SISTER GRACE is a member of the history faculty in tlie College of St. Benedict at St. Joseph. The present article is drawn from her history of St. Benedict's Convent, which irill soon be published under the title "With Lamps Burning." The volume will commemorate the convent's centennial.

PIONEER TEACHERS The BENEDICTINE SISTERS at ST. CLOUD

SISTER GRACE McDONALD

THE ARRIVAL of a steamboat was a County. The nuns who stepped ashore that matter of great importance to the inhabit­ June day a hundred years ago were to pio­ ants of early St. Paul, and the usual large neer the establishment of an institution crowd was at the landing on June 25, 1857. which, through its many activities over the When the boat docked, few people noted years, was to educate and mold the minds the arrival of a small group of Benedictine and hearts of thousands in the upper Mis­ nuns, for they were dressed in the shawls sissippi Vafley — St. Benedict's Convent at and poke bonnets of the period. The sisters St. Joseph, Minnesota.^ had made the long journey from Pennsyl­ During the 1850s large numbers of Ger­ vania to Minnesota in response to an ap­ man Catholics had been attracted to the peal for teachers to undertake the work of rich valleys of the Sauk and upper Missis­ educating the chfldren of the many Ger­ sippi rivers through the efforts of Father man immigrants who had settled in Stearns Francis Pierz, an early missionary to the Indians of the region. Father Pierz had also ^ On the nuns' arri\al, see Prior Demetrius di been instrumental in bringing to St. Cloud Marogna and Sister Willibalda Scherbauer to Abbot Boniface Wimmer. July 14, August 28, 1857, in the in 1856 a group of Benedictine monks, the archives of St. John's Abbey, Collegeville. Unless nucleus of the future St. John's Abbey and otherwise noted, transcripts of manuscripts cited in University at Collegevifle. In the spring of this article are in the possession of St. John's Abbey. 1857, Prior Demetrius di Marogna, head of All letters quoted in the text are in German and were translated by the author. the group, had requested teachers for the ' For information on the work of "Father Francis German community in Stearns County. Pierz, Missionary," see the author's article in Minne­ The nuns who arrived at St. Paul had sota History, 10:107-125 (June, 1929). The begin­ nings of St. John's Abbey are discussed by Colman J. been sent by Mother Benedicta Riepp of Barry in Worship and Work: Saint John's Abbey and St. Joseph's Convent at St. Mary's, Penn­ University, 1856-1956. 25-55 (Collegeville, 1956). On sylvania, in response to Prior Demetrius' the request for teachers, see a letter from Di Marogna to Wimmer, March 10, 1857, a transcript of which is appeal. Having immigrated to the United in the archives of St. John's Abbey. The convent at States from Bavaria only five years earlier, St. Mary's, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1852 by Mother Benedicta and her nuns were eager nuns from the ancient convent of St. Walburga at Eichstaett, Bavaria. to serve their countrymen in Minnesota.^

June 1957 263 No one was on hand to meet the sisters last lap of their journey to St. Cloud when they disembarked at St. Paul, for aboard the steamboat "North Star," which Prior Demetrius had not expected so quick made two trips a week between the Fafls of a response to his appeal. The little band of St. Anthony and Sauk Rapids. Two mfles sisters had, in fact, reached Minnesota below St. Cloud the boat ran aground near ahead of a letter announcing their coming. Prior Demtrius' log monastery. The sisters A citizen directed the travel-worn women remained on the "North Star" untfl the to the hospital conducted by the Sisters of next day, July 4, when they were removed St. Joseph, where they were cordially re­ in a small boat and taken to the monastery. ceived.^ "We are all very happy to have had this Fortunately, Prior Demetrius happened uncalled for experience," Sister Wiflibalda to visit St. Paul on the third day after the later wrote, "otherwise we would not have sisters arrived. He later wrote that when been able to see the [monastery]. . . . How­ he reached the territorial capital at mid­ ever, after this experience we were forced night on June 28, he was "welcomed and not only to pass by the little monastery not a little surprised with the announce­ but also to enter it and enjoy some re­ ment 'the Sisters have arrived and are freshment, since we had been on the boat lodged at the hospital.' I was surprised and for three days without food." The nuns embarrassed," he commented, ''and I could had been unable to eat aboard the boat, not suppress the cry of "over hasty.' ]More- said Sister Willibalda, "because the price over ... I hardly know what to do with of a meal came to half of a doflar." Later these women," he added, but "it was de­ that afternoon the sisters were taken to cided that I was to take them with me St. Cloud.^ and care for them. This I then did." The prior noted that afl the sisters "appeared LOCATED at a point where a Red River pale, emaciated, and afling." * oxcart trail between St. Paul and Fort The little group of pioneering nuns was Garry crossed the Mississippi River, St. composed of four sisters and two candi­ Cloud had been settled only four years dates for the Order of St. Benedict. At the before the sisters arrived. It was not a typi­ head of the company was Sister Willibalda cal river town, for it had been buflt not Scherbauer. Born in Bavaria, she was the on the levee but upon the high banks of oldest of the group, and she had been the Mississippi. The frontier vfllage did not appointed its superior by Mother Bene­ face the river, but looked toward the farms dicta. Sisters Evangelista Kremmeter and of the plains, suggesting that its ultimate Gertrude Capser, both of whom were born prosperity vs^ould come from agriculture. in Germany, had gone as children with In 1857 herds of deer and elk roamed near their parents to Pennsylvania and had by, and a few adventurous ones occasion­ later entered the Benedictine convent at ally strayed through the vfllage. Bands of St. Mary's. Sister Gertrude's brothers had Chippewa Indians living in the area some- recently emigrated to Minnesota and were already settled on farms near St. Joseph. ' Di Marogna to Wimmer, July 14. 1857. See also The fourth sister, Gregoria Moser, had Sister Helen Angela Hurley, On Good Ground, 131 (Minneapohs, 1951). been born in the United States. The two ' Di Marogna to Wimmer, July 14. 1857, candidates were Mary Wolters and Prisca " The sisters are identified in Catalogue of the Meier. The sisters also brought with them Nuns and Convents of the Holy Order oj St. Bene­ to Minnesota a twelve-year-old orphan, dict in the United States, 24 (Latrobe, Pennsylvania, 1879); Alexius Roetzer to Wimmer, August 12, 1857; Josephine Leshafl, who had been left in and in the population schedules of the Minnesota ter­ their care.'' ritorial census of 1857, a photostatic copy of which is in the possession of the Minnesota Historical Society. On July 2, 1857, the sisters began the "Sister Willibalda to Wimmer, August 28, 1857.

264 MINNESOTA History •""-a^s -7''~^%^«4a&- • ^•^>' ""-^ J~-- - m^...w^^.^Lmll% ' ^ .^^^SBSHH w". -^ „ _ >.».K(aKj;i-^ ' *-"f ^ ::i..: • g|g_; ;;_; -^ ;,,,10^^^^^^ ^-^^S^•^Hp t .v ''T^^^ffii

-• '••"•''•*«^ ST. CLOUD ^^^r- in the 1860s ISfe^^ isspfi «^'

'^' ; 1^:^#«f^:f ^ ^^^ m 'P**"'°"'- ppf^^^^ times worried the settlers with untimely for eight days in the unplastered, unfur­ visits, and their presence kept outlying nished garret of Wendelin Merz's log house, farmers on the alert,' while the prior wrestled with the problem At the time of the nuns' arrival, St. of what to do with them. Should they go Cloud was made up of three distinct areas on to St. Joseph where a teacher was of settlement. The English-speaking Yan­ needed, but where no house was to be had kees, including many of the town's profes­ for a convent, or should they stay in St. sional men and skilled craftsmen, lived in Cloud where they might find a house but what was called Lower St. Cloud. In this where no teachers were needed? ^ group was Mrs. Jane Grey Swisshelm, Although they had been sent to St. outspoken editor of the local newspaper, Cloud to teach, no positions were available and C. C. Andrews, who was later to be­ because no parochial schools existed in the come United States minister to Norway. community. Moreover, German Catholics Upper St. Cloud, near what is now Sauk were divided on the subject of public and Rapids, had been colonized by a group parochial schools. Some favored a public of slave-holding Southerners. German im­ school taught by a Catholic layman of their migrants had settled in what was called choice, while others wanted a parochial Middle St. Cloud, on and around the pres­ school. Some were willing to accept the ent St. Germain Street, where some of their nuns as teachers, while others were not. countrymen had-opened places of business Before the sisters reached St. Cloud, a lay as early as 1854. There Joseph Edelbrock teacher had been placed under contract and Balthasar Rosenberger operated gen­ for the current school year. Consequently, eral stores, John W. Tenvoorde and Barney there was no need for the nuns' services. Overbeck conducted hotels, and John W. Father Bruno Riess offered the sisters a Metzroth had a tafloring shop. house at near-by St. Joseph, but to teach in the public school there they would have VACANT HOUSES to let in the growing to take examinations and acquire teachers' town were unheard of, and the sisters lived certificates, a process that would require time." ' Descriptive material on St. Cloud in this and suc­ Prior Demetrius decided to keep the ceeding paragraphs may be found in St. Cloud Demo­ nuns in St. Cloud. He reasoned that they crat, November 25, December 9, 1858; William B. could support themselves by teaching Mitchell, History of Stearns County. Minnesota, 1: 196; 2:1434-1446 (Chicago, 1915). music and fancy needlework, for there was " See "Memoirs" of Sister Willibalda, and "Annals" demand for such skills among the citizens of St. Benedict's Convent. Both manuscripts are in of Lower St. Cloud, who were, in general, the archives of the convent at St. Joseph. better able to afford them than the poorer °Di Marogna to Wimmer, March 10, 1857; Riess to Wimmer, April 1, May 22, 1857. German immigrants. "There is no want of

June 1957 265 work for the Sisters," the prior declared, singing, drawing, and painting; Mary Wol­ "and the Americans pay better than the ters taught English; Sister Evangelista Germans." ^^ gave German lessons; and Sisters Gregoria and Gertrude offered instruction in needle­ HOUSING was found for the nuns in Ten- work and sewing. For German or English voorde's entertainment hall on what is now lessons or for instruction in sewing or St. Germain Street and Fifth Avenue. The knitting, the charge was a dollar a month. owner was persuaded to let his boarders go The fee for lessons in finer needlework was and rent the house to the nuns. This build­ two dollars a month. Some Yankee settlers ing, the first Benedictine convent in Min­ gave the sisters orders for fancy needlework nesota and in the upper Midwest, was a and plain sewing. Others asked for music plain frame and log structure. The prior lessons. recorded that it had "two rooms and a At the suggestion of the prior, and in spacious refectory with a built-on kitchen. spite of their poverty, the sisters sent On the second floor there is a large room, for a piano. The prior wrote that a "piano a small one, and, above the refectory, a had to be purchased because the Yankees long attic room where ten or twelve school are especially set on taking up music. The childrens' beds can easfly be placed. Wefl, piano cost $330 with freight and shipping. garden, and cellar are there in the enclo­ It bears the name of a firm in Pittsburgh, sure. But the rent for the year is $250.00. 'Charlotte Blum.' Sister Willibalda likes . . . That price is cheap for here. The it very well and praises it highly." " garden and yard are to be enclosed wdth a high board fence and will serve as en­ THE MONEY received from the six closure." ^^ boarding pupils, from music lessons, and Eagerly the nuns scrubbed and scoured from fine needlework was not sufficient for the hall to make it serviceable as a con­ the sisters' support, but the people often vent. Their furnishings were meager indeed, brought food from their own scanty stores. for besides some clothes, the sisters' trunks Sometimes it was vegetables, and some­ contained mainly books, sheet music, and times it was that very scarce article, mflk. religious articles. The windows of the house One morning, on opening the kitchen door, were neatly covered with paper in lieu the sisters found that someone had pre­ of curtains, a grate or grfll was erected sented them with a young pig. Once in a across the door of the room facing the while they received wild pigeons.^' street, a few treasured religious pictures Such gifts in the year 1857 were precious, were hung on the walls, and Benedictine coming as they did from settlers whose convent life for women was planted on fields and gardens had been stripped so Minnesota soil.'^- completely by grasshoppers that there was Crowded as they were in these quarters, not even seed left for the coining spring. the sisters took in some six boarding pu­ The district had been ravaged by a grass­ pils. To others they gave religious instruc­ hopper plague the year before, and from tion, apparently a very necessary work, the eggs laid by these invaders had come for Sister Evangelista declared, "there are girls here fifteen years old who still do not "Di Marogna to Wimmer, August 20, 1857. " Di Marogna to Wimmer, July 14, 1857. know the alphabet nor the Ten Command­ "Elizabeth Tenvoorde, "Memoirs," in St. Bene­ ments, much less the Our Father. ... In dict's Convent archives; Di Marogna to Wimmer, this land where everything is stfll primitive July 14, 1857. '"Sister Evangelista to Wimmer, August 22, 1857. and the people unlearned, much good can "Di Marogna to Wimmer, August 12, 1857. See be done."^^ also Clement Staub to Wimmer, August 19, 1857. '° Di Marogna and Sister Willibalda to Wimmer, Sister Wfllibalda gave instructions in August 12, 28, 1857,

266 MINNESOTA History a second plague. The grasshoppers had fared more poorly than did the settlers, completed their destructive work just be­ they were probably better fitted to stand fore the nuns arrived. Some potatoes and the shortage of food than were the other a bit of corn had been saved, but the half- inhabitants, for these women were accus­ dozen cows in the area, left without proper tomed to a life of frugal abstinence. Their forage, did not give their usual supply of rules and statutes, brought from Bavaria, milk. Almost all the chickens had died." did not permit breakfast, and meat was The settlers' diet consisted of potatoes, allowed them but three times a week. Even cooked in their jackets so that nothing in times of plenty their noon and evening would be wasted, alternated regularly with meals were to consist only of soup, bread, corn-meal mush served without milk or and one other dish.^' butter. The small box-shaped coffee mifls, They were accustomed to cold rooms in common in homes of the period, ground winter, for their rules permitted stoves and no coffee that year but were used instead fireplaces only in workrooms and class­ to grind precious kernels of corn for mush rooms. To save their woolen habits the and bread. Roasted corn took the place of nuns wore them only for morning chapel the coffee beans. The settlers could add to services, donning calico dresses for the their diet by hunting wild game, but this manual labor of the day. In sharing the means was not open to the cloistered nuns. privations of other early settlers, the sis­ Although the Benedictines no doubt ters not only endeared themselves to the people but were better able to understand their needs.^^ " Effects of the grasshopper plagues are described in Mitchell, History of Stearns County, 2:1318, 1410; Bruno Riess, "First Beginnings of St. John's Abbey," DURING the nine months the Benedic­ in St. John's University Record, 2:63, 74 (June, July, tines lived in the rented Tenvoorde house, 1889); St. Cloud Visiter, December 10, 1857; and P. they had no opportunity to take part in Willibald Mathaser, Bonifaz Wimmer, O.S.B. und Konig Ludwig I. von Bayern, 99 (Munich, 1938). parochial activities or to widen their in­ ^' The rules are set forth in "Statuten des Klosters fluence among the people. Their only con­ St. Walburg nach der Regel unsers heiligen Vaters tacts with the settlers were through private Benediktus," a manuscript copy of which is in the archives of St. Benedict's Convent. lessons in music, needlework, and religion. " See Tenvoorde, "Memoirs." But the lay teacher's contract with the

ST. BENEDICT S COXVEXT ARCHIVES

FIRST Catholic church at St. Cloud, 1859

June 1957 267 RED River carts near St. Cloud in 1868

parish school would soon expire, and the and tuition. Although the records have sisters hoped that the parishioners would been destroyed, the names of some of those then accept them as teachers. Both the who attended that first year are known. nuns and Prior Demetrius counted the Among them were Mary, Anton, Barney, days until this plan could be put into and Joseph Edelbrock, Lizzie and Henry operation. Rosenberger, Catherine Felders, Mary In preparation, the parish plastered the Brown, John Niebler, Joseph Reichert, and church and the classroom, laid a floor, and Louis Emmel. The sisters continued to give placed a high board fence around the bufld­ music lessons, and among the non-Catholic ing. The upper story of the church was pupils taking private instruction in this made habitable as a home for the sisters field were Jennie and Mary Mitchell, Mary by the addition of a bit of plaster and and Jennie Cramsie, Sophia and Cecilia the erection of a partition or two. But the Corbett, and Nettie Swisshelm.^" building was poorly constructed. On the Writing in the St. Cloud Visiter for May outside, clapboard siding had been nailed 27, 1858, Mrs. Swisshelm listed among the directly to the studding, which was faced town's many advantages "a school kept by on the inside only by a coat of plaster. No a company of Benedictine Nuns where system of ventilation was needed; every music, drawing, needlework, and German joint and seam admitted the cold prairie are wefl taught by ladies of polished winds. The floors, made of rough planks manners and unusual proficiency." A few- with wide cracks, were a sore trial to the months later, in the St. Cloud Democrat nuns during the winter months. Their feet of December 9, 1858, she reported, "The became so frostbitten and swollen that they could not wear shoes and were forced to bind their feet in straw, a measure orig­ '" Information on the building is drawn from "Sun­ inally adopted to prevent frostbite.^" day Announcement Book," St. Mary's Parish, St. Cloud, for the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, In the early spring of 1858 when it was 1857, in St. Cloud Diocesan Archives; "Annals" of announced that the Benedictines were St. Benedict's Convent; Riess, in St. John's Record, 2:16, 93 (February, September, 1889). ready to open school in St. Cloud, parents ™ Some of the pupils' names are listed in the St. called to inquire about textbooks and slates Cloud Democrat, July 21, 1859.

268 MINNESOTA HistOTy school is in much favor with our citizens All schools of that day considered it and is in a flourishing condition." necessary to put on a program at the close Although Mrs. Swisshelm was wefl of the term. In fact, the public often judged known for her caustic remarks, she spoke a teacher by her ability to put on pro­ of the Benedictine sisters with unfading grams, and the Benedictines adapted them­ admiration and respect. Apparently she selves to the custom. Because it was usual felt a bond of friendship between herself to give each child in the school a chance and the sisters, for in the Democrat of to appear on the program, these exhibitions September 26, 1861, she declared: "Up were frequently lengthy affairs. The pub­ street stands the first church going bell lic's willingness to sit through such long on the march of civilization. It hangs in a programs may be ascribed not only to pyramidal shed, in the yard of a convent parental pride, but to the scarcity of other kept by a company of Benedictine Nuns; cultural entertainment in certain frontier and is regularly rung for matins and ves­ areas. pers, by the Lady Abbess, who is smafl, What was doubtless the sisters' first slight, delicate, graceful, and accomplished venture of this sort was made on July 7, a lady as you could meet in any circle. 1859. The Democrat of June 30, 1859, From her waking the first echoes of these announced: "The School under the charge broad prairies in a call to bow regularly of the Sisters, wifl give an exhibition on at an altar of Christian worship and my Thursday evening the 7th, at 8 O'clock. wielding the advance press, I am inclined . . . There will likely be a small admission to dispute with the lords of creation the fee for the benefit of the School. It wifl be palm of always holding the flagstaff as in the chapel, and those who want seats westward the star of empire takes its way." will need to go early." Mrs. Swisshelm was present at this en­ TEACHING in a frontier school was any­ tertainment to watch the performance of thing but monotonous. Rumors of Indian her daughter. Pleased with the sisters" outbreaks, the arrival of river boats, and work, she wrote a detafled account of the the passing of noisy Red River caravans affair in the issue of the Democrat for July broke the routine. In the summer of 1858, 21, in which she commented that the pro­ for example, a caravan of a hundred and gram "gave great satisfaction to a large forty carts made its way across the prairie audience, notwithstanding the performance to St. Cloud. During the sisters' first school was rather long." term, a band of Sioux Indians took ad­ She then described each item on the pro­ vantage of the absence of Chippewa war­ gram, occasionally commenting on the riors from their camp near St. Cloud and quality of the performance. "The Exhibi­ kflled eleven old and defenseless Chippewa. tion opened," she wrote, "with piano music, In retaliation the Chippewa chief, Hole-in- 'The Vienna March,' played by Miss Cram­ the-Day, and two attendants pursued the sie," followed by two comic dialogues. One Sioux, returning triumphantly with several of these, "The Egg Thief," given in Ger­ scalps which they proudly showed off in man, was "capitafly performed and ex­ the streets of St. Cloud. These periodic ceedingly amusing," according to Mrs. Indian troubles enticed the children away Swisshelm. A piano solo entitled "Phan­ from school, and frightened the nuns untfl tasm'' was "played by the Lady Superior the veteran Indian missionary. Father in masterly style." Apparently the one Pierz, told them that the Indians would failure of the evening was a playlet given never harm the sisters or the blackrobes.^^ "by Stephen Miller, Jr., J. B. [Marvin, ""• Visiter, May 27, June 24, 1858; Democrat, De­ Wifliam and J. Mitchefl, and W. F. Mifler." cember 9, 1858, November 10, 1859. It was "not well done," said Mrs. Swiss-

June 1957 269 helm, "as the performers were weary hav­ to St. Boniface, Canada, in 1859, and ing walked from Grand Lake that day." Bishop Thomas Grace of St. Paul, who stopped at the convent that year and again DESPITE the satisfactory work performed in 1861 when he was returning from Pem­ by the nuns, the income from their smafl bina with Father Joseph Goiffon, an aged school was not sufficient to keep them in and crippled missionary to the Indians.-* clothing and food, for the tuition of two Mother Benedicta Riepp, foundress of the dollars per chfld per semester — which the Benedictine sisterhood in America, arrived parish paid — brought them only sixty at St. Cloud in the early autumn of 1858. dollars. Nor was this meager sum always Broken in health, she remained with the contributed regularly. A line in the old nuns untfl her death in 1862." Her pres­ parish Sunday announcement book reads: ence and influence tended to strengthen "Nothing has been paid toward the school the observance of Benedictine customs and for the last five months. Since the Sisters spirit, but the nuns had found that in opened the school, almost nothing has been many things the statutes and customs of paid." == the mother house in Germany could not be A fair or bazaar, the sisters decided, followed. This was true in the matter of would be the best means of raising the food, for frontier conditions made the nuns' needed funds, and they immediately got provisions at St. Cloud uncertain. The out their crochet, knitting, and fillet sisters learned, too, that the rule of strict needles, and their tatting bobbins. The enclosure was hardly compatible with first fair was held in conjunction with the teaching in a parochial school. Playground program at the close of the school year in supervision from a window or doorway 1859, and it proved a success. After that, was a faflure. Neither was the proper pre- the bazaar became an annual event, and fecting of pupils during chapel services from the proceeds the sisters were able to possible. Moreover, such aloofness from the make some improvements in the school people of the settlement was foreign to the and convent building.^^ western frontier spirit of neighborliness, and it tended to alienate some of the pa­ By 1862, an advertisement in the Demo­ rishioners. crat of January 23 informed residents of St. Cloud that three hundred and twenty- Hovering over the Minnesota frontier five articles made by the sisters would be during this period of struggle to establish offered for sale and raffle. Tickets could be and adapt cloistered Benedictine life was purchased "at C. Grandelmyer's store and the restlessness and dissatisfaction of the In­ at the convent" for one doflar each. Many dians, who in the summer of 1862 suddenly of the items listed for sale were simple, utilitarian garments or household acces­ "•^ "Announcement Book," St. Mary's Parish, Oc­ sories upon which the sisters had put lace, tober 10, 1858. ^ A report of the fair appears in the Democrat, trimmings, and embroidery. There were July 21, 1859. "embroidered linen bosoms" for men and •" Sister Mary Murphy, "The Grey Nuns Travel white embroidered pantalets for the ladies, West," in Historical and Scientific Society of Mani­ baby clothes, crocheted suspenders and toba, Papers, 11 (Winnipeg, 1945); Bishop Grace, "Diary ot Trip to the Red River," August 16, Sep­ lamp nets, fancy feather flower baskets, tember 27, 1861, owned by the St. Paul Seminary; snuffer plates, embroidered penwipers, Der Wahrheitsfreund (Cincinnati), September 19, laces, and scented cushions. 1859; Western Banner (St. Louis), November 26, 1859. Files of these two papers are in the archives of St. John's Abbey. FROM TIME TO TIME the sisters en­ '" Mother Benedicta's arrival is discussed in Wim­ mer to Mother Scholastica, July 14, 1858, a copy ot tertained such visitors as a group of Grey which is in St. Benedict's Convent Archives. Her Nuns, traveling by oxcart from St. Paul death is noted in the Democrat, March 20, 1862.

270 MINNESOTA History arose and overran the western and central control. To their pastor these people tried portions of the state, kflling hundreds of to justify their wish to exchange the parish whites and burning farms and small settle­ school for a public school by charging that ments. Stockades were buflt, and although the sisters did not have a complete mastery St. Cloud was not actuafly attacked, the of the English language.-' town was fifled with frightened refugees, This trouble with the people of St. Cloud many separated from their famflies and caused the sisters to look about them for possessions. The sisters extended hospital­ a more congenial environment. Most of ity to as many women and children as them wanted to leave Minnesota, for they could be crowded into their buflding and felt that after five years of struggle they did their best to alleviate fears and suffer­ had not yet taken root. Late in the sum­ ings. They were very worried about three mer of 1863 the parish at St. Joseph, then of their number who shortly before the the largest and most prosperous in Stearns uprising had been sent to care for the County, offered the sisters a home if they school at St. Joseph, a few miles west of would take over the school there. At about St. Cloud. They later learned that the the same time, Benedictine priests at Atch­ sisters were safe. At St. Joseph, too, elab­ ison, Kansas, asked for sisters to teach orate preparations had been made for an in their school. Since the convent at St. attack that never came.-" Cloud had fourteen members, it was de­ cided to split the group and accept both EARLY IN 1863, after the sisters had invitations.-' spent five years in parochial school work in Sister Evangelista and six other older Minnesota, a group of Catholics in Middle nuns left for Kansas in the fafl of 1863. St. Cloud decided to erect a public school Seven sisters — Mother Willibalda, Sisters in that part of town. Some of them felt Antonia Streitz, Gertrude Capser, Bern- that their tax money should be used to arda Auge, Johanna Reser, Boniface Bantle, support a public school nearer their homes, Theresa Marthaler, and two candidates, since the only public school that existed Walburga Muelken and Gertrude Petit — in St. Cloud was located in the lower part remained in Minnesota. With the exception of town, too far from the German settle­ of Mother Willibalda and Sister Gertrude, ment. This group reasoned that with a all were very young and had entered the public school in their midst they could order during the previous five years.-" dispense with the parish school and save It had been decided that the sisters were the expense of supporting two school sys­ to go to St. Joseph as soon as possible. tems. In reality, these German immigrants, Though there is no record of the exact date used to the system of state-supported of their removal, it was probably soon schools that existed in their native land, after the group departed for Kansas on preferred a school that the church did not November 2, 1863.^° At St. Joseph, the '•"Riess, in St. John's Record, 3:27 (March, 1890), sisters' numbers and works were destined -' The sisters' difficulties are discussed in a letter to flourish. Within fifty years the little by Bishop Grace to Prior Othmar Wirtz, April 27, group grew to be the largest community 1863, '"' On the invitation to St, Joseph, see Der Nord­ of Benedictine sisters in the world, a dis­ stern (St, Cloud), July 3, 1884, a file of which is tinction the convent stfll holds. A hundred owned by St, Benedict's Convent Archives. The years after their arrival in Minnesota, the founding of the convent in Kansas is discussed by Sister Regina Baska, The Benedictine Congregation sisters' work has expanded to include the of Saint Scholastica, 87 (Washington, D.C, 1935). operation of hospitals and homes for the •°See Catalogue of Nuns and Convents, 25, 42. aged as wefl as elementary and secondary ^"See Northwestern Chronicle (St. Paul), February 21, 1884, in the files of the Minnesota Historical So­ schools, and a liberal arts college for women ciety. — the Coflege of St. Benedict at St. Joseph.

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