USA > Ohio > Women of Ohio; a record of their achievements in the history of the state, Volume II > Part 6
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In 1893, the Sisters of St. Mary's made application to Rome for a set of constitutions that would be adapted to the work of the order, and would be in keeping with the rule of St. Dominic. Pontifical approbation was accorded and the Sisters have since come to be known as "The Congregation of American Dominican Tertiaries of the Blessed Virgin."
MOTHER VINCENTIA ERSKINE, who had entered the community in 1873, was elected Mother-General and served in this capacity for twenty-four years. She died in 1919. It was she who initiated the adoption of a constitu-
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tion, and a Religious rule to govern the Religious Order. Mother Vincentia is referred to as the second foundress of the order. She encouraged the members of her community and made it possible for them to pursue higher studies, as well as to achieve high standards of religious life. She was instrumental also in the formation of the Religious Community known as "The Dominican Con- gregation of the Sick Poor," whose Mother-House is in New York.
The present Mother-General of the Dominicans is MOTHER STEPHANIE MOHUN, a native of Washington, D. C., but a resident of Columbus, Ohio since her school days. She attended St. Mary's of the Springs, and upon completion of her studies in 1888, she entered the novitiate at St. Mary's. She was elected superior general in 1923, and immediately launched a program that was to enlarge the educational program of the community. St. Mary's of the Springs College was opened in 1924. It is an accredited college. The following year in 1925 the College of Albertus Magnus was established in New Haven, Connecticut.
In 1935, five members volunteered to assist the Dominican Fathers in their mission work in the Province of Fukien in China, and within a few short years, these Sisters have established a school for girls, an orphan's home, and a home for the aged women. Two dispensaries are also operated by the Sisters, one in Kienow, China, and the other in a city two miles away.
In addition to the two women's colleges, one in Columbus and the other in Hartford, the Sisters conduct four academies, one in Columbus, one in Ossining, New York, one in New York City, and one in New Haven, Con- necticut. They teach parish schools in the dioceses of Brooklyn and Pitts- burgh and in the Archdiocese of New York, and the schools in their charge in Ohio are located in East Columbus, Columbus, Lancaster, Newark, Coshoc- ton, Marietta, Zanesville, and Steubenville. There are five hundred members affiliated with the Columbus Mother-House. The Sisters in preparation for their educational work, have taken post graduate work in Fordham University, New York, Catholic University, Washington, Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana, Ohio State, Yale, and Columbia University.
The Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor, with convents in Columbus, Cincinnati, and Springfield, Ohio, was mothered by the Sisters of St. Dominic at St. Mary's of the Springs, near Columbus.
To His Grace, the Most Reverend John T. McNicholas, Archbishop of Cincinnati, the Sisters are deeply indebted for his encouragement in their early days and his continued interest and help since.
This work had its beginning in the East Side of New York, in a rented wo-room apartment occupied by a MISS MARY WALSH, who had come to his country from Ireland. In 1885 with three companions, she launched a program to care for the sick poor in their homes. Their services were given only to those who were unable to pay.
For their own support, and in order to provide necessities for the poor mong whom they worked, Miss Walsh opened a public laundry which em-
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ployed twelve persons, and from the proceeds of this work, she managed to carry on.
Archbishop McNicholas, who at the time was master of novices at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D. C. in 1908, started the neces- sary proceedings for the formation of a religious congregation. Approbation was received on July 23, 1919 from the Master general of the Dominican Order in Rome and approval to establish a novitiate in New York was received from the late Cardinal Farley of New York, December 1, 1910.
SISTER FREDERICKA of the St. Mary's of the Springs Convent in Columbus was mistress of novices for two years, after which she returned to Columbus and Miss Walsh, whom in religion became known as Sister Mary, was named superior.
Columbus, Ohio, was to be the first mission of the new religious congre- gation, and in 1912, Bishop James J. Hartley of Columbus gave permission for the Sisters to engage in work in the seat of his episcopaly.
Archbishop McNicholas invited the Sisters to establish a foundation in Cincinnati in 1926 and another one in Springfield, Ohio. A Springfield citizen and his sister generously made it possible to become established in that city. Since coming to Ohio, the Sisters report that they have ministered to thous- ands of the sick, of all religious beliefs and of no religious affiliations what- soever.
In Columbus the Sisters are located at St. Rose of Lima Convent, 168 East Lincoln Street. The Cincinnati house is St. Dominic's Convent, 812 Day- ton Street and the Springfield Convent is Holy Spirit Convent, 643 East High Street, Springfield, Ohio.
An Auxiliary of lay people helps to finance the work of these Sisters, as it is against the rule of the community to accept any remuneration for their services to the sick.
This auxiliary founded in New York, when the Religious Congregation was first organized, has spread to the other convents in Ohio, to Detroit, Michi- gan, and to Denver, Colorado.
Another unusual type of work carried on by Dominican Nuns in Ohio is the Catholic residence house for business women in Dayton, Ohio. The Sisters in charge are known as the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de Ricci. It owes its origin to LUCY EATON SMITH, whose parents at one time lived in Cleveland, Ohio and whose sister, ISABELLE MCINTYRE SMITH, a native Clevelander, joined with her in establishing the religious congregation. They aimed to devote themselves entirely to the promotion of spiritual retreats. through the establishment of convents, where lay women might retire from the world for several days or weeks for prayer and spiritual exercises.
Following the completion of her studies, Lucy gave herself over to a social life. During an extensive residence in Europe, from 1865 until 1876,
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she came to know of the work of the Ladies of the Cenacle, a religious organi- zation which owned and conducted houses of retreat for laywomen.
The Ladies of the Cenacle now have a convent in New York, located on the former estate of Maude Adams, which the noted actress gave to the Sisters.
Lucy was anxious to introduce the spiritual retreat movement into America, but it was not until 1887, that she realized her ambition, in the building of a monastery or retreat house in Madison Avenue, Albany, New York. Her sister, Isabelle had joined her in 1885, and helped in the founda- tion of the new religious congregation.
Both girls were converts to the Catholic faith, and later their grand- mother, their mother, two brothers, and two sisters, became members of the Catholic Church.
In religion the foundress, Lucy Smith took the name of Sister Catherine de Ricci, and her sister Isabelle was known as Sister Loyola of Jesus. Sister Catherine de Ricci had fought tuberculosis throughout her life and in 1894, she succumbed to this disease. Her sister succeeded her as prioress of the community. Sister Loyola died in 1904.
In 1912, a convent was established in Dayton, Ohio as a retreat house known as the Loretta House, and to this was added also the residence for business girls. Evening classes are conducted in many branches, as well as classes in religion for children and adults. In 1930 the present Loretta House was dedicated.
At the Monastery of the Holy Name, 1960 Madison Road, Cincinnati, Ohio, is another convent of the Dominican order, a Cloistered Order that was established in Cincinnati in 1915. It is known in Cincinnati, as a "powerhouse of prayer."
Still another branch of Dominicans, devoted entirely to teaching is located in Akron, Ohio, their motherhouse being known as "Our Lady of the Elms." It is a foundation from the Sisters of St. Dominic whose motherhouse is at Caldwell, New Jersey. It was established in Akron as an independent founda- tion in 1929. At the time of its new foundation there were sixty-four Sisters. The community today numbers one hundred twenty-seven professed Sisters.
In their Akron academy they conduct a nursery and kindergarten depart- ment, elementary and four year high school department. They conduct also a down-town academy for girls and teach in eight schools in the diocese of Cleveland, and beginning in 1939, they will teach in one school each in Bucyrus and Sandusky in the Toledo diocese. One of their number just recently re- turned from Europe, following studies in the Royal Institute of Art in Naples and also at Fontainebleau, France. In qualifying for their teaching profes- sion, the Sisters hold many degrees, and have pursued their studies, even after entering the religious community in the leading colleges anad universi- ies of the country.
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SISTERS OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD
The Sisters of the Good Shepherd was the next religious order to come to Ohio. This organization had its beginning in Caen, France in 1641, when a priest of the village, now Saint John Eudes, organized a group of women to interest themselves in the care of outcast women.
This women's group became known as "The Congregation of Our Lady of the Charity of the Refuge." In 1829, the superior of the Refuge at Angers, visualized opportunities for greater spiritual and temporal advancement by effecting an administrative change and by extending the scope of the work. So she took the great step which brought about the coalition of three inde- pendent refugees, into what is the community that is known today as "Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherds of Angers." This was MOTHER MARY OF SAINT EUPHRASIIA PELLETIER. Mother Mary was beatified by the late Supreme Pontiff, Pope Pius XI, and her cause for Canonization as a Saint of the Catholic Church is now before the Congregation of Rites in Rome. She was the daughter of a physician at Soullans and was born Rose Virginia Pelletier. It was while attending school at Angers, where there was a Refuge house, that Rose Virginia's sympathetic heart went out to the poor women confined therein. Later as a professed member of the religious community, she realized the need for a program that would prevent, as well as correct, moral ills of the day, and when later she became superior of this community she initiated a new department known as the Magdalenes, for those women who had turned their backs upon the paths of evil, and who desired to spend the remainder of their lives in penance and contemplation. They are a clois- tered group and a part of the Good Shepherd community, but remain always as Magdalenes and never become nuns of the Religious Order. These women are trained in the practical and cultural arts and much of the exquisite needle- work and art work for which the Sisters of the Good Shepherd are famous is the work of the Magdalenes. The other department which she established was protection for young girls, the victims of broken homes or of unsavory working of housing conditions, whose virtue was in danger because of such surroundings. These children are kept entirely apart from those of the Magda- lenes and others who are in need of correction. They are given such training in Domestic Science and in Business and other studies in addition to their religious training as will enable them to maintain themselves honorably, when old enough to seek self support beyond the convent.
Under this new set-up, knowledge of the work of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd spread, and their Sisters were in demand everywhere. The need for such a noble type of social Service in Ohio was met by MOTHER MARY of SAINT IGNATIOUS WARD and MOTHER MARY of SAINT JOSEPH DAVID, who came by boat from the Louisville, Kentucky Convent to Cincin- nati, arriving in Cincinnati on February 23, 1857. Three days later three more
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nuns from Louisville joined them. The Louisville foundation had been estab- lished in 1843.
The Gano mansion, located on Bank Street became their convent. The House was very bare of all furniture. There was not even a chair, and so the sisters sat on the floor to partake of their first meal, which consisted of black coffee and biscuits.
It is customary to honor in a special way anniversaries of all kinds and the celebration as a rule takes on many forms. The Sisters of the Good Shep- herd honor this day in the mother house at Carthage, first with a Mass of thanksgiving in the convent chapel and later by partaking of a breakfast of black coffee and biscuits, like the first breakfast in Cincinnati in 1857.
The work of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd is of an unusual type, and consequently utmost privacy prevails. It is one religious order in which the accomplishments of the Sisters is known only to God. The work consists mostly of character readjustment and the rehabilitation of the fallen girl or woman and of protection of virtue in good girls from broken homes. Because of these circumstances these who benefit from the Sisters care and protection must necessarily withhold public praise in order to hide their personal or family tragedies. So the world in general knows very little of the character building in mature personalities ; of the character preservation in unprotected childhood accomplished by these cloistered nuns.
The relationship in all guidance is epitomized in the term "Mother" which is applied to all nuns in the community and every ward is called child- and thus is developed between the nun and the inmate that most beautiful of all relationships, the love of a mother for her child and the devotion and the dependence of a child upon her mother.
In developing this relationship no coercion is used. There is no penal department in the institution, only the motherly influence which is brought to bear on each personality, the tender sweet, strong influence of a sympathetic heart, ever watchful, ever helpful, ever patient, ever hopeful of success. The most promising traits of the individual are observed and courses of study are prescribed that will develop these characteristics.
The nuns of this order investigate every educational experiment and accept those which they believe conducive to rendering the best service to those placed in their charge.
For instance, at Marybrook, located on a 72 acre farm in Maumee, Ohio, is a school conducted by these nuns for "girls" who are trainable. It is not a prison, even though the girls there are committed by the Juvenile Guidance Department of the Toledo Diocesan Catholic Charities. This school was opened in 1926, and is an outgrowth of the convent first established by the Sisters in a house on LaGrange Street in Toledo. The Sisters came to Toledo in 1906 at the invitation of Bishop Ignatius Horstmann, who was the third bishop of the diocese of Cleveland.
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MISS FLORENCE SULLIVAN, formerly with the State Institutional Inspection Department of Ohio Department of Welfare, wrote an interesting article on Marybrook School, which appeared in the Ohio Welfare Bureau Bulletin. Excerpts from this report are of interest, if only to determine the progressiveness of the methods employed by the Sisters !
" 'Marybrook' has no fence surrounding its 72 acres of ground and no 'lock and key' system within its home-like buildings. Runaways have not been more frequent than at the average children's home.
"The basis of treatment is sane and regular living, in a regime which in- cludes a complete preventive health program; carefully planned full days with their proper balance of education, work and play; the religious appeal to strengthen the future, and to teach the adolescent that the past does not count when the present is right and the future promising; emphasis upon beauty, in nature, in home, character, and conduct; and a recognition of all forces making up a personality and a definite attitude towards life.
"Under the supervision of MISS CATHERINE FLYNN, the girls are getting well acquainted with both the joys and worries of everyday house- keeping, the fun and satisfaction of cleaning and arranging the friendly living room, the gay bedroom, the sunny dining room, and bright kitchenette-and, they are learning the art of being gracious hostesses.
"Then, too, music, dramatics and gym clamor for their rightful share of time and interest. Music, either piano or instrumental, is offered to every girl who wishes to learn. ... MISS ANN SCOPH, dramatic director, is teach- ing the girls voice culture, poise, and the theory of dramatic art. They are learning the practical side of this absorbing subject by presenting several clever plays.
"With tasks rotating, the girls, under the supervision of the Sisters, do all of the work of the house, except cooking, during the school year. Instead of the contract sewing and the outside laundry work once considered an essen- tial part of the training of delinquent girls, fruit raising, gardening, care of bees and chickens, offer potentialities of a different type of occupation for the girls.
"The girls at Marybrook school look much like the girls at any high school or college, simply dressed in different types of clothing, hair bobbed or growing long. They wander freely in groups, like most adolescents, bursting into giggles, and waxing and waning in their enthusiasm.
"Close follow-up after discharge has shown an unusual number of suc- cessful adjustments of difficult girls, which point to a splendid system of rehabilitation at Marybrook."
The Carthage Convent is the provincial house for these communities as well as communities of the Sisters in Ft. Thomas. Kentucky, Louisville, Ken- tucky, Indianapolis, Indiana, Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Wind- sor, Canada.
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In Cincinnati, back in 1895, the Sisters undertook to establish a separate house for delinquent colored girls. There was a time when the Industrial School of Saint Peter Claver for Colored Girls at Carthage, Ohio, another development, was the largest institution of its kind in America.
The Sisters in Cincinnati achieved such fine results in prison reform that when the city built a new prison, along about 1873, the Sisters were invited to occupy it and to become a part of a newly organized staff of officials. This they were unable to do, but they did open a house on Baum Street with some of the prisoners as their charges. Establishment of this system of prison reform was due in a large measure to the persistency of MRS. SARAH PETERS, their sponsor. Having visited the convent in Arras, France, and having been impressed by the manner in which the lives of young girls who had come in contact with crime were salvaged she was eager that the same method be used in Cincinnati. Mrs. Peters has been an advocate of prison reform over a period of many years.
The Sisters had been in charge of the prisoners at Front Street City jail and remained in charge of the prisoners at Front Street, until the erection of the new prison in 1873. However, in the house on Baum Street, which they opened, they brought with them from Front Street, forty penitents and twenty children.
Additions were made to the Bank Street property as conditions and needs required, but in 1870 it was believed advisable to purchase a farm at Carthage where the provincial monastery of the Good Shepherd, "Our Lady of the Woods" is now located. The former Mount Saint Mary Seminary site on Price Hill is another center of this community.
In the archives of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd is a letter which deals with the first day in the new convent in Cincinnati. Mrs. Sarah Peters of Cincinnati, who is lovingly referred to, even today, as "our venerated found- ress," because of her great assistance financially and in securing the friend- ship and the assistance of others in the cause of the Sisters, "brought to the convent as its first charges," the Sister historian writes, "eighteen female prisoners for our penitent class." "Among the eighteen unfortunates in vari- ous stages of degradation," the Sister continues in her letter, "was a special notorious character called 'The Tigress of Cincinnati.' No force could re- strain her. This poor object of compassion is still with us (1887) ; her ferocious disposition has long since assumed the amiable qualities of a gentle lamb, and we trust she, like many of her former associates in vice, will end her days in the peaceful home of the Good Shepherd." Among those friends of Mrs. Peters who came to her assistance were R. R. Springer, S. S. Boyle, Mrs. James Walsh, the Slavin family, Charles West, A. Geis, Mayor George Hatch and the city solicitor, Thomas C. Ware. These patrons provided cots and bedding and necessary furniture for the first house on Bank Street and later, in 1867, when
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the Sisters had established another house, to serve as an asylum for young girls of tender age, thrown on the charity of the city, MRS. STEPHEN BOYLE erected a chapel in this convent at a cost of more than $40,000. Two of Mrs. Boyle's daughters, entered the Carmelite order about fifty years ago in Saint Louis, Mo .; one known as SISTER ANNA MICHAEL, and the other SISTER WINIFRED. Sister Winifred was blind from infancy. When the Carmelite order was introduced into Ohio in 1923 with a foundation in Cleveland, Ohio, these two Sisters, with four others, formed the nucleus for the first Ohio foun- dation. These two Sisters died a year ago within a few weeks of each other.
The Cleveland Convent of the Sisters of Good Shepherd extended hospi- tality to the Carmelite Sisters for several months, until their own convent was made ready. Thus the Good Shepherd Sisters, half a century later, were able to partly repay in charity through her daughters, the many benefactions of the charitable Mrs. Boyle of Cincinnati.
The Cincinnati Convent was not set up as a hostess house, yet there was an occasion when it met an emergency and when the Sisters admirably rose to the occasion. MRS. ELIZABETH TAYLOR, the grand-niece of the presi- dent of the United States, made her home with these Sisters, in the later years of her life. She died in 1892 in her 80th year, and is buried in the Convent cemetery. The story is told that Mrs. Taylor embraced the Catholic Faith, and because of this, she was ostracized by her relatives. Archbishop Elder, the third bishop of Cincinnati, asked the Sisters in Cincinnati to extend hospi- tality to her, a request which they graciously granted.
The famous moving picture, "Cloister," which a year or so ago broke all box office records, is really a story of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. and many of the scenes were taken within the convent in France.
From the Cincinnati foundation, convents were established in Columbus May 8, 1865; Cleveland, July 24, 1869; and Toledo, 1906. These convents are under the jurisdiction of the Mother House at Carthage. Convents under Carthage supervision are located in Indianapolis, Detroit, and Grand Rapids, Mich., Ft. Thomas and Louisville, Ky., and Windsor, Canada, also at Price Hill, Cincinnati.
What is regarded as a most unusual type of service, is work of the Catho- lic Collegiate Association in Cleveland, an organization founded 15 years ago in Cleveland by MRS. WILLIAM MANNING, wife of a prominent physician. Impressed with the work that the Sisters were endeavoring to do in rehabili- tating the lives of the young girls committed to their care by court and social agencies, she conceived the idea of organizing Catholic women graduates of colleges. It was her belief that these women, who had the privileges of higher education, might through their personal interest, serve as an inspiration to the girls to make the most of opportunities for rehabilitation with which the Sisters were providing them.
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Success far beyond the fondest hopes has been achieved. The Catholic Collegiate numbers more than 400 Catholic women, graduates of Catholic and secular colleges. Its members are in practically every profession. Its program is carried on through committees, so that each member of the Collegiate has a definite task to perform and each one has some share in the work of the Good Shepherd home.
LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR
A French servant girl, JEANNE JUGAN, born in Cancale, France in 1792, and who learned to nurse the sick in St. Servan, France, took into her home one day, an old blind woman, who was left destitute by the death of a sister. Jeanne had a small house in St. Servan's which she shared with two other young women and from this house she went forth daily to care for the sick in their homes. This was in 1839. Her two companions welcomed the aged blind woman with open arms and in this home, and with this aged woman as their first pensioner, the Religious Congregation known the world over as "The Little Sisters of the Poor," was born.
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