A Tree Rooted in Faith. Alberta Dieker
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lessons occupied the morning, while working together in the garden took up the afternoon.
Sister Bernardine also wrote to Abbot Anselm that she was homesick now and then, in spite of the fact that she felt at home in Conception, “because I am where God wants me to be. I cannot explain why nothing here appears strange to me, and I scarcely become conscious that I am on the other side of the world.”12 She mentioned the prayers that were said daily, and then went on to give her impressions of the spirit of the house and of the sisters living there. Already some of the tensions that would later bring about a separation of the group seemed to be present. To these we shall return later.
A digression is necessary at this point in order to look at the town of Conception, and to give some idea of what the sisters found when they arrived there.13 The founding of a colony specifically for Irish immigrant families was instigated by the Reading Land Association of Reading, Pennsylvania, along with an Irish priest, the Reverend James Power. The latter was seriously concerned by the plight and increasing numbers of immigrants from his homeland. Seeking refuge from the ravages of the potato famine of the 1840s, the Irish who came to America were often faced with prejudice, unemployment, slum living, and other conditions almost as distressing as those from which they had fled. The depression of 1855 added to the already serious overcrowding and unemployment of America’s eastern seaboard cities. Since the railroads were moving west and were rewarded with large tracts of land, their promoters were eager to establish colonies and towns along the way. Out of these circumstances grew the Reading Land Association with a plan to furnish farm sites for Irish families in Nodaway County, located some fifty miles north of St. Joseph, Missouri. Like many of these ventures, the Nodaway County project fell short of Father Power’s and the Association’s expectations. Only a small nucleus of Irish Catholic families settled there in 1859. Instead of a flourishing parish and town, one small building, called the Colony House, had to serve as church, school, and meeting place for the struggling pioneers scattered about on the unbroken prairie. They were without a resident priest, since Father Power could not persuade his bishop to release him from the Pennsylvania diocese.
After the Civil War, an influx of German Catholics increased the population of Nodaway County and intensified the demands for a church and a resident priest in what had become known as Conception Colony. The indefatigable Father Power, released from his Pennsylvania diocese, devoted himself completely to the Missouri community, even promising his parishioners that not only would they someday have their own church, but they would also find a monastery and convent established in their town.
Father Power recognized, rightly, that while the Irish immigrants often came from farms in their homeland, they were ill prepared for the breaking of prairie sod and the large scale farming that Missouri land required. He was well aware of the work of the Cistercian monks, especially of their agricultural skills. His dream was to transplant a Cistercian community from Ireland, where they too were suffering from the devastation of potato blight and the general poverty of the land.
This dream did not materialize, so Father Power turned to the Benedictines, already established in monasteries at Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and at St. Meinrad in Indiana. At about the same time, in 1872, Bishop John J. Hogan of the newly created Diocese of St. Joseph, Missouri, appealed to Abbot Martin Marty of St. Meinrad Abbey. Abbot Martin, meanwhile, was corresponding with his old friend, Father Frowin Conrad of Engelberg. Out of this correspondence came the decision of the monastic chapter at Engelberg to send two of their men to Missouri, with the possibility of making a foundation on land promised them by Bishop Hogan.
By the time Fathers Adelhelm and Frowin had reached America, the promised land had already been given to someone else, but Bishop Hogan offered to help them locate at Conception, on condition that they serve the Catholics of Maryville as well. Following Abbot Martin’s advice, the two Engelbergers remained at St. Meinrad’s until a suitable dwelling had been built for them at Conception. From the Indiana monastery, Father Fintan Mundweiler had been sent to look over the Missouri site. He described the country as one great rolling prairie, with a horizon reminiscent of the ocean. Woods were to be seen only along the creeks and rivers. The soil seemed very productive, for trees and grapevines had been planted and were growing well.14 By this time, a small church had been built at Conception, serving a congregation of about a hundred families, now only thirty-five of them Irish and the rest German speaking.15
When the Engelberg monks finally reached Missouri in September of 1873, Father Adelhelm became sick at Maryville, so Frowin had his first sight of Conception in the company of Father Fintan. The homesickness of a Swiss for his beloved mountains is subtly indicated in his report back to Abbot Anselm. “When we were still seven miles away we could see the little church. The countryside, illuminated as it was by the evening sun, looked like a huge plateau from which no mountains can be seen because one is apparently so high above them.” He added that construction on the new monastery had been halted because it was harvest time.16
However, Father Frowin was optimistic. “We shall have a stately two-story building and we hope to take possession on St. Martin’s Day (Nov. 11). The little church makes a rather poor impression; it reminds me too much of Bethlehem.” A small rectory had been built near the church, and has been described as “a small frame building of the most artless construction.” Undaunted, Father Frowin moved in. By December 23, the monastery building was habitable, a frame structure twenty-five feet high, twenty-five feet wide, and fifty feet long. In the meantime, Father Adelhelm had remained at Maryville, along with a number of candidates for the monastery. They occupied the school and rectory until quarters would be ready for them at Conception.
Almost immediately upon their arrival, the Benedictine monks expressed concern for the education of the children within their far-flung parishes. As early as November, Father Frowin had written to Maria Rickenbach to ask for sisters who could establish schools at Conception and Maryville, and, of course, a convent, presumably near the monastery.
When the first group of five Benedictine sisters did arrive on September 5, 1874, not only was there no one to meet them at the railway station, there was no convent for them to live in. The only solution was to have the sisters share, for the time being, the Maryville rectory with Father Adelhelm. Of these quarters, Sister Beatrix wrote, “Our convent will be a tumbled down frame building which is so badly in need of repair both inside and outside that in bad weather not even the priest at the altar is protected from the rain.”17
The Swiss women, too, missed their Alpine surroundings:
Our new home will be in nice hilly country but there are no mountains like those of Maria Rickenbach. The rolling prairie stretches away as far as the eye can reach. There are very few shade trees and the place is exposed to every wind that blows. At this time of the year the weather alternates between extreme heat and extreme cold and the winter proper has not yet begun. Still, I have come closer to freezing to death here already than I ever did in the depth of winter at Maria Rickenbach. We find it necessary to think of some warmer covering for our heads, even though as nuns our heads are pretty well wrapped up already.18
The sisters remained at Maryville until December 1875, when their combination convent and school was completed at Conception. Three of them moved to their new home, while the other two remained in Maryville to maintain a school there. Apparently, Mother Gertrude back in Switzerland had some concerns about the building and the speed of construction, for Father Adelhelm wrote to her in February of 1876, “There is no reason for worry about the new construction at Conception. I think the Sisters’ new convent is sufficiently dry. It was quick work, yes, but here in America all is done in a hurry. Don’t worry; nobody will get sick on account of too much moisture in the building; the Lord takes care of his spouses.”19
Thus, when Sisters Bernardine and Scholastica arrived in the summer of 1876, they found a newly built frame building, which would serve as their convent home and as a school. The church and monastery building completed what would today be called the physical plant from which the Benedictine monks and nuns of Conception were to live their religious life and carry on their work.
3 • Conception and Maryville
The new members of the Conception convent community received a warm but simple welcome that June of 1876. Precious time and energy could