irish nuns in the great lone land

Irish Jesuit Province

Irish Nuns in the Great Lone LandSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 24, No. 276 (Jun., 1896), pp. 316-325Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20498986 .

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( 316 )

IRISHI NUNS IN THIE GREAT LONE LAND.

I WONDER how far we shall be able to look back upon the

present life from the life to comee; and I wonder how far we

shall then be able to wonder at certain parts of the life that we

are leading now. Even before the transfiguration of death, when

a large enough number of years has elapsed-an interval

sufficiently long to make us almost impartial spectators of our own

conduct at that bygone time-we find ourselves astonished at

certain things that we did or left undone.

This reflection has occurred to me on fl ( better provocation than

finding in my own handwriting a numnber of manuscript pages

which were evidently meant to become printed pages of this

magazine several years ago. They were not mislaid, yet somehow

they " got no forrader," till I now suddenly, without any reason

that was not fully as urgent every month these twelve years, resolve

to send them to the printer just as they are. Meanwhile they have

lost at least one keenly interested reader, for pinned to these

papers I find a mortuary card with the words: "In the Most

Holy Name of Jesus, pray for the soul of Reverend Mother

Mary Anne Collins, Religious of the Faithful Companions of Jesus,

Laurel Hill Convent, Limerick, who died on the 5th day of August,

1895, in the 61st year of her age, and the 37th of her Religious

Life." She was a most admirable and saintly woman, a woman

of great heart and head. She is referred to in the following

narrative.

CI believe in the holy Catholic Church." There is hardly any

more touching proof of the holiness of the Catholic Church than

the heroism of those multitudes of her virgin dlaughters who in

various religious congregations devote themselves for life to prayer

and many works of charity, spiritual and corporal, visible and

invisible. Especially affecting is the sacrifice made by the tender

maiden who not only breaks through dear domestic ties-dear to

her often in a degree inconceivable to our colder, selfish, prosaic

hearts-but overcomes the timidity of her age and sex in order to

leave home and kindred and country and go into strange and distant lands in pursuit of souls that might otherwise be abandoned.



Irish Nuns in the Great Lone Lanid. 31 7

Feeling all this most deeply, we have used a gentle compulsion

and perhaps a little deceit in getting possession of sundry papers relating to a band of missionary nuns who have lately exchanged

the climate, works and ways of Ireland and France for a very strange

and out-of-the-way part of the Great Lone Land. We use Sir

William Butler's word, for the country is too strange and too

completely out of the way to be first introduced to our readers

under the name of Canada or even North West Canada. Canada

comprises countries almost as different in climate as Siberia and Sicily-though indeed it is less easy to see where the Sicilian

element comes in. Siberia itself, we believe, is not quite so bleak as it used to be considered; aud this allusion to it is quite

complimentary to the less favoured region to which our readers are about to travel in imagination with a brave band of the faithful

Companions of Jesus who have gone thither in stern reality. This Order, founded in France in the early part of this century

for the education of Catholic girls of every grade, has its chief

novitiate at Auray in Brittany, the famous sanctuary of St. Anne,

Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Its principal house in Ireland is the very beautiful convent of Laurel Hill, at Limerick; and it has also flourishing boarding-schools at Newtownbarry and Bruff. It is also doing its admirable work admirably at Gumley

House, Isleworth, near London, and at Chester, Preston, Liverpool, and probably some other places in Englanid.

France, and we think England, but most certainly Ireland were

represented in the little company of missioners with whom we are at present concerned. The documents in our hailds are a diary

kept during the long journey by one of the travellers, and some

private letters of which we surreptitiously kept copies. We venture to

give a few scraps from both. For instance, was not Our Father who

is in heaven greatly pleased with the child-like heart that at the

very last moment in Liverpool dictated these simple words ? "Goodbye, dearest papa. Always pray for me, and above all do

not regret having given me to God. Beg of Him to make me a

saint, a very great saint. That is all I wish for in this world.

Life will soon pass; and, when the hour of death comes, we shall

be sorry that we have not done more for God: so let us both give

Him as much as possible while we are here. Love to all. I am

in a terrible hurry. It is really the last moment "

So much so indeed that she was not even allowed to scribble her



318 The Irish Monthly.

signature, but the pen was snatched from her by the kind home superior who died last August, and who then added these words: "c My dear Mr. H., I finish the letter, as dear Mother Augustine is taking a cup of tea. We are just starting for the steamer. Goodbye.

God bless us all." That last European letter of our " fair emigrant " was written

exactly thirteen years ago to the day, May 10th, 1883; her next letter home was dated " 16th July," from the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Grandin, Saskatchewan District, Canada : for she waited till they were settled down in their new home.

We may pass over the simple events of the voyage from the Mersey to the St. Laurence. " On the 11th of May, hearing that

the green shores of Erin were in sight, I hastened on deck to enjoy my last glimpse of my native land; but sea-sickness soon com pelled me to beat a hasty retreat, nor was I able to venture up again till the snow-covered mountains of Newfoundland came in signt on the 19th." The first inhabitant of the New World whose acquaintance they made was "; a dear little Canadian linnet, half

starved and frozen, that flew on deck and excited the compassion of all; even the gentlemen were attracted by it and gave it some

crumbs. It is a constant visitor, coming to see us every day."

What has become, I wonder, of the two hundred poor Irish emigrants that The Peruvian carried away from us with thesegood nuns? The diary and the letters that we are using capriciously have many grateful allusions to the kindness shown to them by Irishmen at various points of their travels-Immigration officials like Mr. Stafford, or the " tall broad-shouldered Irishman with a decided Connemara accent " who rushed up at a railway station:

"Is there annythin' in the wide world I can do for ye, Sisthersi'

God bless that servant-girl who was very kind and attentive to the Nuns at an hotel, and, when one of them offered her a trifle at

parting, said: "No, no! Pray for me. I would rather have one Hail Mary from you than all the dollars in the world."

The travellers reached Montreal on the 23rd of May. "Our good bishop, Monsigneur Grandin, had sent two Sisters of Charity to meet us at the station. They conducted us to their immense convent (numbering about 200 sisters) where we were most affectionately welcomed and where the greatest kindness was shown to us during the five days that we remained there." It was at this

point that they met the Bishop who had invited them to his diocese,



Iri8h Nuns, in the Great Lone Land. 319

Monseigneur Grandin, under whose auspices the long and tedious journey still before them was made.

We pass over the rest of their civilized railway travelling, which made some of them as sea-sick as The Peruvian. Their last experience of ordinary Canadian life was at St. Boniface, a rising town on the right bank of the Red River, opposite Winnipeg anid Fort Garry, the capital of Manitoba, which has figured of late in many newspaper paragraphs in connection with the School Question. St. Boniface was reached at six o'clock in the morning of June. " On the preceding evening we did not forget that it was the last day of the Month of Mary, and Bishops, Fathers, and Sisters, all joined in simple but touching devotions for the closing of this beatutiful month. We said our beads together, and sang the

Magnificat and the Ave Maris Stella." Here and everywhere we get edifying glimpses of the cordial

charity shown to our good Nuns by the various religious communi ties that they visited, each doing its own work for God in His poor and sick creatures and in His little children. "I believe in the

Holy Catholic Church." The delay at St. Boniface caused by the last preparations for

their caravan journey enabled the travellers to take part in the feast of St. Boniface, June 1Oth, in which three bishops assisted at the Pontifical High Mass. The next morning they began the eighteen hours of railway travelling which still lay between them and the prairie as yet unprofaned by roads or steam. "O n the way to the Station of the Dominion Express Line we drove through part of Main Street, 4- miles in length, and 132 feet in width. Splendid shops and public buildings such as may be seen in large English towns form a striking contrast with tiny wooden houses and even tents; but we could easilv judge from what we saw what

Winnipeg will become in a short time. What seems so strange in so populous a town is that the roads are so wretchedly bad-they resembled a ploughed field. One of the Sisters of Charity said that, when she came to Winnipeg twelve years ago [that would take us back to 1871] what is now a populous commercial town

consisted of only twelve houses ." In the same way, a little further on their way, they were told that the flourishing town of Brandon

two years before had consisted of a post-office. Has the prophecy of the bishop come true ? "c During the few minutes that the train

stopped at Elkhorn Mgr. Duhamel came to speak to us. He told



320 The Irtis/ Monthly.

us to remember the name of the place. ' If you are passing this

way in a few years, you will perhaps see a large and flourishing town here."'

At one of the stations, Whitewood, " we saw a real savage

wrapped in a many-coloured, striped blanket. Here a crowd of emigrants alighted. While waiting at Mr. Stafford's office in Quebec, we had heard numbers of these poor people enquiring in what] part of the country it would be best to settle. One

was directed here, another there, just as the agents thought fit, and tickets were given accordingly, The priests say that numbers in this way come to lose their faith through being so far removed from the succours of our holy religion. These good people, many of whom

were Irish, looked as if they did not know where to go, for there

was no inn or any dwelling in sight, except one or two small

wooden houses." At midnight they reached the point at which they were finally

to break off from railways and civilized life-a station qu'on appelle curiously enough Qu' appelle. They spent two days, not idly, at the Qa' appelle Station, twenty five miles from the stationi

of that peculiar name; and then on the 14th of June, in company

wlth Monseigneur Grandin, two Oblate Fathers, two guides, and a little driver, the eight French and Irish Nuns, Faithful Companions of Jesus, began their journey across the prairie.

We may first give the summary account furnished by one of the party in her first letter home, doubling back afterwards perhaps to add sundry particulars from the diary:

" I suppose you have often seen those large carts with a white

awning, such as gipsies drive about in, in some countries. If so, you can form a pretty good idea of the conveyance in which

we travelled from Qu' appelle to our destination and in which

the eight of us sat on our rugs, which, rolled up, made tolerably

comfortable seats. The bishop and priests followed us in a some

what similar though smaller vehicle, and after came the carts with

our luggage. For a fortnight we went across the vast prairie with.

out meeting with a single house, sometimes the scenery was beautiful

and for hours together we drove through a well wooded country agreeably diversified with rivers and lakes; but sometimes for whole days we could see nothing but grass and sky.

" We got up very early every morning. At five o'clock the

bishop and fathers said their Masses in the tents, and we had



Irish Nutns in the Great Lone Land. 321

the happiness of receiving Holy Communion just as if we had been in one of our houses. In the meantime the men had

gathered sticks, lighted a fire, and prepared our breakfast in true gipsy-stvle. Then the horses were got together (which was no easy matter as they often strayed miles away from our en

campment) and tackled and by half-past six or seven we began

our day's jolting. At eleven we stopped for dinner, after which we continued our journey till six o'clock: then the tents were pitched, the fire was lighted, supper was prepared, night prayers were said aloud by the bishop, and at nine we retired to our

tents where we spread out our sheepskins and rolled ourselves in our rugs to enjoy a sound slumber broken only by the too

frequent visits of the gnats which are a real plague in this country; some of us had our faces and hands very much swollen from

their bites, " Frequently we met with streams and even rivers through

which we had to drive as best we could, bridges being unknown in this part of the world. We often stuck in the mud; and then

we had to dismount, and every one, bishop included, had literally 'to put their shoulder to the wheel ' to extricate us. Some of our

boxes and bales occasionally tumbled into the water, and we some

times got a slight splashing; but, thank God, we had no accidents

of any serious kind."

During their fortnight of prairie travelling the pilgrims or pioneers had every variety of weather-sunshine and mosquitoes and cold and storm and torrents of rain. But even the more communi

cative diary is silent about most of the hardships-no milk or bread and the only variety of food was provided sometimes by the gun of Matthias, the chief guide, or the eggs collected by the little

metis driver, Joseph, on the banks of some lakes on the route. This poor boy received on the journey the Sacrament of Confirmation which Mgr. Grandin administered with very touching solemnity. At the halting places he had been prepared by the bishop himself for this sacrament.

The nearest approach to a serious mishap was when the horses, let loose as usual at the encampment to graze and to refresh themselves at some lake, were so tortured by the mosquitos as to take to flight, unknown to their owners. When good Matthias

went in the morning in search of them, they were nowhere to be seen. He returned about two o'clock in despair. After their



322 The Irish Monthly.

dinner the men started again in pursuit of their lost treasures. The bishop himself accompanied them; but, after toiling over six miles under a burning sun, he came back about five o'clock, filled witlt

grave apprehensions. At seven, the men were seen returning with the runaway steeds, which (if the transcriber of the diary has copied the figure correctly) had fled to a wood twenty-seven miles distant. That country has not been accurately surveyed, and under such circumstances every mile seems as long as three. No wonder the good bishop made a special thanksgiving at night prayers.

It was the 21th of June when at last the good Nuns reached

their future home at Grandin, Rtather, the home of four of them, for the other four went, two davs after, to Prince Albert, a rising

town with a population almost entirely Protestant, thirty-five miles away. The letter-writer whom we have quoted without per mission warns her father that he must not imagine them lodged in

a spacious house like Gumley or Laurel Hill or lUpton. " Our little

Convent of the Sacred Heart is about the size of an ordinary Irish

cottage. It contains merely a schoolroom, children's refectory and kitchen, with a loft which serves as dormitory. We have a little

school of seventeen children, but in winter we hope it will number over forty. [Hope realised, as a subsequent letter tells us]. There are no Irish or English settlers in this neighbourhood. The inhabitants are all Metis or half-bred Indians-goodi simple people, hut slightly savage in their manners and customs. Our house is only separated from the little church by a kitchen-garden; and, as

land is wonderfully cheap, we are the fortunate possessors of about 160 acres including several wToods, a pretty lake, and a small part

of the beautiful Saskatchwan which winds through a picturesque ravine a very short distance from uis."

The writer goes on to warn her father that he need not look

for Grandin on a map of North West Canada. " It is merely com

posed of the Church, of the Father's house, and ours. The post

office is the Father's parlour, and Pere Fourmond is himself the postmaster. There is no town or even village nearer than Prince Albert, thirty-five miles distant. Our happy solitude is dis turbed by few visitors. Indeed the great event of the week is

the arrival of the post on Monday mornings.

" You know, dear papa, that it was my own desire to come here, and I am certainly far from regretting it. I find just what I

wished for and expected. Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament,



Irish Nunis in the Great Lone Land. 323

souls to save for Him, and abundant means of sanctifying myself,

provided only I profit of them. So do not, I beg of you, dear papa, be uneasy about me. More than ever, I am entirely in our Lord's hands-where could I be better off ? And then our separation is not worth speaking of-what are the few years we have to spend here below compared with the endless bliss of Home ?

" I am sure you have heard more than once from dear Mother

Mary Anne. Send her on this letter-it will remind her to pray for her absent but daily more grateful child.

[After naming many friends] I pray for all and I recom mend myself and our little Mission to the prayers of all, especially to yours, dearest papa, to dear Michael's and Margaret's. Is it not a great consolation to think that, how far soover we

may be from one another, our hearts can always be united by prayer ? "

But Mr. H 's "grateful and affectionate child" had then

seen only the sunny side of the Saskatchewan. Winter is winter there in earnest. The poor young exile got her first letter front Ireland on the 27th of December. " Eight months without ta

word from the dear ones at home seemed a little long." Letters take more than their usual month from Limerick to Grandin in

wvinter-time, when the snow is two feet deep over all the prairies and the postman has to perform a great part of the journey in a wheelless wagon.

"As you may fancy, the cold is intense here. At present the thermometer is fifty degrees below freezing point (Fahrenheit). Since November the Saskatchewan, a thousand feet wide, has been frozen and will remain so till the end of April. Indeed everything freezes here. The milk has to be broken with a hatchet every

morning, although kept close to the kitchen fire, A cow and pig, killed some months ago, required no salting, but were exposed to the frosty air for a night or two-they will remain fresh as long as the cold weather lasts. Our cat was shut out the other night, and she arrived the next morning minus an ear which had been so severely frost-bitten that it fell off. Our children not unfrequently arrive in the morning with ears or nose or feet completely frozen, in which case long and repeated friction with snow is the remedy applied. If you thoughtlessly grasp a metallic object in the open air with your bare hand-a door handle, for instance-you have the satisfaction of experiencing an intense pain and of often seeing



324 lThe Irish Monthly.

your skin adhere to the objects in question." After mentioning all the local circumstances that she thought

might interest the old folks at home, she turns to the subject that is sure to interest them most of all. "'I am quite satisfied and happy in my new home, and every day more and more grateful to our Lord for having deigned to choose me to work for Him here where it is so easy to coin money for eternityv Pray that I may make a good use of so great a graec. Never give yourself a minute's uneasiness about me, darling papa, but pray often for me and thank God for all his goodness to your child.

When you feel lonely, offer your sacrifice to our tord, and think of the happy meeting awaiting us in heaven: there we shall never know pain or separation, and we shall only regret not having done and suffered more for God during the short days of our exile."

Early in the new year, 1884, she writes in the same brave strain to her sister:

" We have the happiness of possessing our Lord under our roof

since the month of October; the tiny chapel in which He deigns to reside is about one third the size of the parlour in the old cottage at home, and as poor as possible. But what does that

matter to us since -ie is there ?

"4 We are only four Nuns here: Reverend Mother, two Sisters

and myself. You can easily imagine that our forty four childrena, eighteen of whom are-boarders, do not leave us much free time.

We have besides charge of the Sacristy and Chuirch linen. " French and Cri are the chief languages spoken here, my dark

skinned pupils are most willing to give me lessons in the latter

tongue, but it is extremely difficult, and I own to my shame that

I have not as yet made mnch progress. We seldom or never see any civilized persons, except the Missioners who are all Oblates. Our only visitors are some stray half-starved Indians of the nri Sioux, or Sauteux tribes. We are more than 30 miles distant from anything like a town, and consequently from a butcher, baker, etc. But you have no idea how manyithings Missioners can do without

"For a long time we slept in our sheepskins (as we did while on the prairie). In autumn we were able to procure some hay ; but now we have grand feather-beds: so you see we 'are not so badly off.

" I am sure you think Grandin is a dreadful place, and so I



Irish Nuns in the Great Lone Land. 325

suppose it is in a human point of view; but it is a splendid country

to work for God and for heaven and I can never be sufficiently

grateful to our Lord for having given me the grace to leave so

many loved ones at home and devote myself soul and body to His

service and that of His poor neglected children. When you pray for me, dearest Margaret, let then your prayer be one of thanks

giving, for God has indeed been good to me. Pray too that I may

profit of so many and such great graces.

" Fancy, Margaret, I shall be 27 on the 1st of March. I cannot

believe that I am so old."

Besides the two communities (at Grandin and at Prince Albert) into which our band of Missioners immediately broke up, five more of the same Congregation came out from Europe a few months later to begin their holy work at Brandon, which lies on the

Canadian Pacific Railway not very far from Winnipeg. Hoffman's Catholic Directory, published at Milwaukee in 1894, lets us know that the diocese of St. Albert, which was only established in 1871, prospered so well that it had to be divided in

1891, and the place which, we take for granted, was called after

Monseigneur Grandin, belongs now to the Vicariate Apostolic of Saskatchewan under the Right Rev. Albert Pascal, O.M.I. But though the Grandin Post Office is mentioned incidentally, the

Directory speaks of no Nuns at Grandin, while it tells us that

there is at Prince Albert a convent of the Faithful Companions of of Jesus, with 15 Religious, 18 boarders and 95 day-scholars. In

Mgr, Grandin's diocese the same Order has a convent at Calgary

with twelve Religious, 132 pupils and 25 boarders, and another convent at Edmonton with six Religious and 75 boarders. The Sisters have also crossed over the boundary line into the United States and established a flourishing Convent at Fond du Lao in

Wisconsin, The only surnames mentioned in this connection are

Louisa Collins, Mary Green, and Hannah O'Neill. Well done, daughters of Erin ! It is indeed well done to follow the Irish race in its wanderings and to do your part, in spite of many

privations and the chronic pang of exile, in keeping their children true to the Faith which, thank God, is identified with the very name of Ireland, " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church."



irish nuns in the great lone land

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