadeus was placed in charge as superior general by Bishop Richard Gilmour, second Bishop of Cleveland.
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Bishop Brondel had been appealed to for help by government officials, who were experiencing difficulty in subduing the Cheyenne Indians, then being moved into Indian territory. Some one had suggested that "Catholic religious" could do more to subdue these people than could an army of sol- diers. Mother Amadeus and her company of Ursulines proved the truth of that prediction, as the history of the Ursulines in Montana, in Alaska and in the Arctic Region bear glorious testimony. From Montana Mother Amadeus forged ahead into Alaska and into the Arctic, and was prevented from explor- ing to a point beyond civilization only by the warning of the Bishop that it would be impossible for him to provide a priest to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass oftener than once a year.
To be deprived of this privilege, this participation in the daily renewal of Calvary, was more than Mother Amadeus could bear, and it is the only instance on record where her zeal for souls was subdued. To the Indians she was known as "Teresa of the Arctics"-to Ursulines the world over, she is reverently referred to as "Our Mother Amadeus."
The first Ursulines for Ohio arrived in Cincinnati on June 19, after a 29 days sea voyage which began on May 4 at Havre, France, and a 17 days trip from New York to Cincinnati by river packet, rail, stage coach and river packet again. While traveling through the vast forests of Maryland by stage coach they even experienced the fright of a stage coach hold-up.
Their first night in New York was spent in lodgings on "beautiful Broud- way" so the diary reads and the loud clanging of bells during the night frightened the nuns into believing that all New York was afire.
There were eleven nuns in the party, eight of whom came from the Ursu- line convent of Beaulieu, France and three others from the convent of Bou- logne-sur-mer. The three from the Boulogne convent spoke English. One of these was Mother Julia Chatfield, once a student in the Ursuline convent at Boulogne. She as Sister Julia of the Assumption was named Superior of the group.
The Quebec nuns were three months on board ship before arriving at their destination in Quebec and their first convent was a house of two rooms-built of planks. Their beds were of pine boards and were tiered in the manner of berths. They were forced to share their own meager goods, which they brought with them from France-their bedding for instance-to make cloth- ing for the Indian children. Their food consisted of salt fish and lard.
The New Orleans company of Ursulines were five months enroute and they experienced everything save shipwreck. The last two weeks of their journey was on two small boats. Their deck chairs were the freight on board; their beds, rain soaked mattresses and their food, hard tack and salt pork.
It is little wonder that Agnes Repplier has referred to them as being "the most adventurous of nuns." This she says in her life of Mother Mary of the Incarnation, "Mere Marie of the Ursulines" published by Doubleday Doran in 1931.
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The generous hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. David Corr of Cincinnati made the arrival of the Ursulines in Ohio a more pleasant occasion. The Corrs wel- comed the eleven black bonneted women into their home and kept them there, until a final decision had been reached as to which of four available sites would be selected. These were located, one in Chillicothe, one in Dayton, one in Louisville, Ky., and the fourth in St. Martin's, Brown County.
The nuns visited each of the sites, and unable to make a decision, they told Archbishop Purcell, "we have no choice. We are content to go wherever you wish."
And it was St. Martin's in Brown County, a site of 400 acres rich in American history then, and later to become rich in Church history, that Arch- bishop Purcell selected for them. The Ursulines have occupied this site for nigh unto a century.
"On this site," one of the Sisters wrote to the Sisters in France, "are two pretty little creeks, two springs and a well; three horses, five cows and a bull. We bought one hundred peach trees at three sous each and ten 'mag- nificent' sheep at a dollar apiece."
The Sisters took possession and in October, 1845 they established their first boarding school, with an enrollment of six pupils. Mrs. Corr's adopted daughters, Josephine and Mary and a friend, Margaret McLenan of Cincin- nati, were among the six. As the Ursuline order is primarily an educational institute, in addition to the boarding school, the Ursulines gathered about them the children around St. Martin's to instruct them in their religion. They established a free school at St. Martin's for the poor children of the vicinity and discontinued it only when public schools were established-and the Ursu- line nuns, because of the dearth of lay teachers for the public school faculty, for awhile were employed to staff the public schools and were paid from funds raised by public taxation.
A loan of $10,000 from their motherhouse in Boulogne-sur-mer enabled the Sisters to build a brick convent school, which was ready for occupancy in September, 1846. The stone for the foundation of this school was quarried from the creek, called "Solomon's Run." The woods surrounding the convent provided lumber; the brick was made in the convent vard and only the glass and hardware were "imported" from Cincinnati and hauled by wagon a dis- tance of forty miles.
The Boulogne and the Beauville convents, from which the 11 Sisters came, had already provided 20,000 francs to cover the cost of voyage and to assist in the maintenance of the nuns until such time as the Sisters could earn their keep from their boarding school.
Mrs. Corr and her daughters, with beribboned spades, took part in the ground breaking ceremonies for the new convent school.
The first commencement exercises took place in 1848, and it made the columns of the Cincinnati newspapers who referred to the Ursulines as
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"women of culture, women of presence, religious women."
The first catalogue of the Brown County Ursulines explained the aims of the school :
"To form young ladies to virtue; to ornament their minds with useful information, accustom them to early habits of order and economy and to culti- vate in them those qualities which render virtue both amiable and attractive. not only in the family circle, but in society likewise; this shall be the object of the constant efforts of the community which now solicits a select patronage."
The prospectus further revealed that among the studies were :
Astronomy and the Use of the Globes Mythology, Biography and Antiquities Philosophy (physies) and Chemistry Botany, Geography, Rhetoric.
It was also explained that they charged for ink and quills; for lessons in tapestry, pearl and waxwork flower-making. Small fingers were trained to ply everything from a pen to a harpstring and as to languages, German, French, Italian, Latin, Spanish were taught as elective studies, and "those among the graduate class who have attained any proficiency in French pursue their studies in that language."
"No improper influence is ever to be used to bias the religious principles of the young ladies." This was inserted, as the school already was attracting daughters of non-Catholics and it was the fulfillment of a tradition of the Ursulines through their centuries of conducting schools, that those not of the Catholic Faith need have no fear that their respective religious beliefs would not be respected.
One of their first pupils was a Mary MacHugh, who at 20 years of age enrolled as a boarding pupil. She knew little of religion or religious practices, but she was wise in the ways of the world. Her first night at recreation threw Sisters and pupils into a state of shock. She nonchalantly brought forth her pipe and smoked it. The records do not say that she was asked to give up pipe smoking, but it ean well be imagined that she was made to feel the impropriety of it, in a Girl boarding school.
Jennie Springer, niece of Reuben Springer, who endowed Cincinnati Music Hall, was one of the earlier pupils of Brown County who had dis- tinguished herself in music and was an accomplished harpist. In 1863 she provided the funds with which to build a residence for the chaplain.
The fame of the school spread, necessitating new buildings to meet the demands of parents for this special educational training of their daughters. During the Civil War the Sisters found themselves in what might ordinarily be considered a difficult position, as daughters of Army officers, fighting on both sides, for the North and the South were enrolled as pupils. In some magical manner, the Sisters were able to continue them in school throughout the duration of the war. Children of the Shermans, the Rosecrans, Scammons
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Ewings, were among those enrolled. Not only that, but mothers of many of the daughters from the South, who had come to visit with their daughters, were unable to return, and so accepted the hospitality of the Brown County nuns until safety could be assured.
The fancy bead and embroidery work was set aside to make way for the knitting machines, in which nuns and pupils took part, knitting socks and mittens for the soldiers fighting on both sides of the lines. The nuns taught the pupils to turn the heels of socks by hand, and taught boarding and day pupils to make bandages, which were sent to the field hospitals. The day pupils in turn taught their mothers the same art and so from their cloister, the Ursulines played their part in alleviating the sufferings in the War of the States.
Archbishop Purcell had a special interest in the school and encouraged the Sisters to feature exhibitions of work done by the pupils. On one such occasion, he organized a party from Cincinnati. The party traveled by special train to the nearest station to the convent, and then by coach over the five miles of hilly country.
A reporter for the Cincinnati Commercial "covered" the event. and in writing of it in the next day's issue described the ride through the country as "hilly as a camel's back and over roads as rought as machine poetry. If those prelates can pray as fervently as they can laugh, he wrote, I declare I'll be bound to have faith in their prayers."
The Bishop co-operated heartily with the Nuns. To those who frowned upon dramatics in school, he said:
"All life is dramatic because all life is action. And drama, from its Greek etymology means nothing more than action. The drama may be abused ; so may the holiest things. We detest prudishness, puritanism. The Catholic has the highest sanction in his Church for the lawfulness of such preseu- tations. "
Pupils at Brown County had an unusual advantage, the Brown County site was already rich in historical lore. It was once known as Soldiers Lands, and was a part of the Virginia Military District, which came into Virginia's possessions following the American Revolutionary War.
General Lytle, a real estate promoter. sensed the commercial value of land that would have a church and school nearby, and so offered a gift of the tract of 400 acres of his claim to Bishop Fenwick, first bishop of Ohio, to be used for religious and educational purposes.
Barthlemy Schuler and Stephen Baundistl in the meantime had escaped from Napoleon's army in Egypt, had sought refuge in Switzerland and later crossed into Bohemia, where they married their childhood sweethearts and then emigrated to America. Without funds, they sold themselves to ship- owners for their passage and after seven years as bond-slaves. they were liberated and started for Ohio. They were Catholics and so appealed to Bishop Fenwick for help.
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"Go out to the lands that are mine in Brown County, he told them, cut down some trees and build yourselves cabins. All you can raise upon the lands is yours to keep. Build me a church and I'll send you a priest to help you save your souls." They did as directed. Husbands and wives worked shoulder to shoulder tilling the soil, hewing the lumber that went into the first log cabin chapel and then Father Martin Kundig came to minister to them and to eight other families, whom he found nearby. These two pioneer families cleared the forests, and opened up roads which connected Lynchburg and Fayetteville with St. Martins.
They later assisted in building a frame church, a two story brick seminary, and some barns for the farm stock.
When the Sisters took possession in 1845 the seminary was transferred to Cincinnati. A Betsy Bamber, two Indian boys and two white men formed the first choir in this log cabin church at St. Martins.
It was near St. Martins and the site of the Brown County Ursulines, that the famous "Underground Railway" of the Civil War was located. Slaves from the South seeking refuge in Canada, crossed over from the southern lines near this point, and because of the many secret trails which the forests afforded, gave rise to the name.
This neighborhood was the scene of much of the action in Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" a book which was avidly read by nuns and pupils at the time of its publication. It was highly endorsed by Archbishop Purcell, who made a special trip to Brown County convent to make a present of the book to the Nuns, only to learn that it had already been received as a present, and was being read by nuns and pupils.
It was down the road, right past the convent that Morgan and his raiders rode one night, the great trees on the convent estate sheltering the convent from the marauders and looters. The nuns in their darkened convent kneeling in prayer and sheltered by locked shutters, heard the clattering of horses' hoofs, and they declared that "there were 2,000 raiders in the Morgan outfit."
Archbishop Purcell was well known among the Catholic hierarchy of that day and one never visited in the vicinity of Cincinnati without paying a visit. He always shared these visits with the nuns and pupils of Brown County. Consequently men who were part of the history of the Catholic Church in America and who participated in many history making events in the Church Universal came to visit Brown County.
There was Archbishop Blanc, French missionary, first Archbishop of New Orleans and one of the few Americans to attend the Vatican Council in 1854, at which the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was promulgated This experience he shared with nuns and pupils.
There were Bishop Lamy of the Sante Fe trail, hero of Willa Cather's book, "Death Comes for the Archbishop"; Bishop Alemany, bishop of Mon terey and later first archbishop of San Francisco, Cardinal McCloskey, Arch
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bishop of New York, first American cardinal; Bishop De Goesbriand, first bishop of Denver; Archbishop Spalding of Baltimore, great educator, writer and orator.
Bishop Purcell in 1870 shared with the nuns and pupils his experiences at the Vatican Council at which the dogma of the Infallibility of the Pope was promulgated. Archbishop Purcell read in Latin the report of the minority group, which declared against the opportuneness of its declaration at that particular time. Upon the signing of the decree, declaring the Infallibility of the Pope in matters of faith and morals. Archbishop Purcell publicly de- clared from his pulpit in Cincinnati, "I am here to proclaim my belief in the Infallibility of the Pope."
It was the result of an eloquent sermon given by Archbishop Purcell in the convent of Boulogne-sur-mer, that brought the Ursulines to Ohio to locate in St. Martins and later in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Toledo, Tiffin and Youngstown in Ohio.
The convent chaplain, Father Amadeus Rappe, later Bishop Rappe the first Bishop of Cleveland had been reading for several years, stories of the mission needs of Ohio as published in "The Annales" a publication published in Lyons, France, by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, an or- ganization founded by Pauline Jaricot of Lyons, France. Archbishop Purcell was a frequent contributor. Upon the occasion of a visit to the convent in 1838, he told the nuns that the object of his visit was "to persuade, if possible, some generous persons to cross the seas and help in the gigantic task which his own ecclesiastical authorities had lain upon him."
"Europe must come to the aid of this new, young, struggling, United States," through which, it was the Bishop's belief, "civilization was working out its way to encircle the globe and complete the Kingdom of Christ."
Previous to his talk, Father Rappe had read one of Archbishop Purcell's articles which told of the importance of Cincinnati as a commercial center; the bishop's own diocese ranking fourth in the States of the Union, attracting large numbers of European immigrants, nearly all poor but with undoubted prospects. The Cincinnati congregation under him number eight thousand Catholics, of whom four thousand are Germans, the others American or French. He told of his little church and the people thronging there, kneeling out in the muddy road; how some Sisters of Charity have more than 25 orphans to care for besides other pupils; but there is no school for boys. He counts five French congregations in Ohio with every day French families from Europe newly settling in the state.
The printed word was convincing and compelling and Archbishop Pur- cell's personal visit and plea settled the matter for Father Rappe. Some months later he wrote to Archbishop Purcell of his desire to work in Ohio and then added, "perhaps you would want to invite a colony of Ursulines to come also."
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In the chapel the day Archbishop Purcell spoke was Julia Chatfield, a daughter of an English Lord-Mayor and art dealer and a friend of Gains- borough the artist .. She had been professed as an Ursuline nun just a year before and was known as Sister Julia of the Assumption. His talk also stirred within her a desire to sacrifice all for service in this far away vineyard of the Lord. She had already made one of the greatest sacrifices to be de- manded of a human being. Tutored in her own home of wealth and luxury until she was 19 years of age, Julia, as was the custom of families of her social status, was sent to the Ursulines at Boulogne to complete her schooling. This was in 1828. The rule of not intruding upon the religious life of the pupil not of the Catholic Faith was rigidly observed with Julia, but she was insistent that she become a Catholic. She made it known to her father. who immediately ordered Julia and her other six sisters home from Boulogne. Julia was immediately launched into society and she became a much feted "belle" but she would have none of it. She again appealed to her father. who remained adamant and threatened to disinherit her and to disown her. She accepted this ultimatum, left home, hired herself out as a governess in a home where once she was welcomed as a guest.
Her desire to become a Catholic persisted. She left this position, pawned the few belongings she was permitted to take from her home and with the money purchased a ticket to France. The Ursulines refused to admit her but did direct her to the home of a friend until such time as her father would yield-he never did!
It was six years later, in 1834, before she was received into the Catholic Church and Bishop Rappe, then Father Rappe, chaplain at Boulogne, was her god-father in baptism. She later was received into the Ursuline convent and was professed in 1837, at the age of 28 years.
It was her own pleadings and importunings for permission of her religious superiors to come to America, to "work among the Indians and heathens," that gave to Ohio Sister Julia of the Assumption.
From a home where she had been accustomed to having servants perforni every menial service for her, voluntarily she came to a foreign land, among strangers to become a servant to others. She kept in close contact with her religious superiors in France, and she told of the severe winters, "so cold that the wine for mass freezes in the chalice, and so severe that no man would gather firewood for them, necessitating the nuns to go into the forests, to cut down trees, and haul them back for use as firewood, by cart, to the convent."
Laundry for the convent and the boarders was washed at Solomon's Run. the creek which flowed throughout the convent grounds. There were "good stones there for rubbing," she wrote and winter and summer, wash days were Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, Friday and Saturday were ironing days.
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Despite these inconveniences and hardships, the Sister wrote to France: "Contrary to the forewarnings of our Cincinnati friends that St. Martins was a desolate spot, what an agreeable surprise ! They had talked of the place as a desert where we should die of ennui and hunger. We find it quite other- wise; a solitude, yes, but very agreeable. We are surrounded with a forest of trees; it is our horizon. Oh Ma Mere, it would excite the great ladies of France, of Boulogne; they would open their purses for the poor Ursuline Missionaries. With time and money we can do great things.
"A small table covered with a very white cloth, very neat and nicely trimmed, is our altar; a statue of St. Joseph, our protector is under a globe ; two little porcelain vases of flowers and a Mater Dolorosa suspended over the altar; and there you have all our riches. Now see if Holy Poverty does not reign among us, and we are happy to own her queen.
"All I can say is, we hope to succeed in this place. The sixth of October classes are to be open. We are going to have some 'little' girls-twenty-two years old and even more! Good beginning, n'est ce-pas?"
How well they succeeded is described in Sister Monica's book, "A Cross in the Wilderness." published by Longmans-Green Co., New York. The book also tells the story of the Brown County Ursulines in Ohio and moreover it records in an interesting manner, the history of Ohio and the history of the Catholic Church of Ohio for the last half of the nineteenth century. The title of the story is suggested by the first cross, erected in the wilderness of Ohio. Incidentally, this cross now occupies a prominent spot in the convent cemetery in Brown County. It was the first cross to adorn the first cathedral built in Cincinnati. It later was given by Archbishop Purcell to adorn the first church of St. Martins in Brown County and when this church was razed, the cross was transferred to the convent cemetery. Much of the material for this chapter has been gleaned from Sister Monica's book.
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