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Title A name given to the resource Motherhouse, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Subject The topic of the resource Convent Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Description An account of the resource The Motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022 Relation A related resource N/A Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SCN Motherhouse 002 Sisters of Charity of Nazareth https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/b88a36c5eb0616a19e39126f2a053a8a.jpg 8f5602e440d44dbd6a4d9f64230002ee https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/0bc38dd63fccc16c798a1b4e2f7c2eef.mp3 bdb2a51baeafe7aaeb2eff280aa49639 https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/4d22f663d300ad15dea8d39993d301cd.pdf a9f454f11ebacdfa15fba1a6a55cbb63 PDF Text Text Sisters of Charity of New York Interview with Sr. Linda Giuli, SC Wednesday January 8, 2018 10:12AM • 30:14 Angelica Bullock 00:00 Today is September 10th, 2018. The interviewee is Sister. Linda Giuli. The interviewer is Angelica Bullock. I am interviewing Sr. Linda in Boyle Hall in the archives Reading Room; and it's about 1:00pm. Sr. Linda, can you state your full name and your religious name? Sr. Linda Giuli 00:30 My full name is Sr. Linda Giuli. I was baptized Madeline Linda because Linda is not a saint, and the priest who baptized me suggested to my mother that Madeline was a good name. So it's Madeline Linda. My religious name was Sr. Mary Therese. Angelica Bullock 00:58 And how old are you currently? Sr. Linda Giuli 01:01 I am 76 years old. Angelica Bullock 01:03 And when did you enter the Sisters of Charity? Sr. Linda Giuli 01:07 September 8th, 1961, at age 18. Angelica Bullock 01:14 Let's talk about your family life. Where were you born? Sr. Linda Giuli 01:20 I was born in Westchester Square Hospital in the Bronx. I grew up in the Bronx. I even remember my address was 3029 Barnes Avenue. I was there till I was about nine years old. Angelica Bullock 01:38 And where did you grow up after the age of nine? Sr. Linda Giuli 01:43 My mother and I moved to... upper in the Bronx. We went from Barnes Avenue up to Wakefield. So I grew up in the north Bronx in Wakefield, went to school, St. Francis of Rome was our parish and went to grammar school there and then to St. Barnabas High School. -1- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 02:11 And can you tell me a little bit about your parents and your siblings, if you had any? I have no siblings. I was perfect my mother said, so she didn't need to have any more children. The one that she had was perfect. My mother had a very hard pregnancy with me. She told me that story. And because of that, my father was called to the army and they gave him a deferment. So after I was born in June, he didn't have to go to the army till October. And because of that, it was World War II, my father did not get sent overseas; he was lucky. He spent his army years in California. And my father happened to have very wonderfully talented hands. He could do anything. And he was assigned to make prosthetic limbs for the soldiers. And when he came home, I was three years old. And what did your father do after? Sr. Linda Giuli 03:34 After, my father had a hard time finding work. He had several jobs he worked as a maintenance man. He worked for a man in Mamaroneck who had an estate. That's the man who gave him the piano that came in through our living room window and two years later went out our living room window. My father played the violin and the accordion, the sisters taught him to do that. My father grew up in Colorado, so I'm not sure what sisters taught him, but he was taught music by the sisters. My father eventually got a job with New York City Housing and he became an architect and a builder for New York City Housing. In fact, he designed and built the building that Sr. Carol DeAngelo grew up in, Evenwald Housing, was the name of the group of buildings, Evenwald in the north Bronx. Angelica Bullock 05:04 And what about your mother? What did she do? Sr. Linda Giuli 05:09 Well, my mother was a housewife, a homemaker until I was about 10. And then she had various jobs and then eventually became the Assistant Manager of John Wanamaker's in Cross County in Yonkers. John Wanamaker was a very famous department store. Angelica Bullock 05:37 And what inspired her to start working when you were 10? Because she didn't want to leave me alone in the house, until I guess she thought I was more responsible. You know, my mother had a history of fashion when she was younger. She worked as a draper and for a designer house for clothes, women's clothes. And so she always had her hand somehow in fashion in the kind of work that she had. Did you have any pets growing up? Sr. Linda Giuli 06:17 I had a dog. I loved my dog; my dog loved me. He ate all the food that I didn't want. Angelica Bullock 06:28 What was your dog's name? Skupper. S-k-u-p-p-e-r. Skupper had that name because they didn't call them Skipper. My Uncle John was in the Navy and he found this little pup. And he smuggled this little doggie onto the ship. And the guys took care of him, and he put him in his duffel bag. And when he brought him home, my Aunt Eleanor did not want the dog. So my father said, "Oh, we'll take him." So he became our dog. Around what age did you receive the dog? -2- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Linda Giuli 07:11 Well, I guess around 5 or so. I'm not exactly sure but I just remember having the dog in my house. I might have even been younger than that, because I remember he used to come, my mother used to insist that I have a nap and I didn't like to nap. She'd put me in my in my crib, I can remember that. And he would come and put his little snout in between the, what do they call the parts of the crib that are ... Angelica Bullock 07:52 ...the opening section? Yeah, he used to put his snout in there and I used to play with him and he used to play back, Then my mother would come in and she tell him "Out you, get out!" And he'd get out. And then I could go to sleep. I wouldn't sleep with him in there. And how long did you have Skupper for? Until I moved, till I was 9. Do you remember anything in particular, anything special about your childhood? Sr. Linda Giuli 08:27 Well, I went to public school. Immaculate Conception, Gun Hill Road was my Parish, but the school wasn't built yet. They were still building it and collecting money from people for it. So I went to public school for kindergarten and I was left back in kindergarten, because they told my mother I was slow. So I was in kindergarten for two years. I remember my first teacher was Mrs. Davis. And then the second one was Mrs. Roses and her son, William Roses sat at my table and I liked him. I liked William. We were buddies. Angelica Bullock 09:13 Can you explain what that means that you were left back in kindergarten? Sr. Linda Giuli 09:20 I guess they meant retarded or something. But it took a long time for me to learn how to read. I finally went to Immaculate Conception School when it opened, and I think that was second grade. But I couldn't receive my First Holy Communion because I couldn't memorize the Catechism and I couldn't read. So I received my first communion in the third grade. I was the tallest kid in on the line. I was last online because I was the tallest and my mother made my dress because they didn't have First Communion dresses in my size. I had that dress, I loved that dress; I thought it was beautiful. And what she did too was she made different color slips. So through the white eyelit the blue or the pink that she made, yellow. And then I had matching socks. I remember that as a kid. Angelica Bullock 10:35 What influenced you to join the Sisters of Charity. Why did you decide to join? Sr. Linda Giuli 10:42 I guess I decided to join because I felt the call. And I know it's hard to believe but I was a pretty serious kid and I thought about it a lot. And I got to know my sponsor at St. Barnabas and I talked to her a little bit, talked to her a lot, actually. And it was hard in a way because my mother was alone. If I would go to the convent, my mother would be alone. But I still thought it was the right thing to do. -3- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 11:34 When you joined, what did your family say? Sr. Linda Giuli 11:37 Oh, I couldn't repeat it. This microphone would explode. They were I think, at the beginning, they were pretty shocked. Angelica Bullock 11:54 Why? Sr. Linda Giuli 11:56 My family were not, were good people. My uncles, my aunts, they were very good people but they were not, I'm going to use the word religious, they were not church-going people for the most part. But they were good people and they were very surprised; they were shocked. In fact, one of my uncles, my Uncle Joe, who I really loved a lot, he came in, he grabbed me one time we were together at his house. And and he said, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Angelica Bullock 12:43 What did you say? Sr. Linda Giuli 12:44 I told them that yeah, I thought I knew what I was doing. I had boyfriends. I lived a very normal life. I went out a lot. I worked. I was in sports. I had friends. Angelica Bullock 13:05 What did your friends think? My friends were mostly in school with me so they knew me pretty well. My friends were alright with it. My mother said to me, "If you're not happy, I want you to come home." So once that she got used to the idea and she would ask me when we had visiting days, "Are you happy?" Do you remember entering the first day? Sr. Linda Giuli 13:44 Oh, yeah, it was a beautiful day. It was sunny and warm and my Aunt Evelyn drove us up to the Mount. And she'd let me drive and I went the wrong way on a one way street. Nothing bad happened. Nothing bad happened. I guess it was nerves. But we got there okay. And it was just a beautiful sunny day. It was a Friday, because I remember what we were served for supper. It was tuna salad and sliced tomatoes and bread and I guess they were supposed to be either hard boiled or soft boiled eggs and it wasn't. When we cracked the eggs, the eggs were only half-cooked. They were slimey. And the novice at our table said, "You don't have to eat it," and I said, "Good, 'cause I'm not!'" Angelica Bullock 14:57 Do you remember what you packed to enter? -4- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Linda Giuli 15:02 When we got a letter of acceptance either enclosed in that letter or separate, we got a list of things that we were supposed to send in a trunk. And my sponsor and I went shopping and we got all the stuff. Certain underwears and certain soaps and certain deodorants and shoes and stockings and all that kind of stuff. Angelica Bullock 15:34 Did any of it seem weird or unknown to you or did you already know people who had joined the Sisters? Yeah, but I didn't realize what it was; I didn't get into what you brought with you. Everything was either black or white. How did you feel when you were entering? Did you feel excited or nervous? Sr. Linda Giuli 16:01 Oh, I wasn't nervous. No, I wasn't nervous and I wasn't ever homesick. I wasn't ever homesick, not the way some other people were. I didn't spend a lot of time crying or upset or no, I was okay. Kind of took things as they came. And of course, I was perfect. So in many ways, I followed the rules for the most part and when I didn't, I was lucky enough not to get caught. Angelica Bullock 16:46 What kind of rules did you have your first year? Silence-keeping, not talking and of course, I was a girl so I like to talk. You had to get used to not talking in certain times and places. It wasn't so hard it you know, you got used to it after a while. Not having any choice of food, that was hard. Not terrible but a little hard. You ate what was served. You couldn't say, "I don't like this or I don't want this. I'd like something else." That didn't happen. Getting up at 5:00, after 5:00 in the morning was the hardest; probably the hardest thing to get used to. There was what they call the rising bell. It was a loud, very loud bell, that knocked you on your feet. It was so horrible. And I just wasn't used to getting up at 5:00 o'clock. I'm still not used to getting up at 5:00 o'clock. Do you know why you had to get up so early? Sr. Linda Giuli 18:21 Yeah, because we went to the chapel to pray. And then we went to mass and then we had breakfast. And then we had prayers, then we had readings and class, that was forever. The day was very filled with activities and you had house duties, you know, different variety of things that you did or were assigned to actually. Angelica Bullock 18:53 I want to talk a little bit about you and your college years. We had school, part of what we did as postulants and novices was we had class and even when we became junior professed and moved to LeGras, we had class at the college. And when I went out on mission we had to come back on Saturdays for class. Education-wise we were all offered and given the best of education, I think opportunities, etc. Did you take classes only with Sisters? No, after I graduated from the college here, when I was in class here, some of the girls that I was in high school with were in my class. Then when I graduated from here, I was told to go on for a master's and I went to Hunter College in the city and finished two masters degrees there. But I always wanted to be a nurse. I couldn't even imagine my whole life in school. I didn't particularly care for school. And I didn't particularly like children. So both things made it a little difficult. But if I was to teach, I was to teach, it was an obedience. I wasn't going to -5- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �leave because of it. It was something that I was going to do in terms of an assigned ministry. But when I got a chance to make a choice I did. Sr. Linda Giuli 20:18 And you said you received two Master's degrees? Angelica Bullock 20:51 One was in elementary education and the other one was in... I'm trying to think of what that degree was; I can't remember. And how long did it take you to complete both degrees? Sr. Linda Giuli 21:06 Oh, it went quickly because I went twice a week. I was teaching in Rego Park in Queens and I'd take the Q44 bus into 59th Street and First Avenue, and I'd walk up to Hunter. I did that twice a week and on Saturday, sometimes on Saturday. So I got finished pretty fast. And it wasn't until 1977, '76 actually, when I pursued the nursing with the president who was in office at that time. Angelica Bullock 21:56 So how did you start your second career in nursing. You mentioned the president. Did she give you the okay? Sr. Linda Giuli 22:06 Yes. Yeah, I went to talk to Margaret Dowling, I went to talk to Sr. Margaret. I told her; it was difficult because Sr. Margaret had been superintendent of schools. So to tell the superintendent of schools that you hated to be in school was a little bit difficult but, she really was very good to me and she understood. But she asked me to stay in the classroom until things were settled. So I took the MCAT, which was the boards that you had to take when you apply for medical school, and I did; I passed. I had studied on my own and I passed and I got into New York Medical. Soon to find out after a year that it was not to be because the amount of work and reading was too much for me. So I switched over to the nurse practitioner program in Pace University, and I completed the program there. Angelica Bullock 23:09 Did you enjoy your time there at Pace? Sr. Linda Giuli 23:11 Absolutely, it was great. I got a great education. Angelica Bullock 23:15 And what did you do after you graduated? Sr. Linda Giuli 23:19 Oh, my first job was with the Westchester County Department of Health at the New Rochelle District Office. I lived in Mamaroneck at the time, so that was easy. And after a couple of years I went to Burikin Family Clinic in East Harlem and after that, I went to Montefiore for 22 years. And after that I went to St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx. That was an interesting job, I liked it very much. It was psychology and drug addiction. I took care of a lot of AIDS patients. -6- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 24:11 How did you feel having a new career after teaching? Did you think of your... Sr. Linda Giuli 24:20 I was glad to be out of school. I liked the work as a nurse practitioner and I worked with really, really wonderful people. Angelica Bullock 24:33 Do you think you would have stayed in the community if the President told you that you couldn't become a nurse practitioner? Sr. Linda Giuli 24:44 Of course I would have stayed. Of course, that was never an issue. Angelica Bullock 24:53 So you would have been okay with being a teacher? Sr. Linda Giuli 24:58 Sure, I would have beat up all the kids everyday and given them a lot of homework and been really mean, but I would have stayed. Angelica Bullock 25:12 Do you think at the time that it was easier to make this switch from teaching to being a nurse practitioner? Just because it was kind of that time, like during the 70s where things were changing in the church and I guess changing with the Sisters? Sr. Linda Giuli 25:30 And I was young, I mean, I was only, 33. You know, I wasn't ever adverse to change in fact, I greeted change. I mean, I never had a problem with that. I rolled with the punches pretty easily. Angelica Bullock 25:54 Why did you want to become a nurse practitioner? Sr. Linda Giuli 25:59 Always from when I was a little girl always wanted to be a nurse. Always. Angelica Bullock 26:06 Did you know why or do you just feel like you had a calling to be a nurse? Yeah, I did. Was there anyone else in your family who was a nurse or a doctor or in medicine? No, one of my younger cousins, two of my younger cousins became nurses also. When you were a nurse, did you ever see God in your work? -7- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Linda Giuli 26:36 Being on that level with people, I think is a spirituality in itself. And when I was working with AIDS people, drug addiction and AIDS people, that was very serious work. Very, very often their lives, you knew that their lives were going to be so shortened and ... I guess I'm just trying to think on how to say, being kind to people who are so sick with so little hope and in those days, if you had AIDS there was not much hope to survive. Being kind and understanding and caring for people with disease of that magnitude was being very, I think in the greatest definition of being religious. When I was in Rego Park which was the Brooklyn Diocese I got into involved in ITV, Instructional Television (Archdiocese of New York). And always one of the reasons why communications was my second Master's. But then again, I got changed back to New York to St. Mary's in Yonkers, so I didn't need it anymore. I'm trying to... Angelica Bullock 28:23 What did you do at ITV? Sr. Linda Giuli 28:27 I actually did television, not live; it was filmed. I prepared lesson plans for little children, first grade, in fact, I wore a pale blue habit. It was the same habit that we had in white, only it was pale blue because white was not good for television; it was too bright. It was pale blue, and I would put that on when I got to the studio, and then take it off to come home. It was interesting. Angelica Bullock 29:01 Did you like it? No, I wouldn't want to do it forever. In fact, I didn't want to be in school. I mean, I never really wanted to be in school. One of the good things that happened when I was in Rego Park, and I loved the people in Rego Park. They were many, many of the people were Cuban refugees. They came over in the Mariel boats. They were wonderful, wonderful people, and I needed to learn to speak Spanish. My Spanish wasn't good enough. So somebody put my address down as Mount St. Vincent, instead of real far, and I got a chance to study Spanish in Puerto Rico one summer, and that helped a lot. I didn't know much about TV back then, but wasn't the rise of TV as we do it now during the time you were working for ITV, in the sixties? Well, it was a new concept in education, that's for sure and the Brooklyn Diocese was wonderful in terms of the leadership they had in education. So the use of television in classroom was good. -8- Transcribed by https://otter.ai � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sisters of Charity of New York Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Giuli, Sister Linda Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bullock, Angelica Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 30:14:00 Location The location of the interview Mount Saint Vincent, Bronx, New York Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Giuli, Sister Linda, SC, Oral History Subject The topic of the resource Giuli, Sister Linda, SC Sisters of Charity (New York, N.Y.) Monasticism and religious life of women Nurse practitioners Description An account of the resource Sr. Linda Giuli discusses her life as a Sister of Charity of New York, growing up as the only child in an Italian family in the Bronx, and the value of her missions as a teacher and a nurse. Although as a young sister Sr. Linda taught elementary school, she was always interested in pursuing health care. She began her second career as a nurse practitioner at the age of thirty-three and continued this pursuit until her retirement. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sisters of Charity of New York Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sisters of Charity of New York Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-09-10 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mindy Gordon (Transcriber; Editor) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission for reproduction or quotation must be obtained through written application to: Director of Archives, Sisters of Charity of New York, 6301 Riverdale Avenue, Bronx, New York, 10471. This permission is valid only insofar as the Archives of the Sisters of Charity of New York, as owner or custodian, has any rights in the matter and does not remove the responsibility of the author, editor, and publisher to guard against the infringement of any rights; including copyright, that may be held by others. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Giuli, Sister Linda, SC, Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant New York City Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sisters of Charity of New York Education Healthcare Sisters of Charity of New York https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/0b2ba40b59f156ba80c0035e1cee9a35.jpg 9e48e6e5ae5a0edab0ec393cca52999d https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/843d340d99d6b78cb02f51eec98710b7.pdf 610021b0f37d06f00f104522ab70dc5e PDF Text Text Sisters of Charity of New York Interview with Sr. Ellen Quirke, SC Tuessday, October 15, 2019, 1:32PM • 42:27 Angelica Bullock 00:00 Today is October 15th, 2019. The interviewer is Angelica Bullock. The interviewee is Sister Ellen Quirke. We are at the Kittay (nursing home, Bronx, N.Y.) apartments. And it is about 3:15 in the afternoon. Sr. Ellen, can you please state your full name. Sr. Ellen Quirke 00:24 Sr. Ellen Quirke. Angelica Bullock 00:26 And your religious name? Sr. Ellen Quirke 00:29 Sr. Ellen Marie Quirke. Angelica Bullock 00:33 What is your age currently? Sr. Ellen Quirke 00:36 I'm ninety-two years old. Angelica Bullock 00:40 And what date did you enter the congregation? Sr. Ellen Quirke 00:42 September 8, 1945. Angelica Bullock 00:46 What was your age at that time? Sr. Ellen Quirke 00:49 Seventeen. Excuse me no, I was eighteen. Angelica Bullock 00:53 About how many years have you been in the congregation? Sr. Ellen Quirke 00:57 Seventy some-odd years. -1- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 01:01 Now I would just like to know a little bit to talk about some general information concerning your family life. So where were you born? Sr. Ellen Quirke 01:11 I was born in Manhattan, in New York City, to Mr. and Mrs. Quirke, Helen O'Connell and John Quirke, and I had three brothers, Jack, Neil and Bud. And I was the only girl. I was the third oldest of the four of us. Angelica Bullock 01:38 And where were your parents born? Where were their place of origin? Sr. Ellen Quirke 01:43 They were both from Ireland County, Abbeyfield, County Limerick. Angelica Bullock 01:47 Do you have family members and religious life? Do you have any other family members...? Sr. Ellen Quirke 01:53 One brother who was a Jesuit, Neil was a Jesuit. He died in 1968 and another brother. had been a Christian brother and he left the order and married. That was my brother James, my younger brother. My oldest brother Jack died when he was 23. Angelica Bullock 02:25 Besides your two brothers, did you have any other family members in religious life, maybe in Ireland? Sr. Ellen Quirke 02:31 Here in this country, I had another cousin who was another Jesuit. Same time as my brother Neil, Bob O'Connell. Angelica Bullock 02:43 What were the schools that you attended? What grammar school and high school? Sr. Ellen Quirke 02:48 Incarnation Grammar School and Holy Cross Academy. Angelica Bullock 02:54 Were those schools run by the Sisters of Charity? Sr. Ellen Quirke 02:58 Both of them were yes. They both were. Angelica Bullock 03:01 And why did you attend those two schools? -2- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Ellen Quirke 03:07 My mother wanted me to go. Angelica Bullock 03:11 Why did you join the Sisters of Charity of the New York? Sr. Ellen Quirke 03:16 I was very interested in Damien the Leper. Reading his biography, and I just wanted to be able to help people. He was a priest who worked in Molokai down in the Hawaiian Islands. Worked with the lepers down there. Angelica Bullock 03:36 How did you hear about him? Did you hear about him in school? Sr. Ellen Quirke 03:39 Yeah, yes. In school. During religion classes. Angelica Bullock 03:47 Was he a priest? Sr. Ellen Quirke 03:48 Yes. Angelica Bullock 03:52 Did you think you are going to work with people with leprosy or did you just... Sr. Ellen Quirke 03:56 No, I thought more like missionary things. Angelica Bullock 04:02 You said you joined when you were 18 years old? Sr. Ellen Quirke 04:05 Yes. Angelica Bullock 04:08 How did your family feel about you joining? Sr. Ellen Quirke 04:11 Fine, there was no problem with them? For the most part, the Irish are really proud to have religious in the family. -3- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 04:21 Can you talk a little bit about the process of becoming a sister? Do you remember anything that stands out? Maybe first day of joining or...? Sr. Ellen Quirke 04:31 No, not particularly? No. Angelica Bullock 04:35 Do you remember your sponsor? Sr. Ellen Quirke 04:38 Yes. She was my eighth grade teacher. Angelica Bullock 04:47 Do you remember her name? Sr. Ellen Quirke 04:49 Yes, Sr. Marguerite. Angelica Bullock 04:51 Would you like to talk a little bit about your life as a novice and a postulant? Sr. Ellen Quirke 04:57 It wasn't really remarkable at all. I kind of went along with the rules and regulations were. What I found hard was the silence and the walking in lines. I found that very difficult. Angelica Bullock 05:16 When did you have to be silent? Were there just certain times during the day? Sr. Ellen Quirke 05:20 Oh, yes, yes. Angelica Bullock 05:25 What would happen if you weren't silent? So, if you wanted to talk to someone... Sr. Ellen Quirke 05:30 Well, you'd be embarrassed in front of the other people because you know it was a rule, to keep silence and you wanted to keep the rules if you're going to stay in the convent. Angelica Bullock 05:40 Can you think of anyone at that time who broke the rules? -4- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Ellen Quirke 05:44 No. Angelica Bullock 05:45 Everyone mostly... Sr. Ellen Quirke 05:46 No, pretty much everybody kind of went along with it pretty much. Nobody stands out because having broken the rule. They wouldn't have stayed, I don't think Angelica Bullock 06:03 How many people have joined with you? Like how many people were in your ... Sr. Ellen Quirke 06:06 I think there might have been around twenty-four, twenty-two, twenty-four. I'm the last one left of that crowd. All the others have died. Angelica Bullock 06:24 Did you know any of the girls before your joined? Were they in your high school or in your neighborhood? Sr. Ellen Quirke 06:32 Oh, yes. One of my friends lived next door to me. She was born next door to me. And she entered too. I had some of my high school friends enter but they entered later on not at the same time. Angelica Bullock 06:51 Okay. And did that comfort you knowing that you knew people already going in with you? Sr. Ellen Quirke 06:59 I don't remember it comforting me at the time, but I guess it must have. Yes. How did you feel joining? Were you nervous? Were you excited? I can't say I was excited because I forget there was some popular song that was going on at that time was right when WWII was over, just over. And I was going the night before out with my friends and we were going on a sentimental journey; it wasn't so sentimental. But I was nervous the night before. Angelica Bullock 07:36 When you enter at eighteen, times have changed so much, eighteen now is considered very young. But when you were eighteen are you considered an adult, did you feel like you were an adult? Sr. Ellen Quirke 07:51 Well, boys could go into the service; they could be drafted. That was the WWII. So, we weren't considered young, we weren't considered old, but we weren't youngsters. -5- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 08:08 Did you have any friends or know people who were eighteen that were at the time getting married or.. Sr. Ellen Quirke 08:16 No, I didn't know anybody, no. Angelica Bullock 08:18 So, if you weren't going to be a Sister, what did other people do at the age of eighteen, that were eighteen-year-old girls? Sr. Ellen Quirke 08:29 They mostly went to work at General Motors or the New York Telephone company, or in the bank, Manufacturers Hanover bank. They got jobs. And the boys were away in service then. Angelica Bullock 08:49 Were any of your brothers at the time drafted? Sr. Ellen Quirke 08:54 No. Angelica Bullock 08:55 Do you remember anything about more times than when you were ... Sr. Ellen Quirke 08:59 Oh, I remember an awful lot about it. The blackouts and the fear that we were going to be bombed and that the Japanese boats were in the ocean, we were down at the beach. Always afraid of being bombed. We'd have the blackouts. And then seeing the stars on the window with the mothers who lost their sons afterwards. We were living in apartment houses. They'd have their stars on the window and another one had been killed. Angelica Bullock 09:33 What exactly are black-outs? Just like today, no power? Sr. Ellen Quirke 09:39 You had to shut off the electricity. You weren't allowed to put the electricity on because they were afraid the airplanes would come and bomb the building. So, the streetlights went out and they had wardens going around the street to make sure the lights were out. And you had rationing of certain foods you couldn't get unless you had a ration stamp for them. Angelica Bullock 10:01 Since you're so young, does that just seem like a normal life? -6- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Ellen Quirke 10:06 No, no, no, no. You knew it wasn't normal. Angelica Bullock 10:13 Is there anything else you remember during that time? Sr. Ellen Quirke 10:17 About the war time? Always hearing, fearing to hear about another boy in the neighborhood who was killed or a father who was killed and you couldn't get all the shoes you wanted. You could only get two pair of shoes a year. Angelica Bullock 10:34 Wow. Sr. Ellen Quirke 10:34 You had to have ration stamps to get them. You didn't have nylon. Nylon was used for parachutes. So, you couldn't get nylon stockings or nylon slips. Angelica Bullock 10:51 And what was your life as a novice and postulant like? I'm going back to that, sorry. Sr. Ellen Quirke 10:57 Well, it was getting to know what the routine was going to be and we were going to school, we were studying at the same time, going to college and getting classes. Angelica Bullock 11:08 Do you remember who the Mother Superior was at the time? Sr. Ellen Quirke 11:11 Yes, Sr. Alphonse Mary [McGinley, 1945-1950] who was a very generous woman, very human. Angelica Bullock 11:22 What made her generous and human? Sr. Ellen Quirke 11:25 That was her nature to be that way. She wasn't rigid. Some of those superiors could be very rigid. Angelica Bullock 11:37 What was your relationship with the Mother Superior? Did you see her every day? Or was it more of like she was there, but you didn't really have contact with her. Sr. Ellen Quirke 11:50 She was there. We knew she was there. We were conscious of her presence, and sometimes she'd have a class, and we'd be learning things, she'd be teaching us. -7- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 12:03 Do you remember the name of the Mother General at the time? Sr. Ellen Quirke 12:08 There were a couple of when I entered it was Mother Berchmans [Mother Mary Berchmans Reed, 1948-1954] was the second. I didn't know her at all. I knew Berchmans, but I didn't know Josephine [Mother Mary Josephine Taaffe, 1941-1948]. Angelica Bullock 12:23 During that time, how did you interact with the other girls who were joining? Did you get to talk to them? Sr. Ellen Quirke 12:30 Oh surely, yes. Angelica Bullock 12:34 Did you all live together? Sr. Ellen Quirke 12:36 Yes, we all lived together. Slept in dorms. And we worked together. And we went to school together. Angelica Bullock 12:50 Other Sisters have mentioned that it took them very long to complete their degrees because they were working. Sr. Ellen Quirke 12:57 Oh, we were teaching at the same time, and going to school on Saturdays. Angelica Bullock 13:01 Okay. Sr. Ellen Quirke 13:03 That changed in the '60s. We all had teaching certificates to teach, and we had to have a certain amount of College before you could teach. Angelica Bullock 13:16 About what age do you think you started teaching then? Sr. Ellen Quirke 13:22 I was twenty. Angelica Bullock 13:26 Do you remember your first mission? -8- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Ellen Quirke 13:28 Oh, yes. It was at St. Margaret's in Riverdale, third grade for eight years. So, I got to know the all the children of that time. Angelica Bullock 13:45 Did you always teach the third grade? Sr. Ellen Quirke 13:46 Yes, in St. Margaret's I did. Yes. But I moved around after that. Angelica Bullock 13:54 I'm guessing I haven't heard any sister say so far that they've stayed at that one teaching assignment for that many years. Did you like doing that? Sr. Ellen Quirke 14:05 I did, I loved the third grade. That's a great age group of children. Angelica Bullock 14:11 And did you teach girls and boys there? Sr. Ellen Quirke 14:14 Yes. I had sixty in a class. Angelica Bullock 14:17 How many? Sr. Ellen Quirke 14:18 Sixty. And they were taught. Some places had one hundred. Angelica Bullock 14:26 Did they all fit in a regular size class? Sr. Ellen Quirke 14:29 Yes. But the desk was stationary. They weren't moveable desks and chairs. Angelica Bullock 14:40 Did you ever feel overwhelmed teaching sixty children? Sr. Ellen Quirke 14:44 No. No, I liked teaching and I think that's why I liked it. And I liked the kids very much. Angelica Bullock 14:56 Are there any of those students that you still, remember? -9- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Ellen Quirke 15:01 Yes. Some of them come to see me. Angelica Bullock 15:06 So, when you first started teaching that first year that you were put in the classroom for third grade, did you expect that's how the situation was going to be? Did you expect that you were going to have 60 students in your class? Sr. Ellen Quirke 15:23 I didn't think about it, I didn' think about it. Because the classes were big when we went to school ourselves. The classes were always big. Angelica Bullock 15:35 During that time, I just think of 60 kids I just think of rowdy... Sr. Ellen Quirke 15:41 No, oh no. They wouldn't dare; they wouldn' dare. Angelica Bullock 15:47 At St. Margaret's all the teachers there were Sisters of Charity? Sr. Ellen Quirke 15:52 No, not all of them. We had lay teachers. Angelica Bullock 15:58 Do you remember any of your other missions? Sr. Ellen Quirke 16:01 Oh yes, of course. Do you want to know them all? Angelica Bullock 16:04 Sure! Sr. Ellen Quirke 16:05 The next year after St. Margaret's, I went down to Holy Name on 97th Street, fourth grade boys. Boys' department at Holy Name, brothers had the boys' department. I was there for a year. That's when we became very aware that the Puerto Ricans were coming into New York City and into the schools. It was the influx of a lot of Puerto Ricans. We had a lot of Puerto Rican children in the school. And the Sisters, I didn't go, but the Sisters went to Puerto Rico in the summertime to learn Spanish. That was around 1956. Angelica Bullock 16:50 And were most of the students then who were coming from Puerto Rico, were they mostly just speaking Spanish? - 10 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Ellen Quirke 16:56 Yes. A lot of them were. I didn't have them all. They were mostly in the first grade at the time. They started in the first grade. And I was there for a year and then I went down to Xavier. I had the fourth grade in Xavier. Angelica Bullock 17:17 And was that co-ed or just boys? Sr. Ellen Quirke 17:19 Now in Xavier it was boys and girls. Smaller class. I believe around thirty-five. And then I went one year there and then I went to St. Agnes' to the seventh grade. Angelica Bullock 17:22 Oh, okay. Seventh grade? Sr. Ellen Quirke 17:39 Loved it, loved it. I learned so much in being with the children younger and then when they get older and then older; you got older with them. And you knew how to deal with the older ones. Weren't sarcastic. Of course, they understood it and they knew it then. And I was only there a year and I went to St. Denis in Yonkers, the eighth grade. And I loved the eighth grade. We had a great time together. Angelica Bullock 18:16 And how long were you at St. Denis? Sr. Ellen Quirke 18:17 One year. Angelica Bullock 18:18 One year? Sr. Ellen Quirke 18:20 And then I went to Mount Carmel in East Harlem, an Italian neighborhood, with a lot of Puerto Ricans on the fringe of the neighborhood who didn't get along with the Italians at all. And the Italians didn't get along with the Puerto Ricans, I should say. However, that was a good experience, being Principal of the school. Learning different cultures and respecting them. Angelica Bullock 19:14 How was your transition from teacher to principal? Sr. Ellen Quirke 19:18 It was fine. I was ready for it. - 11 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 19:30 Mount Carmel, was that run by the Sisters of Charity? Sr. Ellen Quirke 19:33 Yes, yes. All the schools were that I mentioned. Angelica Bullock 19:39 Were the teachers there mostly Sisters or lay or a mixture? Sr. Ellen Quirke 19:44 No, we had lay teachers, we had quite a few lay teachers. The one that was there sent me that package from David's [mail order dessert company]. She came to teach the fourth grade there. Angelica Bullock 20:03 How long were you at Mount Carmel? Sr. Ellen Quirke 20:05 Three years. Angelica Bullock 20:13 I'm looking at this timeline ... Sr. Ellen Quirke 20:16 We are up to 1960. Angelica Bullock 20:18 Okay! Sr. Ellen Quirke 20:20 '61 to '64. That's when I was at Mt. Carmel. Angelica Bullock 20:29 Then where did you go after Mt. Carmel? Sr. Ellen Quirke 20:31 '64 to '69, Mount Saint Vincent. We had juniorate. Angelica Bullock 20:43 Can you describe what that is? Sr. Ellen Quirke 20:46 It's a formation program, after the novitiate. - 12 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 20:53 And what was your... Sr. Ellen Quirke 20:54 The Sisters were going; I was in charge; I was the boss. I was the Superior. And they were studying at the time too, studying in college. So, it was further introduction to religious life for them and going, learning about the missions and visiting different places where the Sisters worked. The roaring '60s, and all the changes were taking place in the Church and in religious life, like losing the habit, changing the habit, and wearing regular clothes and all of that. Angelica Bullock 21:45 And how did you feel about all the changes that were happening? Sr. Ellen Quirke 21:49 Oh, I just loved them. I was ready for them. And I learned a lot from the young people. They taught me a lot. They didn't know they were teaching me, but they were. Angelica Bullock 22:03 Do you remember when you changed from the habit? What year or so? Sr. Ellen Quirke 22:14 1969. My mother was so disappointed when she saw me with gray hair. Because she had had the same problem. She didn't see the gray hair before because we had the hats on. Angelica Bullock 22:31 Oh, I see. So then, how old were you about in 1969? Sr. Ellen Quirke 22:38 You figure it out. Angelica Bullock 22:39 Okay! Sr. Ellen Quirke 22:42 Forty-three. Angelica Bullock 22:49 You had gray hair at forty-three? Sr. Ellen Quirke 22:52 Oh, yes. I had it earlier than that. Angelica Bullock 22:55 Did your mom have gray hair too at a young age? - 13 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Ellen Quirke 22:57 Yes, she was young. She used peroxide one day and my father nearly killed her when he came home for it. It was awful when she used peroxide; they didn't have the dyes they have today. Angelica Bullock 23:11 There's just one point where there's no people that are wearing a habit. And then they’re wearing a modified veil and then... Sr. Ellen Quirke 23:23 That was while I was in the juniorate they started doing that. The postulants, the novices, the young sisters were doing the modified veil. Angelica Bullock 23:34 Why the change from the habit to the modified veil was that... Sr. Ellen Quirke 23:41 It was just doing it gradually. It was just gradual. Some Communities did; one Community that I know of, she went from the habit to the dress, immediately. They didn't do in-between. We did a lot of the inbetween. We started with the shoes and the stockings, and then the length of the skirt, the habit, the hat changed to the veil. It took long; they should have done it all at once and then it would have been over with. Angelica Bullock 24:16 And who decided these changes and habit… Sr. Ellen Quirke 24:21 From the habit? Well, that was a little part of the movement that was going on in the church about all the changes. And when they started talking about all different kinds of changes that were going on. They talked about religious life, that it wasn't necessary to be wearing these kinds of clothes that made yourself so different from everybody else. Angelica Bullock 24:44 And besides habits, do you remember the other changes that were happening during that time in the Church? Sr. Ellen Quirke 24:58 Really, a lot was changed. A habit was only a symbol of all the changes that were going on. I mean, it could even start with an attitude toward God and learning more about theology and the meaning of this, and that caused the changes. Angelica Bullock 25:20 This was also a time when a lot of people weren't leaving, maybe that was a little bit later. - 14 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Ellen Quirke 25:29 No, they were leaving at that time. Angelica Bullock 25:31 Okay, they were leaving. How did you feel about that? Sr. Ellen Quirke 25:37 It was very difficult, because your friends, some of your friends were leaving. And it was a testing time for your own vocation. Angelica Bullock 25:50 Were there any points during that time when you began or at any point really, when you began to question if you wanted to be in Sister or did that never happen? Sr. Ellen Quirke 26:06 I'm sure it went on. You would be a stone if you didn't think of anything and wonder sometime what was going on. Yes. Angelica Bullock 26:22 Were there ever feelings of contention with people leaving or did you feel happy for them? Sr. Ellen Quirke 26:28 Oh, it was very difficult when they left. It's very difficult to see people leaving. And it was shocking when it first started. It was very shocking because that never happened. One person would leave in five years. So, do you want to go on with the rest of my life? Angelica Bullock 26:58 Yes. Sorry, I had you staying in '69 for a long time. Okay. And where did you go... Sr. Ellen Quirke 27:06 Well that was an important part of my life, very important. Angelica Bullock 27:11 And where were you after Mount Saint Vincent? Sr. Ellen Quirke 27:15 In '69 I went to the Foundling and worked for Foundling [The New York Foundling]. I went into social work after Foundling. I went to Fordham to study social work and worked at Jacoby Hospital for a year in the rehab department. Angelica Bullock 27:45 What made you switch from going to ... - 15 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Ellen Quirke 27:48 Well, I had been dealing with older women and I wasn't qualified for grammar school, elementary school teaching and I didn't want to go back to teaching elementary school. So, I went into social work, studied at Fordham, social work. Angelica Bullock 28:10 And did you like your time at Fordham? Oh, yes, yes. Sr. Ellen Quirke 28:23 I graduated in '72 and then I went to work at St. Joseph's Hospital in Yonkers in the mental health clinic. Angelica Bullock 28:34 How long were you at St. Joseph's? Sr. Ellen Quirke 28:36 I was there for four years doing counseling and group work. And then in '76 I went to St Vincent's Hospital, worked with the homebound elderly. Angelica Bullock 29:03 And this was the St. Vincent's in Manhattan? Sr. Ellen Quirke 29:06 Yes, Manhattan. Community Medicine. We had this program for the homebound elderly where we went to visit people in their own apartments, with a doctor and a nurse. Angelica Bullock 29:22 Can you talk a little bit more about that? I've seen in the archives, the Community Medicine part. That's with Dr. Brickner? Sr. Ellen Quirke 29:30 Yes. I worked with him and Sr. Teresita [Duque], she was the nurse. Dr. Brickner wasn't the only doctor; we had all the resident doctors would go out from the Battery up to 34th street, from the River to 5th Avenue. Got to know the whole neighborhood, elevator apartments and walk-up apartment. Apartments where they had bathtubs in the kitchen; they were that old. Angelica Bullock 29:38 How was that experience, being a part of Community Medicine and actually going out into the community instead of them coming to you? Sr. Ellen Quirke 30:11 I loved it; I loved it. A lot of walking and meeting a lot of different people, different people, different kinds of people. - 16 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 30:19 What did a normal day for you look like at St. Vincent's? Sr. Ellen Quirke 30:24 Oh, you'd have meetings in the morning, find out who you were going to go out to see. Who you were visiting and who you thought needed to have you go because you needed to provide services for the older people. Find out about their rent or if somebody was bothering them. The family was involved. They needed help, assistance. They needed to get money from the bank. They needed the groceries. Angelica Bullock 30:27 Were most of the homebound elderly that you were visiting. Did they live by themselves? Sr. Ellen Quirke 30:59 Some of them lived by themselves. Most of them live by themselves. And they didn't want to go to a nursing home, tried to keep them out of the nursing home so they could stay in their own homes. Angelica Bullock 31:10 Were nursing homes popular back then? Sr. Ellen Quirke 31:12 No, they still aren't popular. And here I am. When Dr. Brickner found out I was coming here, uhh! Angelica Bullock 31:21 Was he surprised that you were coming here? And what was life like for you working at that hospice program? Sr. Ellen Quirke 31:22 I didn't want it; when I was in the other place. He has since died. But of course, when I was, it was a big joke keeping me out of a nursing home. And then the other department I worked in at St. Vincent's, after I finished in '92, I went to work at the hospice program we had at St. Vincent's. The Supportive Care Program, we called it for people with AIDS. It was hard. It was difficult because you had so many young people dying, and then the nurses were taking care of them needed a lot of support. And the families, I had families, groups for survivors for their relatives and those who had died. After that, I went to work at the senior center four years, St. Malachi's Church Senior Center. Angelica Bullock 32:28 And where was this that was on 47th Street, Sr. Ellen Quirke 32:33 The Actor's Chapel, they called it. Angelica Bullock 32:36 And what did you do there? - 17 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Ellen Quirke 32:37 Social work. The people that came there, they needed things, to be connected to agencies or needed help with their families or whatever. Angelica Bullock 32:51 So, it seems like you had two different careers. Sr. Ellen Quirke 32:55 Yes, three different careers really, because that formation work, that was different. Angelica Bullock 33:01 Do you think that the three different careers were all at different points of your life? So that's why it made sense. Sr. Ellen Quirke 33:08 No, no, no, I didn't think of that. Well, the experience of the first led me to the second and led me to the third. - 18 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sisters of Charity of New York Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Quirke, Sister Ellen Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bullock, Angelica Location The location of the interview The New Jewish Home, Kittay Senior Apartments Bronx, New York Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Quirke, Sister Ellen, SC Oral History Description An account of the resource Sr. Ellen Quirke discusses her journey as a Sister of Charity of New York encompassing two distinct ministries in teaching and social work. Sr. Ellen describes the changing needs of bilingual students in New York City during the 1960s-1970s and her venture into geriatric health care in the pioneering Department of Community Medicine at St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sisters of Charity of New York Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sisters of Charity of New York Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 15 October 2019 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mindy Gordon, Transcriber, Editor Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission for reproduction or quotation must be obtained through written application to: Director of Archives, Sisters of Charity of New York, 6301 Riverdale Avenue, Bronx, New York, 10471. This permission is valid only insofar as the Archives of the Sisters of Charity of New York, as owner or custodian, has any rights in the matter and does not remove the responsibility of the author, editor, and publisher to guard against the infringement of any rights; including copyright, that may be held by others. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant New York City Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sisters of Charity of New York Subject The topic of the resource Sister Ellen Quirke, SC Sisters of Charity of New York https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/3aebb8db442ada8cc6b49c8a8cf0f041.jpg cc9e1308e4aa6af96f5c2522c70cd4f4 https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/9a52d17af0a4058316c26739513c87b9.pdf e3d7695e39acdac83d1cb4a5c0b46d91 PDF Text Text Sisters of Charity of New York Interview with Sr. Claire E. Regan, SC Thursday, 7/30/19 1:32PM • 42:27 Angelica Bullock 00:00 Today is July 30th, 2019. My name is Angelica Bullock and I'm interviewing Sr. Claire Regan. We are in Sr. Claire's office right now in LeGras [Sisters of Charity Center Administration Building]. Will you state your full name and your religious name? Sr. Claire E. Regan 00:22 Claire E. Regan. I use the 'E' because there's another Claire Regan in Community so I started using the 'E'. Claire E. Regan and that is also my given name. Angelica Bullock 00:37 What is your current age now? Sr. Claire E. Regan 00:39 Sixty-five. Angelica Bullock 00:44 When did you enter the congregation and how old are you? Sr. Claire E. Regan 00:49 I entered at age twenty-nine and it was 1982. Angelica Bullock 00:56 And how many years have you been in the Congregation? Sr. Claire E. Regan 01:00 It will be thirty-seven years in September. Angelica Bullock 01:05 So first we're going to talk a little bit about your family life. Where were you born and where did you grow up? Sr. Claire E. Regan 01:12 I was born in the South Bronx and baptized in St. Luke's Church. And then my family moved when I was an infant to the projects in East Harlem on 99th Street, the Carver houses and we were parishioners of St. Francis DeSales Parish. I went to St. Francis DeSales school for elementary school. -1- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 01:44 And where did you go for high school? Was it an elementary kindergarten through eighth grade? Sr. Claire E. Regan 01:52 High school, I went to the Bronx High School of Science in the Bronx. Angelica Bullock 02:00 Can you tell me a little bit about your parents, their name, their place of origin, their occupation? Sr. Claire Regan 02:09 My father was Peter Regan. And he was born in County, Cork, Ireland, in 1904. He died in 1980 at age 76. I was 27. My mother was Catherine Boyle Regan, like Elizabeth Boyle, which always kind of tickled me. So, my mother was Catherine Boyle Regan. And she was born in Bayonne, New Jersey of Irish parents, who emigrated here and settled in New Jersey. Angelica Bullock 02:53 Do you know how they met? Sr. Claire E. Regan 02:55 Yes, my father was a boarder in the house. My mother's Aunt had a boarding house, and my father was a boarder there. And my mother would help prepare meals on Sundays for the men. And she met my father. Angelica Bullock 03:14 Do you have any siblings? Sr. Claire E. Regan 03:16 Yes, I had four siblings. Two of my brothers have pre-deceased me. Daniel, Peter, Daniel deceased at age sixty-two, Peter deceased at age fifty-one. I have a sister Kathy. She's currently age sixty-nine and a twin brother James. Angelica Bullock 03:42 And are any of your siblings in religious life? Sr. Claire E. Regan 03:45 No. No one in the family ever was. No. Angelica Bullock 03:52 And where did you go to college? -2- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Claire E. Regan 03:56 I started at NYU [New York University] as pre-med. I dropped out after my second year. I think organic chemistry was my downfall. I did not do well on the early testing and I just dropped out from NYU. Plus it was the days of pot and hippies and free love and all that kind of environment in the Village. I wasn't all that comfortable with it at the time. So, I dropped out and really felt I needed to make a living to earn my lifestyle, earn my way. I recently moved into an apartment with my sister and paying rent and the bills while I was getting money part time was not enough. So, I wanted to work full time and make a living, and then financially help my family in some way. Angelica Bullock 04:54 So, what were you doing for work? Sr. Claire E. Regan 04:57 I worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield. I answered telephones for the Dental Claims Department, all kinds of subscriber questions and queries. "Where's my claim?" "Where's my check?" "You paid me the wrong amount." "What are my benefits?" We would hear from dentist subscribers.The group representatives took any and all phone calls for the Dental Department. We also handled the written correspondence to the members when they had questions or issues about a claim payment, whether it was correct or incorrect, what were the benefits that were applied. That kind of thing. Angelica Bullock 05:40 Did you like doing it? Sr. Claire E. Regan 05:42 We got volumes of calls that I did for about five years and I said, "I can't answer another phone call!" Then I wanted to go into the claims examiner claims adjuster side of things because the pressure from the general public, the subscribers, was getting intense. We had more and more contracts coming in, and fewer people to handle the phone volume. And I said, "I'll work on the claims." Because the problems we were getting on the phone, I said if work on the claims side and fix the claims, we won't get half the calls. So, I figured I'll take a promotion and work as a claims adjuster, which I did, but that was boring as heck. After about a year-and-a-half of that, I took a promotion to be a statistical clerk in management services. And I did statistical work management services. And in about a year-and-a-half into that I saw an opportunity to look at graduate education and that the company would sponsor me for a graduate degree which I didn't think I had the chance of a snowball. But my colleagues in the Dental Department said, “If you're going to go on to school, apply for the scholarship and see what happens, but don't just, you know, go on and act like you'll never have the chance.” And I won on the scholarship. So, I was paid my salary and full tuition was paid by the company for two years and I went to Chicago to Northwestern University, the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois. And I lived for two years just north of Chicago in Evanston, Illinois. And my degree was in health and human health and hospital services, health and hospital systems management, that's HHS health and hospital systems management. Hospital systems were just beginning at that time. It was a brand new venue and also HMOs [Health Management Organizations] were coming into more of a public awareness. I can't say acceptance, they were still a little -3- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �experimental in terms of public acceptance, but HMO was becoming a model for the delivery of health care, primary health care especially. So that was the era in which I was getting my graduate degree. Angelica Bullock 08:23 And how old were you approximately when you are getting your graduate degree? Sr. Claire E. Regan 08:28 Twenty-four to twenty-six. Angelica Bullock 08:32 Because you said that at that time you were twenty-four to twenty-six? Sr. Claire E. Regan 08:36 I was twenty-five to twenty-seven. Angelica Bullock 08:38 Twenty-five to twenty-seven. And you joined the Sisters of Charity at 29. Sr. Claire E. Regan 08:49 When I finished, when I came back from my graduate degree, it was 1980. My father died a few months after I came back to New York, and it was after that, that I experienced a sense of a call to vocation. I hadn't much thought about being a nun at all. It was never anything that appealed to me. And certainly, I was on a fast track for the management level, officer level at the corporation. So, this was kind of an unexpected inconvenience, my vocation, my call. But it was done in October, it was maybe about that Thanksgiving that I started to get this idea, did you ever think of being a nun? It was a crazy idea that must be foreign? And I was always faithful going to Church and I helped at my parish. I gave scholarships to young people who were working in the day camp for the summer, I would pay for one or two of those counselors to get the salary paid for them. I was very generous in the collections. I was active, and it happened that this Sister of Charity came to the parish just at that time when my father died. And she and I were working, and she put me to work on things I've never done before, liturgy planning, some faith sharing. It was something called the renew program. I was like, “I never did that before.” She said, "You can do it, come on, you can do it." "But I've never done this before." "You can do it.” That was Sr. Carol D'Angelo, and she came as a social worker to the parish and was doing outreach to the families in the home. And so, with God's call and inspiration, the question wouldn't go away. Then Sr. Carol, I would meet with her. They started to have some discernment meetings for vocation here at the Mount [Mount Saint Vincent, Bronx, NY]. Once a month, little gatherings of women who might be asking the question, and so I went to those meetings and then I pursued the matter through Sr. Carol's help and contact with the Community and so on. And I say I entered through Mount Carmel. That was the local convent on the 116th street. So, I tell people I entered through Mount Carmel. -4- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 11:19 So, what did your family think about you joining the Sisters? Especially, what did your mother and your siblings think? Sr. Claire E. Regan 11:30 Yeah, my father was dead at the time. My mother was not happy. She said I was hanging out with that Sr. Carol too much. And I knew it was going to be a difficult conversation. But God inspired me and I had the answer. I said, “You know, Mom, if there's anybody to blame, it's you and dad.” She didn't have an answer for that. So God spared me, that really quieted her down but, she wanted to have grandchildren and I was going to be the one. So anyway, after my first year, when I was entering novitiate, my mother came to me and said, I see that you're happy and so on. But she wasn't at the beginning. Angelica Bullock 12:14 What did your siblings think? Sr. Claire E. Regan 12:17 I was crazy. "And what are you doing? What? Do what? Become..." I mean, my friends, my siblings. My sister tells me that she went to my mother and said, "Can you believe this thing that she's doing?" And my mother said, "You know, she was always different. Even as a little kid." I would always go to the little religious article store we had in the neighborhood and buy those holy cards for birthday gifts and little statues and rosaries, Bibles, kind of little religious articles for anybody's birthday or my parent’s anniversary, something for the house. So, my mother said to my sister, in these offhanded conversations, when I guess they were trying to figure me out, said, “You know, she always was a little different." So that's kind of where I guess they came to terms with it. I was a little different, I was naughty. Angelica Bullock 13:11 And how did you feel entering at the age of twenty-nine? Sr. Claire E. Regan 13:16 I was giving up a lot. I didn't own a car or a home, but I was giving up my credit cards, my bank accounts, my career path. That was the biggest thing. I was giving up my career path, my apartment, my living independently for nine years. I mean, this was a big experiment. It was a big experiment. It was a big mystery and I had to let go of a lot but a lot of it also was that sense of the career path and where I was headed, and then this other was over here, a redirection. Angelica Bullock 13:58 What was your first mission working with the Sisters? Sr. Claire E. Regan 14:02 As a candidate, I served at St. Vincent's Hospital as an administrative resident. And that's like a medical residency but in administration. It's called administrative resident. So I rotated through various departments in the hospital. I got to know the Sisters at the hospital. I got to know the administrative issues and the staffing and the problems of the largest, large Catholic institution. -5- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 14:31 A question that I've been asking other Sisters, is the ability to see God in their mission. A question I have for you is when you were working in there, did you see God in the work that you were doing? Was that something you were concerned with? I guess it's not really... Sr. Claire E. Regan 14:51 Oh, no, I've struggled. I struggled with the politics of healthcare, the reimbursement, the politics, the systemic issues of health care. The word Catholic I remember saying at one time, "Okay, call it Vincent's Hospital. Don't call it St. Vincent's Hospital," because what was happening in the board room or in the administrative venues was not the same dialogue or engagement, mostly male dominated power, conflicted, reimbursement-driven. It was not the same world as the Sisters were inhabiting on the outside, serving the patients and trying to serve patients, patients' families. The patient advocates ombudsman, work in the lab or in the different surfaces of the hospital giving direct service. There was a real conflict at that time in my heart, about the Catholic mission and what was Catholic about this. It didn't feel very different from any other hospital at that time. It didn't feel that way to me coming in. Angelica Bullock 16:07 Is that something that you still feel or has it evolved? Sr. Claire E. Regan 16:13 There aren't Catholic hospitals in New York much anymore. Most of them have been driven out, the reimbursement mechanisms. There are a few of course, St. Joseph's, St. Vincent's, Harrison, and upstate, they're run differently upstate. It's not the same level of unreimbursed free care. It's not the same volume. So I left, then I entered and became a novice. And I did a year of volunteer work at the the Veterans Hospital on Kingsbridge Road. And I loved it. One day a week I was at the information desk, greeting the visitors, told them where they could find whatever they were looking for or give them visitor's passes. Just pass the time of day with the different men coming in. It was mostly men, coming for outpatient services. It was a great environment, it's like a big boys’ club. It was very different, the Veterans Hospital, very different. And then I entered novitiate and took vows. My first two years I worked at St. Joseph's Hospital in South Yonkers as the administrator and I liked that very much. I liked the idea of a community hospital. There was a Sister of Charity running it, Sr. Mary Linehan. It had a wonderful sense of mission, identity in the neighborhood, really had a community hospital mission and sense of itself that I loved and the staff was tremendous. The doctors, the employees, everybody had been there for a long time. It was like a big family. It was nice, I liked that. But I wanted to get back to East Harlem and I did. I went back to work for a home health agency in East Harlem as a client advocate. Angelica Bullock 18:25 And that was for the Littles Sisters of... -6- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Claire E. Regan 18:27 Little Sisters of the Assumption. And I was in the food pantry. I didn't run the food pantry in terms of ordering the food; Sr.Chris [not a Sister of Charity] did that. But there were two of us. Managed the food pantry, all the advocacy, most of it welfare advocacy, some evictions, applications for public benefits, all kinds of public benefits. Applications, food stamps, Medicaid, Welfare and part of the city-wide coalition of emergency food providers. We were documenting the matters of hunger in East Harlem, and what was causing people to have to come with food emergencies. What were the health impacts of some of those food emergencies, and impacts on children and families in the neighborhood of East Harlem. It was an exciting place to be and we were doing it collaboratively with other churches in the neighborhood who were beginning also to open food pantries. Angelica Bullock 19:34 And did you see the people who were using your services often or was it more...? Sr. Claire E. Regan 19:40 Everyday. Oh, yeah. They were coming every day for food. Angelica Bullock 19:45 And how did that impact your life or your theology or anything? Sr. Claire E. Regan 19:54 There's a quote in Scripture, 'the faithful steward who disperses food from the master's supply.' something like that. But I remember praying on that many a time and being grateful that God had put me in such a significant position to be the faithful steward dispersing the goods from the master supply to those in need. It was a very difficult era in East Harlem. It was 1987 to 1992. The crack epidemic, AIDS was happening, AIDS epidemic, crack cocaine, there were drug wars. I mean, people coming in the agency were either newly arrived undocumented people who have no jobs or have new babies and were trying to get health care for the babies and the mothers. And then you had addicts coming in to try to get some food to sell on the corner. So, we had to kind of be wise stewards of the little we had, so that we would disperse it in the proper way we had to. We had to assess each person differently and individually, but there were people trying to get over who were addicted to substances and things. Then what we tried to do, because we didn't want to pre-judge, we would take the labels off the can and market peas, carrots, potato, you know, but take the labels off the cans so they couldn't be resold. Or that somebody wouldn't be selling it on the corner. Because the clients would come in and say, “Sister, you gave to that guy the other day and he just was selling it on the corner,” so we were hearing it from the people that we were trying to serve that we were being taken advantage of. So, there was this kind of tension in serving in the front lines of the poor community in a drug era and era of crack cocaine and AIDS. That was part of the pain of being someone giving away food as well. It was a terrible heartache, because you didn't want to deprive someone of food if they needed it. So, what we did was mark them, take the labels off the cans or put a hole in the spaghetti box or do something so they would have food but they wouldn't be able to sell it. -7- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 22:32 Did you get pushback either internally from other Sisters and the Community or externally, family members, friends, about the work you were doing specifically during that time? Did Sisters discuss those? Sr. Claire Regan 22:53 We did. I lived at Mount Carmel at that time then and we did. We were very aware it was a wonderful community. There were ten of us in diverse ministries. So, they were education, employment empowerment with Grace Institute, parish work in inner city communities, parishes, nursing, there were different careers and occupations and a few of the Sisters worked at the agency with me teaching GED and whatever. So, we were very committed to the neighborhood and to the people. So, there was no pushback. There was all kind of collaboration and support and mutual prayer and conversation at dinner and just good support. It was a wonderful community. Angelica Bullock 23:53 Can you talk a little bit about your time as the director of Elizabeth Seton Housing? Sr. Claire E. Regan 23:59 Well, that taught me not to join a committee. Let's see. So, there was this committee, there was this plan. Sr. Florence Speth had built Fox House [homeless shelter for women and children in Harlem, Manhattan, NY] and wanted to do another building. So, a few of us gathered around her because she wanted to do another rehab. And the building became available and was funded by the state, which we were to call Seton House, at 1991 Lexington Avenue on the corner of 121st street. And as I said it was funded $1.4 million by New York State Homeless Housing Program. And it was permanent housing for formerly homeless families. According to the state rules for funding, the families, and we fought also to have individuals, homeless individuals, we fought for that, had to be homeless for at least eight months. That was tough. I said, "Eight months, they're going to unlearn any good habits they might have had, eight months." I could not get that rule to bend at all. So, with a lot of remediation of the families when they were coming back into the community, to really feel they were welcomed, had places to go for help, had the supportive people around them, it was supportive housing, and we had a food cooperative. We had some health fairs at the place. We tried to have tenant meetings to try to build a sense of community. The food co-op met every month and it was called the Share Program. Attended meetings, so I did that for four-and-one-half years. At that point it was stable, fully tenanted, everything. It was fully tenanted within eight months, seven/eight months, fully tenanted. Documented each case, they had shown that they were in what shelter and they had been in at least eight months. So, you had to have all that documentation for the state. And you had to register the rents, so then it was pretty routine at that point. Help the families with their special needs, register the rents, inspect the apartments. activities of daily life for the mothers that needed some help raising their children. We had a little after school program, Sr. Trinita Flood did a little after school program with the children doing their homework when they'd come home. So, they could come to our place after school and be picked up by their parents at Seton House. -8- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 27:00 Let's talk about that. Sr. Claire Regan 27:02 The justice work. It started when I was on a poverty [committee] out of one of the assemblies [election of Congregation Officers], there were committees formed and I was on the poverty committee, and you had to be named to that committee. So, Sisters came to us and said, "I want you to serve on the poverty committee." Then they submitted our names and the council formed these particular committees out of assembly, and I was named to the poverty committee; I think there were seven of us. And in the matter of our coming together and the issues of the times, we said we need to be more effective in our work for justice. So, we created justice effectiveness as the position. Now there had always been a social concerns coordinator before that, so it wasn't per se that different, but then again, it was because it was taking our advocacy into a prime motion. In other words, not just a social concerns weekend once a year or a little update in the 'LeGras Bulletin,' [internal weekly publication featuring Community events and administration news] but really, with phone trees and relays, educating the Sisters on the matters and then not telling them how to vote. But, when it was time for a vote in the Congress and informing them much the way network does, informing them there was a significant vote happening in the Legislature or in the United States Congress, and would they call during that week, their representative. The message was sent on behalf of the poor, this is what we want to see happen. Vote against this or vote for it. But it's pretty much you did the education and then the suggested action. Angelica Bullock 28:44 And under what president was this happening was this ...? Sr. Claire E. Regan 28:50 That would have been Clinton [President Bill Clinton, 1993-2001]. A lot of it was under Clinton. Mr. Bush [President George W. Bush, 2001-2009] and the other first Mr. Bush [President George Bush, 1989-1993]. That was the era that I was in. So, welfare reform was a major piece and the national health care reform, Hillary Clinton [First Lady of the United States, 1993-2001] taking the lead on national health care reform. I went to an invitational meeting in Washington that network put together, what would be the platform for Catholic healthcare to put forward. People from all across the country, there were Sisters who were doctors and professors of health, medical schools and people working at mobile health clinics in Appalachia and I was doing my work in East Harlem, there was just so much going on. So national health care reform was really big, a really big issue at the time and Hillary Clinton was pulling all the pieces together. So, this was the Catholic effort to get a platform together. They had doctors against nuclear war, they had all kinds of people at this invitational to Washington, DC and sponsored by network. And we really fleshed out what we wanted to see in that health care and that was three or four days. We fleshed argued out, yes, no, maybe so, why, why not? And do you know when healthcare actually came out in the Obama time, network had a lot to do with getting that passed. And they were held up in that indoctrination series, they were held up for public scrutiny, because they played a significant role in Canadian national health care passed. -9- Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Angelica Bullock 31:03 Can you explain a little bit what exactly network is? Sr. Claire E. Regan 31:07 Network started in the '70s. It was national health care lobby, Catholic social justice lobby. And it was run by women religious at the time. So, it was a national social justice, Catholic social justice lobby officially registered as lobbyists. Angelica Bullock 31:29 And can you talk about what specifically you and other Sisters were passionate about when it came to healthcare? Sr. Claire E. Regan 31:39 Access for the poor at a reasonable cost. Access was big issue, access. There were so many people with AIDS and drug addicted, and they were not getting any help anywhere, nobody. There was no care for them unless they could pay for it or have insurance. It was really, really, access for the poor and affordability. Angelica Bullock 32:11 I know I'm missing things. Give me one minute. Sr. Claire E. Regan 32:14 I'll give you 5 more minutes. Angelica Bullock 32:16 Do you have anything to add about corporate responsibility? Sr. Claire E. Regan 32:20 Yeah, that was the era of big, big matters of the environment, corporate responsibility. So, the first time I ever heard the word Maquiladora. I went to the first meeting that I went to, and they kept talking about Maquiladora, Maquiladora. And what is that an endangered animal or something? I didn't know what a Maquiladora was. M-A-Q-U-I-L-A-D-O-R-A. It was a factory across the border. And they were using poor Mexicans to make products for Americans and then ship them across the border. So. they were paying no wages and selling high profits in the United States, so it was this whole sense of justice for the Maquiladoras. Well, I thought it was an endangered species, some fur-bearing animal. You know, was funny, my very first meeting, I was totally blown out of the water. You go ICCE, Interface Center for Corporate Responsibility, and these are high-powered folks, up to the signs of the times, well read, talking justice, bang, bang, bang, and it's energizing, but it's also exhausting. But issues of the environment, plastics and chemicals in the water, pollution in the Hudson River was a big matter that we had. Healthcare, the cost of prescription drugs was another area I took a lot of interest in. And then credit access and credit matters, credit cards, lending practices with banks because we're a major banking center here. So, to save money with my budget, I didn't want to travel. - 10 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai �I took on healthcare, which was New Jersey-based corporate headquarters, the banks, which were New York based on credit, and credit operations and finance, banking practices, and then the environment. Some of that I took on but I didn't take it on big because those companies were in other parts of the country. Some of the chemical and oil producing, polluting, and they were all around the world, Shell, [Royal Dutch Shell, oil refinery company] those kind of folks. So, I focused more on the pharmaceutical companies, the price of drugs and the banking credit practices and home lending and derivatives and things like that. Angelica Bullock 35:06 I know we're running out of time. I think we have three minutes but, could you discuss a little bit how you and the other Sisters, there was a committee, is that ...? Sr. Claire E. Regan 35:15 The Interfaith Center is a national group, it's a national organization of religious investors. And that's how I first got captured by New Orleans. We went down there and had our annual meeting in New Orleans in 2009. Katrina had hit in 2005. We had our annual conference in 2009. And it took my heart, you know, we were investing in there, we were doing post-disaster investing, looking at it more systemically, post-disaster recovery, and how you finance it and look for justice among the insurance companies and the banks as well as the federal grants mechanisms. So, I went down to New Orleans and went to the different areas and parts of the city and I just fell in love with the city and then the Federation came out with the ministry, the House of Charity, the next year. Actually, the letter came out the next month. So that was June, we had the annual meeting. In July the letter came out inviting Sisters, if they were interested to think about ministry in New Orleans. And I got there, we opened the house January of 2010, and I got there June of 2010. I was there for nine years. Rebuilding was the primary work, volunteer groups doing rebuilding. But I also got involved at peacemaking, working with Mothers who've lost children to violence, that whole sense of community engagement, religious organizing around matters of violence in the city, and then giving bereavement support in my parish to mothers who had lost children in the violence. So that was what I did on the outside. Angelica Bullock 37:21 It kind of seems like there's a transformation. Maybe, but not maybe in your career path where it seems like the work you were previously, most recently doing was more emotional, or more...maybe that's not true. I guess when you're talking about the bereavement counselor. Could you explain maybe... Sr. Claire E. Regan 37:49 I took that training during the days of the AIDS epidemic I took that training because I wanted to help mothers or people coming in who had a family member with AIDS. So that training I had for a long time, but I was applying it in a different circumstance with the violence in New Orleans. I was applying it in a different, in a more concentrated, focused way to a support group of women who were coming together, trying to help each other because they had lost a child to violence. Angelica Bullock 38:27 So, in helping others heal, how or was it a transformative experience for you? I guess helping people through grief. Was it … - 11 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai �Sr. Claire E. Regan 38:48 Rewarding? Well, you have to realize the whole city was screaming, the whole city of New Orleans. So, it was a city in grief; that was part of what called me there. So, I was even in pastoral visiting, there was something that you were touching or hearing or experiencing in the people you met. That was the shared story of Katrina. And it was a new chapter in the city trying to come back. And coming back in ways that people hoped were for the better, which they were in some ways, but they were gentrifying at the same time. Angelica Bullock 39:30 What do you see for the future? New Orleans, maybe in a positive light? Sr. Claire E. Regan 39:39 Oh, yeah, it's positive. And it's wonderful. It's a great place for families for faith, the church in New Orleans is very different than the church in New York. Very pastoral, very committed, going back in families, generations. It's just a whole different reality. New Orleans is a great place. It's got everything going for it. Good food, good music, good people. What more can you need? Angelica Bullock 40:16 Do you have any ending comments that you'd like to add your interview? Sr. Claire E. Regan 40:21 The way I see things going, I met with an associate [lay volunteer working with the Sisters of Charity of New York] last night and our conversation today, the justice agenda is going to take us to new places. So, for instance, the matter of immigration is going to be drawing us physically, emotionally to the madness at the border. You know, we're going to have to get more involved and take little risks. And I think that call to justice for Earth as well, is going to make us put out substance, not just our money, but our lifestyles, behaviors, commitments, relationships, all is going to be rehashed or renewed or made different. Because of what you're looking for is the consistency of your lifestyle with your mission, with the message. And if the message is this time of the Earth, and time of Earth and Earth suffering, as well as the poor suffering economically, ecologically and injustice, ecological injustice. They bear the outcome of people seeking profit at the expense of Earth and the poor suffering, so our mission continues. It will have new armament. Our education, new modes of communication, amplify the message in ways never before. Clinton's daughter Chelsea [daughter of President Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton] said, "One person can make a movement." Look at Mother Seton, thirty-three sisters in New York when we started. So, you don't need a lot of bodies in this age of communication. You need the heart and the head that come together around the gospel and Christ and the Kingdom. So, it's a great time, right? No lack of challenges. - 12 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai � https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/a74e2d1985f5f5ad9668a16fed3badcf.mp3 0b7a774b5c840c81c077074d4aba61d1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sisters of Charity of New York Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bullock, Angelica Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Regan, Claire E., SC Location The location of the interview Louise Le Gras Hall at Mount Saint Vincent, Bronx, New York Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data audio/mp3 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 42:27:00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Regan, Sister Claire E., SC, Oral History Subject The topic of the resource Sister Claire E. Regan, SC Sisters of Charity (New York, N.Y.) Monasticism and religious life of women Health Services Administration St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center of New York. Department of Community Medicine Patient representatives AIDS (Disease)--Patients Hurricane Katrina, 2005 Food banks National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility Description An account of the resource Inspired by volunteer involvement in her parish, Sr. Claire E. Regan left her career in corporate management prior to entering the Sisters of Charity in 1982, at the age of 29. During her varied ministry experiences, she lobbied regarding food insecurity, homelessness and the need for improved healthcare for the poor. During the challenges of the AIDS epidemic and drug wars of the 1980s-1990s, she served as an administrator in several metropolitan New York hospitals. As Director of Elizabeth Seton Housing and later in post-Katrina New Orleans, Sr. Claire worked with a national organization of religious investors to address accountability for health insurance companies, banks and federal grant mechanisms. Sr. Claire was a Councilor in Leadership at Mount Saint Vincent from 2019-2023. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sisters of Charity of New York Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sisters of Charity of New York Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-07-30 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mindy Gordon (Transcriber, Editor) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission for reproduction or quotation must be obtained through written application to: Director of Archives, Sisters of Charity of New York, 6301 Riverdale Avenue, Bronx, New York, 10471. This permission is valid only insofar as the Archives of the Sisters of Charity of New York, as owner or custodian, has any rights in the matter and does not remove the responsibility of the author, editor, and publisher to guard against the infringement of any rights; including copyright, that may be held by others. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav application/pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Regan, Claire E., SC Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant New York City Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sisters of Charity of New York AIDS Healthcare Sisters of Charity of New York https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/58c491bf6fc07923a300a7c6013a2d7e.jpg 973c4a96574fe29c1402afc903d147fe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sisters of Charity of New York Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bullock, Angelica Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed King, Sister Rita, SC Location The location of the interview Convent of Mount Saint Vincent Bronx, New York Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data audio/mp3 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 54:50:00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource King, Sister Rita, SC, Oral History Subject The topic of the resource Sister Rita King, SC Description An account of the resource As an educator and archivist, Sr. Rita King's career has been steeped in the pursuit of history. A former high school teacher, Dean and Principal, Sr. Rita was Congregation Archivist for over 15 years. During this time, she developed an arrangement by record group of archival materials and created a database of Sisters' records that became an essential research tool. Involved in the early development of the Archivists for Congregations of Women Religious (ACWR), she served a two-year term as President. Retired since 2008, Sr. Rita provides her thoughts about the role of an archivist, training and archival certification. completion of the Community. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sisters of Charity of New York Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sisters of Charity of New York Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-07-30 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mindy Gordon (Transcriber, Editor) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission for reproduction or quotation must be obtained through written application to: Director of Archives, Sisters of Charity of New York, 6301 Riverdale Avenue, Bronx, New York, 10471. This permission is valid only insofar as the Archives of the Sisters of Charity of New York, as owner or custodian, has any rights in the matter and does not remove the responsibility of the author, editor, and publisher to guard against the infringement of any rights; including copyright, that may be held by others. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav application/pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context King, Rita SC, Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant New York City Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sisters of Charity of New York https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/2ad9a9ee4a43e328ae4b751c0555a7da.jpg 2491d443b583b7e8c544867f14c1a0ef Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Elizabeth Boyle Hall Subject The topic of the resource Sisters of Charity of New York Description An account of the resource Elizabeth Boyle Hall is the location of the archives of the SIsters of Charity of New York. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sisters of Charity of New York Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sisters of Charity of New York Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022 Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul of New York https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/2c5137a235bbc718bea8544bb32b79c7.jpg d6edd7ab745c1b697489d43680d3fb47 https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/8e698839c5332ed8d95c206d7bf4f972.mp3 dcfb9a6b6e9bba236abd813305fb8736 https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/02322b4a0f5bfc99b89f57d0c873343a.mp3 3a2a1acd7f5a2da2a567c1f8867ea1ec https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/de107ab72e4fe0781656265e4523c088.mp3 f3a15bae36c4b8cb571edf7ce5ef582d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Sister Miriam Jane Hollowood Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sister Mary Schmidt Location The location of the interview Seton Hill College Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound OH - 81 Sr. Mary Schmidt Side I of Tape marked I and II OH I and OH II SMJH: This interview is being conducted as part of the oral history program of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill. The interviewee is Sister Mary Schmidt ,formerly known as Sister M. Thecla, and the interviewer is Sister Miriam Jane Hollowood. The interview is being conducted at Seton Hill College on July tenth, nineteen hundred eighty-four. SMJH: Sister Mary, will you tell us something about yourself before you came to Seton Hill? SMS: I am the oldest of six children. · My father was Henry Schmidt, who was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. My mother was a teacher of Speech, what they then called Elocution, Unfortunately, I didn' t imbibe any of the things my parents had specialized in. I went to Sacred Heart Grade School and High School. I'm sure that's where I got my greatest feelings for the Sisters of Charity . SMJH: Who were some of the Sisters that you knew at that time? SMS: I suppose the ones I had in high school were the most memorable. I had my name from the marvelous Sister M. Thecla Carroll, who was a Latin and Mathematics teacher. Sister Thecla died very suddenly at the age of forty-four when I was a sophomore at Sacred Heart. This was my first experience with death. At that time, Mother Rose Genevieve Rodgers knew I was going to enter and she said she would like to save that name for me, so she did. The person who was ' most influential with me at Sacred Heart was Sister M. Claudia Glenn, who later became Mother M. Claudia Glenn. She taught English for the four years I was at Sacred Heart High School. She was really the first to note I am sure that I was going to become a Sister of Charity. When I was twelve or thirteen, a freshman in high school, I remember one day of being struck beyond words when Sister Claudia said: "Mary, I know that you are going to be a Sister." I said: Well, how did you know that?" I realize now that she could see it. Those were the two people who were most influential. Of course, there was a teacher, Sister Rose de Lima Henry, whom I had the pleasure of having for Latin for four years. There were others. However, if you are asking for the highlights, those are the highlights. SMJH: When Mother Claudia said that she knew you were going to be a Sister, did you know? SMS: Yes, that's why I was so surprised. It was just around that time when I was in the eighth grade going into high school that I simply realized that I was to be a Sister. At that time I thought it was rather glamorous, but I also knew that it was a way of devoting my entire life t·o some thing. This may sound naive, but I always knew that I had to devote my entire life to something. It couldn't be any less. That's why I didn't want to marry, not meaning anything derogatory about marriage. I remember how I was very drawn to praying in Sacred Heart Church. They had Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on Fridays when'I was in grade school. I was always running back and forth between the church and home. We didn't live very far away. I also kept saying to mother: "I won't be away long. I'll be back soon. She of course didn' t mind. Then fortunately, or unfortunately, I realized that I wasn' t in any big hurry. My father, of course, just took it for granted that one went to college. I had no problem with that. I was delighted to go to college. Obviously, I went to Seton Hill. I had studied piano with my father for a number of years. He was very interested in my not being very good at it. He said: "If you are really interested in becoming a religious, I don't want you to become a piano teacher." He had seen too many of them who didn't have enough to do but listen to little children. I had nothing to do with it, but I have always been grateful to him since. He said: "I don't want you to learn any more piano if you are determined to do this." Before I went to college, that was the idea. It is also true that my first preference has been English, both reading and writing it. I really don't think I ever had any trouble with anything. I had an extraordinarily happy childhood and home. I look back on that as being very helpful to me. My mother was a convert, and had no great feeling for my wanting to be a Sister. She also had some problems with some of the sisters when my brothers were altar boys and choir boys. That wasn't important. She came to be very happy with the whole thing. That's pretty much in a nut shell what my early years were like. SMJH: Now, you said your Father was a Music Professor. Didn't he also teach at Seton Hill College? SMS: Well, he did along with his teaching at Carnegie Mellon. He didn' t teach at the college while I was a student. I know he was here while I was a white capped novice. He never left Carnegie Mellon. He only came up to Seton Hill College two days a week. This was during depression times when the younger students at Carnegie Mellon and at Seton Hill were not so numerous as they had been, and consequently he was able to condense his work at Carnegie Mellon into three days a week and teach at Seton Hill the other two. He was here for four or five years. I remember that Mother M. Evaline Fisher was the Mother Superior and also chair­ man of the Board of Directors for Seton Hill College. She wanted to get my father to be chair­ man of the Music Department, hoping that the connection with Pittsburgh might be influential in getting more students to come to the college. My Father and Doctor Reeves were great friends, and my father enjoyed his time at Seton Hill. I believe that it was difficult for my father and he should only have been at Seton Hill for a short time. Anyhow, he went back to Carnegie Mellon until he retired. All of his friends were there. It was like in the Henry James era. If you wanted to study music a lot, you went to Europe, and so he did. Many of his friends went to Europe also and when they came back they were the pioneer faculty of the Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. This was about nineteen hundred ten. We were faculty children, and we went to the swimming pool and music classes, and Dr. Baker' s Christmas parties for faculty children. That's my recollection of it. It was kind of a nice thing. We enjoyed it. SMJH: That' s good, and he got to be part of our faculty at Seton Hill. You graduated from Seton Hill with a Bachelor's degree in English and then went to Pitt to obtain a Master' s degree in English. SMS: Yes, I graduated from Seton Hill in nineteen thirty-two, and again wasn't in any hurry to leave home, so I went to Pitt and graduated with a Master's degree in English in nineteen thirty­ four. My father was also in favor of this. He thought it was better for one to get as much college work as possible, as he had some insight to some of the problems people had. SMJH: So, you entered the Community then in nineteen thirty-four. What was the Community like at that time? I'm sure it was different for a woman entering with a Master's degree, which was not common at that time. SMS: It was difficult. I was the first one. People thought that you might become a snob. I was a great substitute in the fourth grade, about which I knew nothing, and I have never to this day set my foot inside a high school as a teacher. I understand this. It was the mentality of religious life at that time, and it would not happen today. I knew that here I was, I belonged, and never doubted for one second. I was extremely happy in the community. The first thing I did when I didn't let them decide was to go to Altoona to teach the seventh grade. Where upon I fell with a terrible case of scarlet fever. That ended my career as a mission sister after a few months. They really wanted someone as a seventh grade teacher. They felt that you would know so much more because of having a master's degree. Then I came back to Seton Hill. I was a black cap novice. For a time, I was not doing anything as the scarlet fever left me with a heart involvement, which evaporated later on, but I had it then. It was Christmas week. I had not made my vows yet. Behold, Sister Victoria Brown, who was an English teacher took a trip to the hospital and was retained for a while. So, here I was with a Master' s Degree in English. There must have been a great commotion among the powers. about my doing anything. Some of them felt it was the kiss of death for me to do anything. There they were, and here I was with this degree, so anyhow I did it. I became a part time teacher in the college the Spring Semester of . nineteen thirty-six. Somehow, I got a much better feeling for the sisters than what I had when I was in college. They seemed so much better. I didn't come to the community because I thought the sisters were marvelous. I came because I knew that was what I had to do with my life. I was presumably destined to be an English teacher. Sister Victoria, who was the treasurer decided that I should go to Oxford University in England for a degree. They didn't give a doctorate, but they gave a Master's, which they feel is superior to our American Doctorate. I was indeed supposed to go. All preparations were made. In the late summer of nineteen thirty;.e ight; there was a big scare in this country that the war was immanent. Well, it was decided that it wouldn't be good to send a young sister off into a war. So everyone said: "We' ll wait·until next year. War was declared on September fourth of nineteen thirty-nine, so I never went. At that same time since I was already to go somewhere, they packed me off to New Haven, Connecticut in September of nineteen thirty-nine. I was there until January of nineteen forty-three, which was four years. I stayed with the Sisters of Charity in New Jersey. They were near the University. They were so nice, but didn't understand what on earth I was doing. I enjoyed that life, that scholarly life I guess you would say, very much...being on my own. However, I knew I belonged in the community, so I hurried back to Seton Hill. SMJH: What did you do your dissertation on? SMS: I did my dissertation on Sir Thomas Moore. It turned out to be a very small subject within a great field. I knew that ifl was going to spend a year or year and a half on anybody, I wanted it to be someone I could feel some sympathy for. I wanted to take someone who had a religious mentality. I thought ifl took Alexander Pope or somebody like that for that length of time, I couldn' t take it! So, even though I had no course work in Tudor English, I took it on.....Sir Thomas Moore. I enjoyed it very much ...going through books, transcribing in black letters which was the way it was then. It has only been in the past twenty-five years that things were printed in ordinary letters. During all this time, the war was going on. I still wonder now why I didn't know more about the war, even though I read the New York Times every Sunday. I still want to know why I didn't know more. I think you become very engrossed and very selfish in a way while during library work. It' s very demanding! There were only four women working on their graduate work, but they too were talking about their work, and not the war. Men were at the age where they were drafted into the war. I'm certainly no expert on the second world war. SMJH: No, but you' re an expert on Thomas Moore. You have published some papers on Thomas More. SMS: Yes, I also have a very good experience of the generosity of this Community. When I finished there, I had all sorts of things that I came across while I was doing my dissertation. The dissertation on Thomas Moore was recognized on Thomas Mooore's use of St. Augustine as his English polemical work. It was certainly nothing anyone should be bored to death by reading it. But, while you are doing this you run across fascinating things which you want to pursue. So, it was the most natural thing in the world to want to write about these things, and.I did. I had many summers, one after the other when I went back to New Haven and did this writing. I got it into print, not anything marvelous. The first thing I had printed was an essay on St. Patrick because that was enlarged in nineteen forty-five shortly after I was back. SMJH: Why did you do St. Patrick? SMS: Well, again, there was a large group of women, possibly from the A.O.H. They wanted a speech, and I was asked if I would give this speech. They wanted something relative to the pious nature. It was in March, and I was asked to speak about St. Joseph or St. Patrick. I knew little about St. Joseph, and I knew that.St. Patrick had a lot of historical things. I made this great discovery that Patrick was a staff (couldn' t make next word out) character. So I got together some of these things and gave my speech. They were things that perhaps they had heard, but claimed they were all news to them. I got this speech sent to the magazine "America" for publication. Then after that I did other articles like St. Thomas Moore , The Medieval Devil and other funny things like that, which were also published in "America", and "The Catholic World". In those days, they were the only magazines that would print things with background, at least that I knew of. There was one article published in the "Scholarly Journal" and others were published in different places. (She didn't name these places). SMJH: Did you also have some poetry published? SMS" Yes, some short ones, which were also published in "America". SMJH: Did you want to say anything about coming back to Seton Hill and being on the Faculty? SMS: Yes, those years when I was teaching were probably the best years of my life. SMJH: That's great, and we'll continue this interview sometime later! SMJH: This is a continuation of the oral history interview with Sister Mary Schmidt. (Sr. Miriam Jane didn't give any date here). Sister, when you returned from Yale University, you became a full time member of the English Department at Seton Hill. What were some of the courses that you taught? SMS: Well, I taught Writing. We all of course taught Freshman English, and I happened to like that very much. I also enjoyed teaching Writing. We also had a course in "Advanced Composition" we called it. English Majors were required to take it. At least they did. Then I taught Shakespeare, Literary Criticism, and sometime later, I'm not sure exactly when, but I taught Twentieth Century English Literature. I never was an American literature person. I didn' t have any advance work in it and didn't have a feel for it. As I recall; we , especially young teachers, took for granted that we taught whatever.needed to be taught. It didn' t matter how many hours it happened to be. One became the advisor for the publications that would be corning in and for the "Quarterly," which at that time was a rather active thing. It came out three times a year and included a commencement issue. Many marvelously talented girls whose things I value very much, and have never thrown out were printed in it. The other thing, of course, was that you were appointed to be a class advisor, as I was, pronto, by Sister Victoria Brown, who was the young Dean at the college. I wanted to write and do all these things, but I became a class advisor immediately. So, the class came in the Fall of nineteen forty-three (some of what she said here is disconnected for want of a way to put it), right when I was getting started. I was the class advisor for the class of nineteen forty-seven. I put on the Freshman show " Anne" of? (couldn't understand what she said). ·The Freshman show had something to do with frogs. I don't remember what it was. A lot of the people laughingly remember some of the songs in it. I do remember how desperately hard it was to get the girls together to get the show together, while at the same time having many other responsibilities. You still had large charges. SMJH: When you say you had large charges to do, what exactly does that mean? SMS: You had a lot of manual stuff which you had to do. You were responsible for cleaning one of the classrooms. You did this for quite a number of years. Some of my dear friends used to come and help me clean. It was in Room 236. They would shove the chairs around, etc. SMJH: Was that your weekly charge? SMS: You cleaned the blackboard every day. Only once a week did you do the marvelous pushing the mop around. These are funny little things, but as faculty members, you were expected to do all these things. You were primarily a good sister, and after that a faculty member. I don't say that with any bitterness. It was just a funny situation, and that's the way it was! Even the chairman of our department, Sister Electa Boyle felt this, and she had done the same. So, there wasn't anything the matter with this. She had no feelings as to the number of things people had to do. You see, it all came through alright. I don't think I became any less the teacher. I think you're young enough. You rise to the occasion! You have good health, and it's expected. SMJH: In addition to your full time teaching, advising, and doing all these other things, you were also responsible for all your community activities. You took time out to go to Quarter Prayers, and did you go to recreation with the community? SMS: Why of course! I skipped recreation as often as I could. There were many evening meetings which I had to attend. I was never very fond of recreation. I think it was a contrived thing! It wasn't really recreational. However, you did all those things. You rose at five-fifteen AM even though you lived on the floor with the students and were responsible for them. I distinctly remember that when Mother Maria Benedict Monahan was confronted with the fact that the college sisters were not getting enough sleep because we had charge of the floors. In other words, they were supposed to be quiet, but not until eleven o'clock. If they weren't quiet, you took care of it, but you still got up at five-fifteen. Mother Maria Benedict said of course that this was fine because we could always catch up on sleep during the time we had between classes. I think that this was her sincere view of the matter. I remember getting very exhausted, and was relieved once I no longer had this responsibility. I really never enjoyed floor duty. SMJH: Did you say that the girls were to be silent at eleven o'clock? SMS: They weren' t silent. They just weren't supposed to shriek, etc. I slept on Fifth Canevan next to a floor of double decked beds. SMJH: Double decked beds? SMS: Yes, they were all double decked beds. We had more students than we had room for. We didn' t have Brownlee or Havey then. They would merrily jump from top to bottom and laugh and laugh. Of course, I made some of my best friends that way too. The only thing is as I think back on it was that it was an arduous life. I don't think it made me a wretched teacher. I think you rise to the occasion , and you can do it. However, I would not ask anyone else to do it. SMJH: As adviser to the Setonian, you probably kept late hours too. SMS: Well, I suppose so. I don't seem to remember much about whether I did or not, but probably did. SMJH: When you were adviser to the Setonian, who was your Printer, do you remember? SMS: Yes, Mr. George Berrry. He had been Adviser to the Setonian when I was Editor during my years in college. He was such a dear man, and a wonderful friend. I remember when I was a Senior, he brought the paper into my house in Pittsburgh. It had just come out . It was during the Summer. I suppose there was a change in Printers. I don't have any recollection of when George Berry died. I didn' t keep the Setonian for years and years. I had it before I went to Yale, and sometime after that. The other thing that I began to do was "The Alumni Quarterly", so every vacation that you had, you're down in the office typing up the news for the next "Quarterly." Here again, with all my ambitions to write, and here I was typing class news. However, I did go away many Summers , and this provided me with opportunity to write. I have never loved anything so much as being a teacher in the classroom. Consequently, it was announced to me in February of nineteen fifty-seven ,by Mother M. Claudia Glenn , that I would not be teaching any longer. This was a great blow to me. I was very unhappy about this. SMJH: Now, you were not to teach any longer, and for what reason? SMS: It was because I was to be in the President's office. I was to be the Assistant to the President of the college per Mother M. Claudia Glenn. I was Assistant, and not Vice President, because she thought I was too young to have this title. I was only forty! I didn't know what I was going to do. The big thing I wanted to do was teach. I said: "But I have courses, and Mother Claudia said:" They will be taken care of." I kept one course going for three years. I also had the honors course, and I kept it up after I got into the office. To a degree I would have evening seminars for the honor students. That's how I came to know Mary Ann Crenner (sounded like) and others. SMJH; Who was the President of the college at that time? SMS: The President at that time was: Father William Granger Ryan. We were always kind of friendly. He used to put his head in the window by the Canevan arch where I had my office. I would be facing the window and suddenly there would be this large head looking at me in the window, laughing. I knew I would never, never, ever learn the alphabet system of that kind of office. It was like another world. Father Ryan was marvelous to work with, so that made up for a lot of other things. That job just grew in a topsy turvy fashion. From the first moment when I talked to Father Ryan that lovely February morning in nineteen fifty-seven, I went right to Mother Claudia. She said: ''Now, Father Ryan expects that you will go over to his house." I went, and there he was wearing a neck brace because he was having so much tension. He would be away and come back this way. So, without any direction from Mother Claudia, because she was most evasive, Father Ryan talked to me. He told me that whenever he was away, he would support me in any decisions, right or wrong, which I made in his absence. I thought...what am I going to decide? So, he was stuck with the assistant title too. We never had a bad moment in thirteen years. SMJH: What were your responsibilities as assistant to the President? SMS: Well, I started out by going through the mail when he was away. That' s when I had very little to do. He didn't quite know yet what to.do with the assistant to the President. That's why I went to the Archives at that time to help Sister M. Electa Boyle. Things began to grow. For one year I could teach one class. When Father Ryan was home, he worked very hard at indoctrinating me to the job, but he was away a good bit of the time. It wasn't a clear cut job. I don't understand it myself, but that's the way it was. Father Ryan was stuck with the assistant title for some time. He wasn't permitted to say what my title really was. At one point he called me "Dean" of the faculty, which I didn't understand either. Then, after a long time, we did get around to my being Vice President. It was an experience which he and Sister Muriel Flamman made quite bearable. The thing that' s so wonderful about this is, that Sister Muriel as Dean of the college was next in line as President...ex officio. All of a sudden here is this other office created between, so I took precedence. She made me feel so welcome. It was the most beautiful experience. It gave me an insight into her which of course extended into several years. I don't know of any other person who could not only make you feel welcome, but was also so gracious. When I say that we never had any bad moments in the office, I don't mean that we didn't have numerous bad moments together. We had numerous, different kinds of people confronting us. We worked two against the world a great deal of the time. I don't remember a great many details in those early years. Father Ryan was doing a great deal of pioneering in the Pennsylvania college organization. He and other independent college presidents, besides universities, really did more in those years for the status of colleges in Pennsylvania, for the scholarship program, for the whole scene of private colleges in Pennsylvania. These were the men who did it all...back scene. There is a section here that is very difficult to hear. Sister's speech is not clear...too fast and words are run together. Suffice it to say, that I believe what she is saying here is that she didn't have a clue about what needed to be done regarding the area of accomplishing the goals that she attributed to Father William Granger Ryan and other college presidents. Sister says again that she had to learn everything from Father Ryan. Her own words were: The Presidents were always very remote. I knew Father Reeves well, but would never just walk into his office. As a faculty member, there was no relationship at all. It was an "on the job" learning experience. Looking back, I don't think I would have asked to be relieved of this job because Father Ryan was such a good priest and educator that I would not have voluntarily left. SMJH: Weren't those also important years in the college in the new arrangement of the board of trustees? Did that happen during those years? SMS: I'll tell you what happened. This was one of the many things which Father Ryan knew he had to accomplish. It was a strange system retained by women religious communities, not sure about men, by which their Mother General and her Officers were in the primary control of the college. Now, "The Middle States' , had been confronting them for some time on this, realizing that they needed larger ranging support in their board. They needed people who understood finances and all kinds of things. These Sisters of course, with all good will did not understand. They were very fearful, not only ours, but there were many others. They were very fearful of losing control. They thought people would run away with the money bags or something like that. They would choose to let anything happen which did not include them primarily. So, Father Ryan got together a board, which was an advisory board. It met for the first time on March twelfth, nineteen hundred fifty-seven, just after I appeared in the office. They were some of the best people to have in Greensburg. SMJH: Who were some of the people? SMS: Well, you had: Chuck Lynch, Tom Wentley (if spelling is correct), Ed Brinker, representatives from the banks... the general people who were knowledgeable and acceptable in Greensburg. Father himself had some friends from elsewhere. There was: Mrs. Helen Cutting, who was a very wealthy woman from New Jersey. She came to all the board meetings from New Jersey. There were others. Oh, I forgot, Jack Coulter was on it. They didn' t really have authority, but they did have a title "Board of Trustees", which was very cunning (believe this is the word she used), but no-one seemed to object to it. They all knew that they were not really a trustee board. So, the Sisters, the Council would meet with them. They did a great many things for us....using their influence financially, getting the city to do things, etc. Sometimes advice was welcome, sometimes not. However, they were there to support and help. They could never get the "Go Sign", to make that Board a legal body, which was really in control of the college, until finally twelve years later, under Mother M. Victoria Brown's leadership in office. She knew what had to be. By this time, "The Middle States" began to be rather insistent about it. So. She and her Council agreed to it. We had a long process of dissolving and incorporating...couldn't understand everything Sr. Mary was saying here. Pat Pacello (if spelling is correct) is and has been our attorney for years. He helped us to get things resolved. He worked in the courts. He even offered to go around to the various communities and explain to the Sisters that we were not giving anything away. We were simply strengthening our Organization. It was determined therefore that there would be fifteen sisters and fifteen lay people on the Board. This was in nineteen sixty-nine, and that is still true. At this time, Father Ryan's health was very poor. He was completely worn out. He got this Board started December of 1969, and announced to them that due to his declining health, he was retiring. He left in June . The Board was finally an accomplished fact. That was his greatest accomplishment for the college. SMJH: We want to talk about your years as President of the college. That will be the topic of our next session. Tape ill Begins Here July 4, 1984. SMJH: This is a continuation of the oral history program with Sister Mary Schmidt. The date is: Wednesday, July fourth, nineteen eighteen-four. Sister Mary was named acting President of Seton Hill College by the Board of Trustees in May of nineteen seventy, and elected to the office of President in nineteen seventy-one. She held that office until her resignation in June of nineteen seventy..se ven. In a newspaper article from "Westmoreland's Wednesday," dated June first, nineteen seventy-seven, the reporter says: "The entire academic world was in turmoil in nineteen, seventy-one, the year that Sister Mary Schmidt was made President of Seton Hill. Student and faculty dissension that arose during the height of the Vietnam conflict continued. Declining enrollments were plaguing all but a few colleges and universities . The image of institutions of higher learning had never been lower. Graduates from colleges all over the country faced a depressed job market. Vocational schools cut into a traditional student school, and career minded young men and women began to seek specialized technical training. Seton Hill was not spared the repercussions of these problems. Happily for the college, the woman who walked into the President's Office in nineteen seventy-one was equal to the task that lay ahead." End of quote. SMJH: Sister Mary, we know that this is true. Will you tell us how you were able to confront the problems and issues of the seventies? SMS: Well, I should say initially that the woman who walked into the President's office at that time had no convictions as to whether she could take care of these things. Neither had she any vision of what was to come. We were, I would say immediately plunged into a horrendous despot in the Summer of nineteen seventy-one. We had, without any warning a smaller freshman enrollment that we had ever dealt with before. The Board, my very attentive and careful Board, immediately said that we could not afford to carry deficits of this sort. The only way we could save money to stabilize (couldn't clearly hear) the College budget was to cut the Faculty. Since the student enrollment was smaller, it was of course assumed that a smaller number of faculty would do. Simplistically of course that wasn't true, but it turned out that I had no choice. I was faced head on with the need to make a study of class size and Faculty members. So, we made a careful view of the whole thing, so that we had at least a reasonable case. Then came the dramatic announcement to terminate three or four young faculty members. This, at the time, was a kind of bombshell, since the unrest of both family and students had already been felt across the country in large universities. It's always later in reaching the smaller, conservative women's campuses. All these faculty members and students were well aware that their time had come. And so, the announcement of the termination of these faculty members, caused quite a commotion, but it resulted shortly thereafter in the Pennsylvania Labor Union being invoked. We therefore were informed that our Faculty had shown that they had desired membership in our college in view. That, of course, threw us into a very bad state, because a labor union in a college of our size, would be fatal. The demands were very high for salaries, etc. It would have been the end of the college. (There was the roar of what sounded like a train here, preventing me from getting what Sister Mary had to say). So, without going into the gruesome details, I would say that we had to go through a period of trying to do everything that we could to help to confront this problem. We were facing an election by our Faculty as to whether or not the college would be accepted. SMJH: Were the Sisters on the Faculty permitted to vote? Were they part of that? SMS: No, the Sisters, normally were not permitted to vote. There was a great deal of feeling among the Sisters. They too felt very keenly about their salaries and conditions, etc. However, the National Relations Board in Pittsburgh, advised that we have a lawyer, and they had a lawyer to determine the Sisters right to vote. It turned out in our favor. They didn't have a vote. We were having this vote then by the lay Faculty, and while you were permitted to talk individually to the Faculty members and Administrator, you couldn't have a meeting. So, it was very draining, and a wretched experience all the way around. Finally, the day came when the secret ballot was to be cast, and this was done at the end of the day to the consternation of the other members who had been brought in from the Pennsylvania Labor Union. The vote was two or three in favor of the Union, but the others were against it, but before that, you had no idea how people were going to vote on a secret ballot. You may have had pleasant conversation or so, but you don' t know how they are actually going to vote. This had been triggered by the termination of those young faculty members, and they lost. This was still in nineteen seventy one-seventy­ two. We were also scheduled for a Middle States exhibit (too difficult to hear), which as you know comes every ten years. We had a special case study that year. It took much more time than the one you had in nineteen eighty-two. Very able administrators from a number of colleges come. I happened to be in the office the night before they were to start their work. " You may find that there is more entertainment on our campus, because our students are going to demonstrate that we are really a wretched Organization because we terminate faculty members and we don't do anything that's right!" Of course, they all laughed. The only thing is that I'm afraid they will never do it because they are ultra conservative. I just want you to be ready for it. Nothing of course happened. Things went on. We didn't have to terminate any more faculty members the following year. The enrollment began to pick up. I think, we have a note here, that at some point in nineteen seventy-seven, we had seven hundred ninety full time students, whereas in nineteen seventy, we had six hundred. For us, that was a rather large growth figure. That was not because of me, that was simply the time ( couldn't understand...sounded like stanzika...never heard the word) perhaps in which we were able to get back on our feet. Perhaps it wa-s becauseof all the turmoil we had in the beginning. Things really cleared the books were cleared, and the budget was cleared, and we could go forward. The national situation which you referred to in the newspaper article you read meant that no one going into any kind of office in nineteen seventy-one could go in starry eyed. Everyone knew that faculty and students were no longer satisfied with the status quo. Everyone knew that the plans presented for growth in the nineteen sixties had to be scrapped. It was a lovely plan, beautiful building, but we could not afford it, anymore than we could afford the fine arts building. In other words, instead of dreaming for these wonderful things, you had to begin to work on campus with the people involved in consolidation. You had to realize that the only building you were going to do thereafter, was replacement, and I think that has been true. We did fix up a Music wing while I was in office. That was done with a grant from "The R. K. Mellon Foundation." SMJH: That was an interesting building, was it not? Wasn't it the old laundry building? The institution no longer provided laundry service for the students or the sisters living here. SMS: Yes, that is all true, and I think that the architect was very clever also in leaving a solid stone foundation on the building. Then when the state dictated that we could no longer use St. Mary's for classrooms or for indeed much of anything, we had to replace that building, and we did. The original Stokes Mansion was caving in on itself. The whole building had to go. ·We had the option of spending a couple of million dollars of rebuilding it as a monument, but we didn't choose to do that. We were then able to sell it. ( Sister Mary said something else about this, but it was garbled). The Home Economic Department came up here after much commotion. People came up here, and they were happy not to be running up and down the hill. The building which took its place is a lovely building. There was concern at the time, that it wouldn't be too nice because there is not much sun shining in that area. However, that wasn't the case. It turned out to be quite satisfactory. I have heard people later on remarking how well the building blends in with the other buildings on the campus. The Security members said how wonderful it is that the building fits in with the structural harmony of the other buildings. My point in bringing this up is to say that instead of going ahead with grandiose building plans, one had to made do, and we've been making do ever since. SMJH: So, the Music and Home Economic Buildings were put up during your time in office? SMS: Yes, the plans for the Music Building were done before that per the grant from the "R. K. Mellon Foundation"as said earlier. Then I went to the "Kresge Foundation" in Detroit following . the arrangement Sister Dorothy Jacko had made with them. They gave us a large sum of money which was used for the Home Economic Building. I don't think you would have received money during those years to put up something lovely ..e.g. a student union building. It would have been difficult to prove that you were going to use the facility within a certain time limit. I believe I think of those years on the negative side. It seemed like you were constantly fighting for something. I do remember a couple of things which I was very pleased about. We began the Campus Ministry Program some time during those years. I don't recall exact dates. My memory is all I'm going on. Perhaps someone would like to look it up in the files. I remember that the students' response to the initiation of the Campus Ministry was tremendous! Most ofus were 12 very happy, because it was difficult in the sixties to find students attracted to a program that was altruistic and outgoing. They were too concerned with running around in their bare feet, wearing cut off jeans, wondering why they couldn't have this or that etc. The reception the students gave to the concept of campus ministry and the actuality of it was a remarkable thing. We also found among the Faculty a great cooperative spirit, usually because there is an obvious need, to see how to see what could be done about bringing (not the word she used, but after several tries couldn't understand) the Academic and Liberal Arts Departments to some additional thing which would make them clearly oriented without destroying their liberal arts tenor and caliber. We knew we couldn't think what to say in regard to our liberal arts stance and quality. We also knew that we had to show some practicality. It seemed wonderful to me, that our Faculty, one· after another, would come up with many acceptable things, which seemed to tide us over in that period when people needed to be shown that their education could be practical. The things, of course, which appealed to me personally, were the outside activities Membership and meetings which we were obliged to attend at the Pennsylvania colleges and the middle states areas, and national meetings. Those 'were things which broadened your horizons for your work at home. They were very good, although they took a lot of traveling. Other things which one feels more constructive about was going around seeking funds from people. It seems to me at least, that the responses from directors of Foundations, and from small Corporations, and people that you went to talk to, was always quite positive and pleasant, if not in dollars, at least in attitude. Those were things which I found myself enjoying more than fussing around with why someone did or did not do what they were supposed to do. It' s a matter of temperament. I apologize, can't help it. I also found it to be very important to make the college well known in Greensburg. Father Maida (sounds like) did a very good job of doing this. To keep that going was something too to be visible, belong to the Chamber of Commerce, where Seton Hill was a place instead of a mysterious element on the Hill. I don't know, but I believe that's enough, don't you? SMJH: I think it is very impressive and interesting. I would like to quote from the newspaper once again. When you left the Office in nineteen seventy seven, the paper said: "Sister Mary leaves the Office of the President, having established programs that respond to the needs of the Seton Hill student body. She has built working relationships that will endure. The college is financially sound. Enrollment is at an all time high. Structures and systems of working are established that will benefit Seton Hill for years to come." Sister, we know that all these things are true, and they are true because of your enthusiastic leadership. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio cassette tape Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 27:04 28:25 26:45 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 96kHz Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Schmidt, Sister Mary Oral History Description An account of the resource An oral history of Sister Mary Schmidt, a Sister of Charity of Seton Hill from 1934 until 1993. The interview was conducted by Sister Miriam Jane Hollowood on July 10 and 18, 1984. Sister Mary Schmidt was born on June 26th, 1911 in Pittsburgh, Pa. Daughter of Henry K. Schmidt and Mabel Green, Mary Jeannette Schmidt entered the community on March 25th, 1934 at the age of 22 as Sister Mary Schmidt. Sister Mary Schmidt was a professor of English at Seton Hill College from 1936 to 1957. She served as the Executive Vice President of Seton Hill College from 1957 to 1970. Then, the following year Sister Mary Schmidt served as President of SHC from 1971 to 1977. Sister Mary Schmidt received her B.S. in English, Psychology, and Philosophy from Seton Hill College in 1932. Then, she received her M.A. in English from the University of Pittsburgh in 1934. Sister Mary Schmidt went to Yale University for her Ph.D. in English Language and Literature in 1943, where she would pursue her postdoctoral research at both Yale and Columbia Universities. Sister Mary Schmidt passed on April 26th, 1993 at the age of 81. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984/07/10 1984-07/18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All rights belong to the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio cassette tape Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral history Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context OH-81 Subject The topic of the resource Sister Mary Schmidt Education Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/a7556e4dc3c2489aa33a791d0b1215f3.jpg cfcaaded973ef9fa0945152e7c689bc0 https://scfederationarchives.org/files/original/3fc3f8f174dae1d5c268f4c88ca5021b.pdf d03ffbc8aa0bcbf7f9034e997e02bf3a PDF Text Text OH-84: Sister Mary Agnes Carey This interview is being conducted as part of the Oral History Program of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill. The interviewee is Sister Mary Agnes Carey. The interview is being conducted by Sister Mary Noel Kernan at St. Joseph’s School, Kangjin, Korea. The date is April 23, 1987. SMNK: Sister Mary Agnes, have you always wanted to be a missionary? SMAC: I think I can say yes to that. When I was little, I always went to a Catholic school, always was attracted to religious life. I thought I would be a Sister someday, but what community…no thought of that. This was in grade school, I can remember Sister at one time asking, what do you want to be when you grow up? I remember I really longed to be a Sister. This might have been a fake. I even said, I am trying now to be nice to little children, but I guess I had to be nice to little children because there were others at home. There were three younger than I. SMNK: How many were in your family? SMAC: There were seven of us. Just five boys and two girls. But anyway, this missionary question. My first younger brother, Jimmy, was two years younger. We were in from 5th grade on at Cathedral School. If I was in 5th grade, he would have been in 3rd because we were only two years apart. We would walk to school so that we could get there in time to go to the 8 o’clock Mass at the Cathedral and we were right across the street to get to school. You had to be in school by 8:30, as I recall. I remember, after Communion, we wouldn’t receive Holy Communion, we would have had our breakfast first. We didn’t like to be late. We would have been in trouble if we were late. We got to school on time, but often walking to school or walking home – it was about a half an hour walk from our school to our home. We would talk about what we were going to be and we were both going to be missionaries. Go to a foreign country and all that. Jimmy, when he got to high school – he went to Central – after the second year, he was fussing that he wanted to be a Brother. So my parents let him go, but he knew that he was welcome back home if he went and didn’t like it. He actually was a Brother for 35 years. During that time, I remember I was at Seton �Hill, it was in the 1940s, he wrote to me a series of letters. He felt he should be a priest. In order to be…there are no priests in the Christian Brothers, so if he would be a priest, he would have to leave that. Yet he loved the Brothers. He put it in the hands of his superiors and eventually they told him they thought his vocation was to be a Brother. I remember the last letter – I received one and about two days later, I received another one. That one said, thank God, it’s decided I will stay with the Brothers. He stayed. He was actually a Brother for 35 years. At the time, when he decided he wanted to be a priest, he was Provincial. I think one Brother every year was selected to make a second novitiate in Rome and he had that opportunity and so on. He had been in charge of their Scholasticate for a number of years. It must have been an awfully hard decision to make and yet, he was getting older and this was what… and as a child, he had always said that before he ever heard of Brothers. I think it must have been his teachers up to that point had been Sisters and most of the people in Pittsburgh didn’t know anything about Brothers until they came. I remember my mother sort of fighting that battle for years. Why doesn’t he go the whole way and become a priest? That’s actually the way it turned out. By the time he became a priest, both my parents were dead. In fact, my father, he died just a month after Jimmy went to the seminary. That seminary, when he decided to be a priest, he went to Baltimore. That’s where he had been all of his religious life, in Baltimore. He had never come back to Pittsburgh to teach there. The Cardinal of Baltimore asked him what seminary he would like to go to. He gave him two choices. In Baltimore, St. Mary’s Seminary or Emmitsburg. He said he chose Emmitsburg. I wonder sometimes, it was probably his association with Sisters of Charity. The Cardinal told the Rector, who was Father Flynn at that time, that when he felt that Jimmy was ready for ordination to let him know and he’d ordain him. He went to the seminary in January of 1970. At Easter time, he was made a deacon and in May, he was ordained with that class. The boys at the seminary had a great time with him. They said, well, we have heard of instant soup and instant coffee, but this is the first time we have heard of instant priests! So that’s Jimmy. He didn’t become a missionary. Anyway, back when you were talking about missionary. My mother, when we had anybody broach this idea of being a missionary, she always said - a missionary term meant foreign missionary, you know. It did to us, too. She always said, there’s enough work to be done at home. Home missions. Lord rest her. She died in 1955. It was 1960 when I came here. I think maybe she was rooting for me up there. She saw a global picture by that time, perhaps. As far as our family was concern, my mother had great faith, I think and my father was a great guy, too. Not as religious in the sense of devotional as my mother, but I remember hearing him say one time, the two great devotions are the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Mother. If you have those, you can’t get in trouble. He was faithful. One thing I remember, right before I entered, my mother told me – and I think she never told me before that because she thought it might influence – She said, before each child was born, she offered the child to go, but asked God to give the child good health and good morals and if the child could learn to get along. I think God answered her prayers because I became a Sister and Jimmy was a Brother and then a priest. My brother, Tom, is now pastor in Pittsburgh at St. Simon and Jude Church and on June 14th, we will celebrate his Golden Jubilee ordination. She had her answer, I think. SMNK: There were other children? �SMAC: Yes, there were five boys. Frank, the oldest, died in 1985. Father Tom was next. And Joe. Joe is in East Liberty now. A faithful parishioner there. I came next. There were three boys ahead of me. Then Jimmy that we just talked about. Bill who lives in Lancaster now. Grace is in Florida. The other day when I was cleaning out the drawer, trying to get ready to go to the States. I came across a retreat notice that I had and as I looked, I could see Jimmy. Jimmy had said to me at one time, right before I was making retreat, we didn’t know what good hands we were in when growing up. I remember him talking to mother about retreat and meditation. He was telling her about it and she was telling him how when she washed us, fed us, and took care of us that she was praying for us all the time. He said, wow, we didn’t know all that was being done for us even before we were able to remember. About that missionary business. Since my mother, she wanted us – as I said before, she certainly prayed that if God wanted us in His service, she would gladly give. She was a little hesitant on foreign mission things, you know. She used to say, there is enough work to be done at home. I guess there still is, always is. I remember thinking when I was in high school, I should think about home missions. The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament hadn’t been founded too long before. I remember at school the Mercy Sisters telling us that Mother Drexel had made her novitiate there and not Mercy in Pittsburgh. But I never got around to writing and I suppose, I hope, the Lord had in mind that I could fulfill that wish somewhere, somehow, some other way. SMNK: And you’ve done that. SMAC: I hope. I’m here, anyway. I am trying to think, that first year when we were in Mokpo, none of us knew the language, but Sr. Alice had really looked a little harder at it before we came. She has a good ear. A music teacher. Very good ear. She picked up a good bit. One day when we were working, somebody came to the door and I went. The man started talking to me and I started answering him, but he left. Sr. Alice laughed and she said to me, Sister, if you would have spoken to him in English, he might have understood you. I said, wasn’t I speaking Korean? She said, no, you were speaking Spanish! I guess it had to be a foreign language and the only foreign language I knew a little bit about was Spanish, so that was it. Father Tom Lacey was here the other day and he had somewhat the same experience. He was talking about that. When he thinks of a foreign language, he thinks of Spanish and sometimes he is saying something in Spanish. That year, we could talk with each other and we knew what was going on there. Somebody was always coming in and having something funny to tell, especially with words, with language. One of the Caritas Sisters used to come over in the evenings. They shared with us. They gave us half their house, the better half, I think. One Sister, she wanted to learn some English. She would have questions and one night she kept saying “Hogan.” She would say something and say “Hogan.” She would say something else. This “Hogan,” because it was an Irish name, was sort of getting to us. We wondered what in the world “Hogan” was. Whatever she was saying, none of us could make out what “Hogan” was. The next day, a teacher we had was talking and she said, “Hogan.” We jumped at her. Everybody said, what’s “Hogan.” It just meant or. O-R. This Sister was saying, you could say it this way or this way. We knew neither one, so it didn’t make any sense at all. I remember one day, we had gotten our stove. Just gotten it. Things had come from the States. We had a kerosene stove. We were going to celebrate that night. We were going to have a party, I guess. Sr. Mary Noreen was making cocoa and she asked me for the sugar. What I thought, maybe it was marked sugar. I took it and gave it to her. After she makes it - [tape cuts out] We knew we couldn’t drink �it. We threw it away. Where are we going to throw it? We opened the sliding doors and we threw it out in a big pile of snow. That sliding door we opened was on a passageway from a little room we used as a dining room into our kitchen. Would you know, that snow melted, but that cocoa..that salty cocoa was there and everytime we passed we’d say, my sin is always before me. SMNK: So the language gave you many interesting things and then you also learned to share community those years? You got very close like that, very much. SMAC: Speaking of language, it wasn’t always the Korean language, it was also the English language. You see, the people, the missionaries we knew were the Columban Sisters and there were 2 American Sisters among the ones there. Most of the Irish priests. There were some American Columbans, too. I remember one day the pastor came down and he said to me, we had been there just about a month and everyone was helping us, too. Where you could get this and try to find a cook for us and so on. He came down and he said, Sister, you never paid me for that paraffin. We didn’t buy any paraffin. And he said oh, you Americans, call it kerosene. We had. We paid him really quick for the paraffin or kerosene, whatever you have. We went to a picnic with the Columban Sisters one day and one of them said…Mother Mary Lucy said, and now we’ll take flasks with us. Flasks? Flasks meant to us something in your back pocket, you know. They called a thermos, a flask. A Sister sent over one time and she wanted gum. We didn’t know…gum, chewing gum. The Irish would say, we hadn’t a clue what she wanted. It turned out to be paste. We never called it gum. SMNK: A moment ago, I was thinking how close you seemed in community. The American Sisters seem to know each other, to know one another and one another’s family’s and one another’s interests very much. Much more so than I see in the United States. How would you account for that? SMAC: I think we were isolated and we could speak English. Incoming mail was a big event. I’ve read stories of little town’s where the children went out to watch the train pass by. This was a daily something. We had to talk about something. The thing we knew most intimately are our people. A letter would come and you wanted to share it with the others. Everybody seemed interested and you began to know the names of each of the family and different things about them. Funny things. Sr. Alice would say, her mother used to say, if you haven’t head your ‘nough, you’ve had your share. Things like this. We’d begin to quote some of these things that each one had found at home. Then when we went home, you’d call… Sr. Alice’s mother. We met her. We had dinner at her home before we came. There was some kind of meeting there. You would just naturally go home and you’d be sure to call everybody’s mother and father or somebody in the family or this kind of thing. Really, it was like our extended family. As it goes now, this is coming with the Korean Sisters. As you get to know them, the ones you are more familiar with, the ones you’ve lived with, you feel close to their families, too. As you’ve noticed, I think, this year we’ve had a number of deaths in the family’s of the Sisters. Well, you know what death means. As families too, as we begin getting older and you’re experiencing this. I think that life and death brings us together in this way. I had much the same experience out West. When it was isolated, when it was far away. When you went out there, you didn’t know when you were going to get back. It was the same thing here. When we came, the thought was we would go home every seven years. Well then, I think when Sister Mary Noreen, she was, perhaps, she was here seven years before she got back. I had to �go to a Chapter, even though I wasn’t elected to it, Bishop Connare said we were supposed to have a representative from here. I just went and sat there and finally, Sr. said I could say something, so they asked me to talk about Korea. I really think that maybe the people who went first to Bethesda or Glyndon, they probably had something of that feeling. You were more united because it was like family. Really and truly like a family because you had to talk. The most likely thing would be what you knew best. SMNK: One of our concerns when the Sisters first went to Korea was that you would have a great many physical hardships to endure. Do you have any comment on that? SMAC: One of the worries, I know, before we came, people were thinking about the food. That we wouldn’t be able to eat the type of food they have here, but from the very beginning, Archbishop ____ and the Columban Sisters could get things at the commissary, the foreigner’s commissary, so anybody that was going to Seoul, any of the communities would ask what you wanted. For example, for breakfast, we were always able to get bread, so we could have toast. You always could get eggs. No problem with that. You could buy jellies. Jams. Things we would have at home like for lunch where you would have lunchmeat or something like that, that wasn’t…you could get sometimes get cans of Spam. You can eat too much Spam, you know, sometimes. We were careful. People had warned us about kimchi that this was very hot, spicy. For your own healthsake, it would be wise not to indulge too much. Some of the priests thought they wanted to go Korean all the way, but they did too much too soon in the line too soon and they really ruined themselves. We, certainly, were never tempted to do that. We were interested in eating as much as we could of what people were eating and the Koreans were always saying to us, what do you eat? They could see we were healthy. I don’t know whether I mentioned this before, but one time when Sr. Alice was teaching…we used to divide the English conversation classes. We would take 45 children and three Sisters would take 15 a piece. We should have been able to do something with them and we did, I suppose, because at least their pronunciation was alright. Sister Alice, one day, she went in after 7th period, which was sometime late in the afternoon, and she had 15 of these little girls who couldn’t learn Korean very well even. They said to her, Sister, of course they were talking in Korean, tell us about America. She said, in English? They said, oh no, no. She said, what do you want to know about America? You ask me questions and I will answer them. They said, what do you eat? She said, for breakfast we have toast. Well, what’s toast? She explained what that was. Toast, coffee, and fruit, and eggs. One little girl said, no rice and kimchi? And she said, no. Well, for lunch? What do you have for lunch? She said, well you usually have a sandwich. Do you know what a sandwich is? No. So she explained what a sandwich is and they were interested. Then maybe soup. In those days, we couldn’t get milk either. We could get powdered milk, but it didn’t taste very good when you mixed it up. This same little girl says, No rice and kimchi? And Sister said no. So they got to evening meal and I guess the children were really hoping she could get some rice and kimchi. So she explained what an evening meal would be. Mashed potatoes, some meat, and vegetables, and tea and coffee and, perhaps, some cake or fruit for dessert. And, you have the question, no rice and kimchi? And she said, no. And the little girl said, Oh, I never want to go to America! We told this to our cook and she laughed because she knew we were eating very well, but most of those little girls were eating that. �Gradually then, as we began to have Korean Sisters in the community, we wanted to be sure they were eating Korean meals, but they even agreed that it would be good to keep the breakfast a Western breakfast and most of them have no trouble with that at all. Occasionally, if a Sister isn’t well, she might want a porridge for breakfast that’s made of rice. Any of them that would feel the need, there is no problem with them having that. The trouble is, it’s easier to get our breakfast ready to get theirs. The cold. We heard early that it was cold. We did what the Koreans do. We put on more clothes. You put on, instead of one undershirt, you have a couple. One is thermal or something. It’s very warm. You put on two or three pairs of stockings. This makes trouble for the kind of shoes you wear, so you have some boots and some other things, but eventually, you get used to how to manage it. The house, we would have the kerosene stove. We would be warm enough when you were in a certain room. When you experienced this summer, we even have coal stoves in the rooms where we gather as a community. It’s not as convenient as central heating, but we manage. I think that we didn’t have as many colds as the Sisters back home would have. I don’t understand it exactly except that you get so used to it, you cope with it. If you were looking to see how do you keep warm enough and if somebody got a good idea. For instance, in ______, the Columban Sisters used to…they would heat bricks and put them in the bed. That’s what we did. We would have a regular brick and put a towel around it. It would be very hot. That would be still partially warm in the morning, but once you got to sleep, there was no problem. That, too. Anyone who found any way…when some of the Sisters were up in language school, somebody discovered if you had an electric blanket, it would solve a lot of your night problems. You wouldn’t need to bother with that brick, you know. So we began that. A number of the Sisters had that. If you left it on too long, your skin dried out, sort of. Some didn’t want that. It was easier to put on an extra blanket, an ordinary blanket or something, to keep warm. What else do you have besides food and cold? SMNK: Well you surprised me when you said electric blanket. I was under the impression that there was no electricity in Korea. SMAC: Oh, that’s always interesting. We had electricity, but you were never sure when you were going to get it. In Mokpo, we used to laugh. If we have visitors, the electricity goes off. It wasn’t consistent. I think some of the machines were sort of broken because the current coming in was not consistent, but we had electricity. One of the problems was, with the machines you had, like a tape recorder, record player, iron, and these things, it was when they broke, you couldn’t get them fixed. We had brought them from America and the local companies weren’t too busy making all of these things. Once they did, the Koreans can copy like anything. If they get hold of something, they can figure how it works and they can fix things. Now, it may not last too long, but they’ll get it working for you. In the house, we didn’t have too many plugs. Electric switches. We found out early on, whether you used them…you’d think it would be nice in a room to have two or three. SMNK: Oh, outlets. SMAC: Outlets. That’s it. You have to pay for everyone. A certain amount every month for every outlet you had. And the builders will tell you that, so when you are building, you know, you think, put one here. It would be nice because you have your desk here or you have one there or you want �to change your desk over to here. We ended up getting all kinds of extensions, so you didn’t have to pay for all of these. SMNK: And you still do that? SMAC: We still do, yeah. The water situation. When we came to Kangjin, there was a well on the property and then when the built the first part of the school, they dug a deeper well. We found out later that the people used to say, if the Sisters’ well runs dry, we are in trouble. It was apparently a very good well and we never had any problem with the water that time. The well was good. It produced a lot of water. When we built it, there was a tank above the staircase and the water supply was good. When we built the convent, that water was piped over to here still. SMNK: Could you drink the water? SMAC: We could but a Maryknoll Sister, Sister Augusta had said to us, she said the water is good. But well water is very good, but you don’t know about the pipes. They aren’t used to piping water so much and she said it may be there would be rust and other things in those pipes. She said, at least for your drinking, you should boil the water. Until we got our ultra pure now with that… [END OF TAPE 1-A] � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Sister Mary Noel Kernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sister Mary Agnes Carey Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio cassette tape Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 96kHz Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Carey, Sister Mary Agnes Oral History Subject The topic of the resource Sister Mary Agnes Carey Description An account of the resource An oral history of Sister Mary Agnes Carey, a Sister of Charity of Seton Hill from 1934 until 1993. The interview was conducted by Sister Mary Noel Kernan on April 23, April 24, and May 5, 1987. Sister Mary Agnes Carey - religious name of Sister Thomas Aquinas - was born on January 18, 1916 and entered the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill in September of 1934. She received a bachelor's degree in Latin from Seton Hill College in 1940, a master's degree in Spanish from Middlebury College in 1956, and a doctorate from the University of Madrid in 1958. She was part of the first group of Sisters sent to Korea in 1960. Prior to that she taught at SS. Peter & Paul in Arizona and at St. Luke's in Carnegie. She was also part of the Spanish department at Seton Hill College. She was Principal of St. Joseph in Kang Tjin, Korea, from 1960-1971. Sister Mary Agnes died on October 12, 1993. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-04-23 1987-04-24 1987-05-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All rights belong to the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio cassette tape Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral history Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context OH-84 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Gwangju Kwangju-si (Chŏlla-namdo, Korea) 1916-1987