Two converts to Catholicism from the state of Nevada entered the Burlingame community. Sister Ursula was born March 29, 1887 and Sister M. St. James on Nov 20, 1888. They were professed on November 21, 1915 at ages 28 and 27 respectively. I do know that their mother was very disturbed with her daughters and according to St. James, never spoke to them again.
Sister M. Ursula, was missioned to Notre Dame Hospital. The only memory I have of her is when she came to Burlingame for her yearly vacation. We would see St. James and Ursula on the grounds, sitting on one of the green benches, not saying a word to one another but evidently enjoying themselves.
St. James ministry seemed to be to the deceased. It was her duty to set type for printing community death notices. She would practice when there was “no business” at hand by setting up her own death notice. She also set type for sister’s vow cards.
St. James loved dogs.
When we were in the novitiate we had precious little time for study. Our study, Holy Innocents, was very near the music rooms. Now in those music rooms would be St. James practicing the flute. I don’t think she ever really learned to play the flute, but someone must have told her that playing long notes to achieve a correct embouchure was the way to go. For hours she would prolong one note after another achieving what, I do not know.
When we changed from the long black habit to the shorter blue one, we had a shorter veil. When it was hot in chapel St. James would whip that thing off her head and without a thought for how it looked, vigorously fan herself.
This was not the only “show” she put on in chapel. The novices and postulants would wait until everyone was out of chapel to take a look at her “spiritual reading” book. Sometimes it was Jane Eyre and other times it was “Mental Health in a Mad, Mad World.”
St. James also had the duty of answering phones. Of course there were not many phones. There was one outside the Superior’s Office and the main phone in what is now the mail room next to the front reception desk. St. James would have her turn at answering this phone. If the phone call seemed complicated she would say, “Call back in an hour, please.” One time when Sister M. Modesto (Rita Fantin) received a phone call, St. James was heard to say, “Sister doesn’t reside here anymore.” Now I knew she was a teacher at the high school. I saw her there every day because I was also a teacher at the high school.
St. James confided to Marguerite and me that she would love a beer. She often thought how good it would taste. So Marguerite and I got her a beer. We were very prudent about how we presented it to her. We thought she should be close to her bed or even in the bed since she had not had a beer in so long, and we didn’t know how her system would take it.
We got St. James up to her room, positioned her on the bed and gave her the beer. She sighed deeply in satisfaction but then her smile changed to resignation. With that she said, “Oh dear, it doesn’t taste like it used to.” Well, that was the end of the beer. (Perhaps Marguerite and I finished it.)
When St. James moved to Marian, the staff put her on a diet because she was hard to transfer. She received nothing like candy or ice cream. One day I put a dish of ice cream in a gift box so no one could recognize it. The staff would not know it was the forbidden stuff. Well, there was pure delight coming from this old nun. She simply loved it. Her concern was that I didn’t have some too. When the dish was empty and every last bit consumed she took up the bowl and actually licked it.
St. James loved to whistle. She wasn’t very good at it, but it truly pleased her. I planned her funeral Mass and the Sending Forth I had the nuns whistle the hymn. Everyone seemed to appreciate this with the exception of Fr. Schleck who was celebrating the Mass. He registered his disapproval to one of his nun friends. I say, “Too bad!”
Toolan Tales 