The Founding of St. Joseph at St. Louis, 1863-1878 by Dana Delibovi
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spring/summer ’20 pg.3 “by unexpected means”— The Founding of St. Joseph at St. Louis, 1863-1878 by dana delibovi Today, in Ladue, Missouri, seventeen Discalced Carmelite nuns devote their lives to prayer, in a beautiful, cloistered convent. This serene setting hides a difficult founding in the turbulent year of 1863. In the fall of that year, five nuns traveled to St. Louis from Baltimore to create a “Foundation”—the Carmel of St. Joseph. They came at the behest of the first Archbishop of St. Louis, Peter Kenrick, brother of the Archbishop of Baltimore, Francis Kenrick. Their Foundation was the first branch of Carmel in America, from which sprouted eleven other monasteries.1 Archbishop Kenrick accompanies the Carmelites on arrival to St. Louis, painted in 1975 by Mother Virginia of the Carmel of St. Joseph. (Image: Dana Delibovi) pg. 4 B & O Railroad advertisement from 1864 highlighting replacement and improvement of destruction wrought by Confederate attacks. (Image: Wikicommons) Map created in 1860 showing train routes between Baltimore and the West. The sisters would most likely have taken the B & O from Baltimore to Parkersburg, West Virginia, then crossed the Ohio River to Cincinnati on the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad, and finally onto the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad to St. Louis. Riverboat service was also available starting in the Wheeling or Parkersburg, West Virginia, termini of the B & O. (Image: Library of Congress) spring/summer ’20 pg. 5 Why did these nuns risk founding a monastic convent at such an inauspicious time and place? These nuns made their mission practical reason may have been “I Want an Order at the height of the Civil War. conflict at the Baltimore to Pray for Priests” They traveled on the Baltimore monastery from which the & Ohio (B & O) Railroad, a line Carmelite sisters hailed. In Archbishop Peter Richard often subject to Confederate addition, the search for an answer Kenrick founded the Carmel attacks. They settled in St. elucidates three aspects of in St. Louis in communication Louis, a city still threatened by social and intellectual history. with his brother, the Archbishop cholera outbreaks following the of Baltimore, Francis Patrick devastating epidemic of 1849, First, it illuminates the role Kenrick. Peter Kenrick became where anti-Catholic aggression of religious women as workers in Archbishop in 1847, the initial still smoldered after its zenith the relatively new, often troubled year of the newly constituted and in the mid-1850s. They endured Archdiocese of St. Louis under vast Archdiocese of St. Louis, fifteen years of hardship in their the leadership of Peter Kenrick. which ranged from the Mississippi quarters at the Clay Mansion, on Second, it evokes the to the Missouri River plains. By the grounds of today’s Calvary experience of life in the border 1863, he already presided over an Cemetery. The sisters tried states of the Civil War— area well populated with religious farming and crafts to support Maryland and Missouri included. women, including several orders themselves, rarely succeeding in Of special note are implications installed under his tenure.6 these efforts. Despite the poor for what has been termed the Yet, the Archdiocese lacked the conditions, the Carmel of St. public “posture” of neutrality in presence of a contemplative order, Joseph hung on, finally moving the borderlands.4 It is certainly which Kenrick wanted to remedy. in 1878 to its first, true Carmel 2 true that, when the issue is slavery, As described in the archdiocesan monastery in Soulard. neutrality is immorality, but record, “Our own Archbishop Why did these nuns risk a neutral public stance was an Kenrick, thorough man of the founding a monastic convent at expedient chosen by many, active life, yet at the same time, such an inauspicious time and including Peter Kenrick. An a lover of quiet meditation, is place? That question recurred aspect of this posture was a focus reported to have answered the in the research process for this on church business as usual, which query: Why introduce an Order article, articulated by Sister could include the founding of that does nothing but pray: with Constance Fitzgerald, archivist a convent in 1863. the words: ‘I have a number of at the Carmelite Monastery of Orders for the works of charity Finally, the founding of the Baltimore, the cloister from and education, but I want an convent at such a difficult time which the sisters set forth in 1863. Order that will pray forever for and place shows how practical 7 “The interesting thing in the my priests.’” history synergizes with the archived materials on the intellectual history of the Although priests surely needed foundation is that they say nothing Carmelites, particularly the prayers in the early 1860s, it about the Civil War,” notes 3 virtues of detachment from was not an ideal time to start a Sister Constance. “But why?” worldly concern and the spiritual monastery in St. Louis. Anti- Why did the Civil War not determination extolled by the Catholic bigotry, a nationwide worry, or not matter, to the order’s architect, St. Teresa problem, had peaked in St. Louis Carmelites? Although this of Ávila. in 1854 with rioting triggered by question has no definitive, single the nativist Know-Nothings. This In the words of the prioress response, one practical reason group was hostile to immigrants of the fledgling St. Louis Carmel, appears to be the zeal of Peter from Ireland, Germany, and Mother Mary Gabriel, “We must Richard Kenrick, first Archbishop “Romanist” cultures, which the only be patient & remember of St. Louis, and Mother Mary Know-Nothings believed defied that this earth is not our home. Gabriel Boland, first prioress of the Protestant-American When God wishes he will give us principles of individualism and the St. Louis Carmel. Another 5 a Carmel by unexpected means.” private prayer. Among the pg. 6 Of course, these difficulties were compounded by the looming war. mischief wrought in the 1850s grew more arduous. Sectarian her brother John: “Our dear Lord by nativists was a threat to the violence, and eventually battles of is so good. He comes every day, Old Cathedral by the war, erupted in the Archdiocese, & your lovely flowers are on the riverfront, thwarted by an which at that time still contained altar. Be of good heart—God Irish-Catholic immigrant.8 all of skirmishing Missouri and can raise me up.” According to Kansas. Peter Kenrick, like his Mother Mary Joseph Freund, Cholera remained a scourge brother Francis in border-state current prioress of the St. Louis in the Mississippi Basin following Maryland, refused to take Carmel in Ladue, a convent the disastrous St. Louis epidemic sides in the war, although his anecdote backs up Mother of 1849, reported to have killed ownership of several slaves Gabriel’s spirited character: 145 victims per day during June belied his public neutrality.10 “Mother Gabriel would say that, and July alone. Conditions in when she was a girl, she prepared St. Louis did not change after Despite the circumstances, for life as a Carmelite by going 1849, and the city remained what Peter Kenrick maintained a strong to dances all the time.” 12 Father Pierre-Jean De Smet will to bring the Carmelites to called a “natural ‘slop-bowl’,” St. Louis as soon as possible. Then and now, electing a around which “you find breweries, He corresponded with his brother Carmelite prioress under age distilleries, oil and white lead in 1860 or 1861 to discuss the thirty was a curiosity, requiring factories, flour mills and many St. Louis Foundation.11 But special dispensation. Sr. private residences of Irish and Kenrick’s was not the only Constance Fitzgerald notes, Germans—into this pond goes formidable will involved. Mother “Mother Gabriel was elected everything foul—this settles the Mary Gabriel Boland, prioress of prioress in 1861 with only ten opinion as to the real cause of Baltimore’s Carmel, championed years in the convent. I have to all the dreadful mortality here.” the mission with a zeal to match stress that this is very unusual.” Outbreaks continued to plague the St. Louis Archbishop’s. This election came after several the city until the start of the years of leadership instability twentieth century, including Mary Gabriel of the in the Baltimore Carmel, which another major epidemic in 1866. Immaculate Conception was born followed the closing of a convent Cholera strained the resources Ella Boland in Virginia in 1834. school and the controversial, of the clergy, who were already In 1863, she was only 29 years forced resignation in 1858 of a pushed to the limit by the old, but she had been serving as beloved prioress, Mother hemorrhaging finances of the the prioress of the Baltimore Teresa Sewall.13 Archdiocese, which Peter Carmel since her election Kenrick could not staunch until to a three-year term in 1861. These events, along with around 1869.9 This testifies to the drive that others in the archival records, propelled her to St. Louis and suggest that discord as well as Of course, these difficulties enabled her to steer the devotion may have inspired the were compounded by the looming Foundation cheerfully despite founding of the new Carmel in war. The Archdiocese was forced years of infectious illness in this St. Louis.14 Although the idea of to adjust the war’s affect on “slop-bowl” city. During her time mission motivated Mother projects and communications. in St. Louis, Mother Gabriel Gabriel and her four companions, Diocesan plans for a regional suffered from tuberculosis, which so did the need to resolve tension. synod in 1860 were scrapped out was complicated by malaria, A historical analysis prepared by of concern for the “unfavorable bouts of cholera, and probably the Baltimore Carmel states atmosphere” of pre-war Missouri mercury poisoning from the drug that “a sad peculiarity of this and other border states, where calomel, a nineteenth-century foundation, made during the division existed between pro- panacea that she took for years.