Month: October 2019

I came to live in the Mercy Convent Community in January of 1953, the night of my First Profession.  It was a formal enterprise.  We sat in seniority for Reading at 5 P.M.  During the reading of pious books we would do our sewing.  Because we received new clothing at profession (our novitiate clothing was truly worn out!), I felt very self-conscious until my new clothes were forced to a state of repair and I could be occupied like every other sister with a needle and thread in hand.  I was hard on clothes so it didn’t take long.

We also sat in seniority in the early evening.  This was the time the school sisters corrected papers and prepared their classwork for the next day.  The time commenced with the prayer, “Direct we bespeeched thee, O Lord, all our actions by thy holy inspiration and carry them on by thy gracious assistance so that every prayer and work of ours may always begin through thee and by thee be happily ended.” A nice prayer.

After study hour came recreation.  For recreation we sat in our U shaped arrangement as in spiritual reading, but we didn’t have to sit in seniority.  At the end of recreation a junior professed would go around saying, “Scraps.”  One would put any tidbits from whatever one was working on and any candy papers (if we were lucky) and any other matter that did not belong in that pristine environment.  A few years later we could even move around the community room at will instead of remaining in our places.  Such liberty!

We were a large community and remained so until sometime in the 70s, when three of us, Sister Pat Ryan, Sister Marguerite Buchanan and I went to Mother Eucharia with the concern that it was pretty hard functioning as a real community with 72 sisters.  Eucharia agreed and went into action.  She assembled us and with a list of sisters in hand she proceeded to create three communities by simply reading off names in order on the page. 

The community I landed in happened to have Marguerite and Pat as members.  The group included Sister M. Marcella among others.  We had nine Uganda sisters living with us, and they were distributed among the community  groups.   Our group therefore got three of the Ugandas.  We took over the present day Cypress Room for our community room.  We also had what is now the Maple Dining Room.  We had by far the best spaces.

We had an election for superior of the group.  Pat Ryan and I tied in the vote.  Pat, always a creative thinker, came up with the idea that we should take turns being superior.  We would switch every month.  Well, that lasted for about three months.  Sister M. Marcella, seeing a problem here, said to the group, “Now sisters, I think Sister M. Suzanne is a fine person but let’s face it.  She shouldn’t be our superior.”  She couldn’t have been more correct.  So thus ended this strange arrangement and I was free.

Dividing the large group in the way Eucharia did was not a good idea and at the end of the year we same three people approached her with our observations.  Eucharia again listened and suggested that we form a high school community.  She said that sisters not in that ministry should be free to join.  And that is what happened.  We had a nice mixture of ages.  In the group were two elders:  Sisters M. Amadeus and Benignus. 

Benignus had been the purchaser in a couple of our hospitals.  She was used to big time.  There are stories of her going to vendors, taking along some poor junior professed and embarrassing them to death by her manner of asking the vendors for free items.  Well, she was no longer a purchaser, but she brought her expertise to our small group and continued to embarrass the poor victim who accompanied her to furniture and various and sundry show rooms.  Actually she no longer had a card of admittance to these wholesale places.  That didn’t stop Benig.

When the Christian Brothers changed their wine labels, they had a  surplus amount of wine they wanted to get rid of.  St. Mary’s Hospital was the recipient of a lot of it–good sherry and port.  We heard rumors that the wine filled a whole convent room at St. Mary’s.  Unfortunately for them but fortunately for us, the room was too hot for the wine so they brought it all down to Burlingame.  Benignus found out about the shipment and met the truck with a very large laundry cart that she proceeded to fill with wine.  To anyone who enquired about the destination of that cart she said, “This is for the High School Community.”  You didn’t mess with Benig.

Now began a fine game we played in freeing some of that wine for our community use.  It was placed in a room next to the chapel storage.  The connecting wall only went so far. I have very long arms so I could easily reach over to relieve the top shelf of its content until in time the top self was emptied of all wine.  After that shelf was vacant more daring measures were used.  Sister Sharon climbed up on shelves – even on a sack of flour once (not a good idea) to do the job.  Now we don’t want you to think this was stealing.  After all, the gift of this wine was for the Sisters of Mercy.  We all signed our names with “S.M.” so that meant US.

It sounds like we were real drinkers.  Not so.  We partook in moderation, but it was fun finding ways to get those bottles.  At this time there was a slogan in San Francisco, “Free Angela Davis” in an effort to free a San Francisco woman who was being detained by the police. We used the phrase, “Free Angelica.”  A good deal of the wine was Angelica Wine.

All this activity provided a lot of amusement and some rather good impromptu parties.  One time Sr. M. Consolata set her alarm for 2 A.M. (when the rest of the house would be asleep) and drove one of those laundry trucks into the Chapel Storage to do the deed.  We had many brave heroes in our midst.

Well, that high school community thrived.  Pat Ryan continued to be superior and she was just right for us.  The community has kept evolving through the years.  The latest in a long string of community manifestations is Montsalvat Community.  We’ve heard that our name is a stumbling block for some.  This is how it came about. 

A couple of us were at our vacation house in Saratoga.  Mercy Center had just been formed.  Our community room was where the present day bookstore is.  Like it or not, the room was on the “road” to the Center, and people passing by would look in to ask directions or just to chat.  We accepted this and began to think of ourselves as a Center hospitality community. 

While we were sitting around the pool at Saratoga, Sister Rosaleen O’Sullivan suggested a name that would become for us a way we wanted to function as a hospitality community.  She said, “You should be called Montsalvat.”  This literally means “Mount of the Savior.”  In Arthurian legend Montsalvat was a place in a hilly terrain where people came seeking God.  Well, we really liked the idea and we so named ourselves.

A beautiful aspect of this community is its welcoming spirit.  All sisters and visitors are welcome, and I think they know that the minute they are met at the door for prayer, for social, for watching the best TV in the house (!) or just to be present to one another.

Other small communities in the house have their own history but this is ours.  So there.

When I entered the Sisters of Mercy of San Francisco, I was struck by how Irish they were.  Everything was “Holy Ireland.”  There was simply no one like someone who originated from that Little Isle.  It didn’t take me long to react to all this.  I found myself responding to inquiries about my ethnic origin by saying, “Oh, I’m German.”  I totally negated my Irish half.  The Irish were just too much to deal with.  It wasn’t until I made my first trip to Ireland in the ‘60s that I reclaimed that part of me.  Then I grew to love Ireland and the Irish people as I learned to get along with the exaggerations of some San Francisco natives.  Fortunately the community began to take on a more diverse composition.  Several Hispanic sisters, with their rich culture, joined us.

Probably the most Irish of the Irish were the two Gaul sisters:  Sr. M. Petronilla and Sr. M. Kevin.  They could have taught our sisters in Dublin HOW to be Irish. 

The “Gaul Girls” loved to do Irish Step Dancing.  Even when they were in their 70s and 80s they would be ready to dance with little or no urging – in fact, with NO urging.  As they got older and older we would hold our breath, sure that the next day’s obituary column would record the fact that two elderly Sisters of Mercy met their demise on the dance floor as they were attempting an Irish Jig.

Shaina Friel was very interested in learning how to do these dances.  Shana asked the Gaul Girls to give her a lesson.  The Girls were only too happy to oblige BUT after Shaina watched for a while she was forced to tell them, “I can’t tell your shuffle from your hop.”  (By this time the “Girls” were quite portly and they had difficulty raising their feet at all.  The shuffle looked just like the hop.)  The Girls were a bit offended, but everything turned out all right because Shaina found and married her husband Larry and he is an expert on Irish Folk Music and Dance.

The Gaul girls never learned how to drive.  It must have been hard on them when they saw all the other sisters taking off in a car to visit relatives, to go to the doctor or to the store whenever they needed anything.  Their response always was, “Well, when you don’t drive.” This was always accompanied by a deep sigh.

Petronilla became superior of the Motherhouse.  I was back at Notre Dame in Indiana for summer school as were Srs. Rosemary Sullivan, Rose McArdle, and Regina Sutton.  Rose had to get home for some event so she took a plane whereas we took the train.  We knew that the “changes” were going to come out imminently because it was that time in the summer when our changes (assignments for the year) were overdue.  Rose said, “I’ll get home before you so I can wire you the changes so you don’t have to live in suspense.”  Well, she did indeed wire us.  We were traveling under Sister M. Esther’s name on a clergy pass.

We were sitting peacefully in our train when we heard the conductor coming through the cars yelling this message, “Telegram for Esther, Telegram for Esther!”  It took a moment for us to realize that was us.

The writer of the telegram was really trying to save money on words. The one part I remember was “Pet sup in Burl.”  Thus we found out that Sister M. Petronilla would be the new superior in Burlingame.

Sisters were pretty good about taking “the Girls” where they needed to go, but the driver always knew there were going to be some add-ons.  “Would you mind stopping at Walgreens?  My nephew is going to have a birthday and I need to get a card” or “My sister just lives up the way a bit–the way being San Francisco on Anza Street – a little way from Burlingame.  Incidentally, this particular sister loved Bourbon and Seven.  The Girls came to like it too.

Marguerite and I had a couple nice vacations with Kevin.  One was up north at Big Trees.  We had just received permission to wear “sport clothing” for outings.  Our definition of “sport clothing” was anything we could find that fit us.  A little old man in the area, not knowing that Kevin was a nun, took a shine to her.  Marguerite and I were looking out the window laughing at the exchange.  Kevin was oblivious of the      old man’s interest.  That made it all the funnier.

The Girls were thrilled when their priest cousin from Ireland came to live in San Francisco as an assistant pastor at St. Mary’s Cathedral.  But it was a total thrill when he became Bishop!  They loved to say, “Our cousin, the Bishop.”  I wish they could have lived to see how much we appreciate their cousin the Bishop now.  Of all the bishops in our geographic area, he is easily the best. 

I was with Kevin when she died.  Her nephew’s wife and I were taking turns keeping vigil as Kevin was dying.  My turn started about 1 A.M.  The nurse had turned her so her head was facing the direction opposite me.  Kevin had been in a coma for quite some time.  I just had a feeling that I should go to the other side.  I was so glad that I did because Kevin’s eyes were open wide.  I could tell that she was really SEEING whoever it was who was waiting for her on “the other side.”  Indeed, after this look of recognition, Kevin closed her eyes and very peacefully entered her new life.

The Girls had a very loving family.  After Kevin’s death one of their nephew’s little grandchildren said to Petronilla, “You can come and live with us now.  You can have my bed.”  Petronilla survived Kevin by a few years.  There will never be a pair quite like them and I look forward to meeting them again.  (But let’s forget the dancing!)