University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Spring 1985 A Widening Horizon Catholic Sisterhoods On The Northern Plains, 1874-1910 Susan C. Peterson University of North Dakota Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Peterson, Susan C., "A Widening Horizon Catholic Sisterhoods On The Northern Plains, 1874-1910" (1985). Great Plains Quarterly. 1846. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1846 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. A WIDENING HORIZON CATHOLIC SISTERHOODS ON THE NORTHERN PLAINS, 1874,1910 SUSAN C. PETERSON Catholic sisterhoods have been part of Amer­ the stereotypes would suggest. Among the more ican life since the colonial period, first as oper­ than fifteen groups who attempted to bring ators of charitable institutions to aid the needy religion and education to reservation missions and then, in the nineteenth century, as teachers and farming communities in the last quarter of both immigrant children in the East and In­ of the nineteenth century, four religious orders dian children at mission schools on reservations stand out for their successful adaptation to the in the West. Conventional historical studies frontier environment: the Grey Nuns from have either slighted or ignored their contribu­ Montreal in Canada, the Sisters of the Presentac tions to the settlement of the northern plains, tion from Ireland, the Benedictine Sisters from and recent articles on Catholic missions in his­ Switzerland, and the Sisters of St. Francis from tory journals do little better. In both secular Germany. Other sisterhoods were unable to and church histories, Catholic sisters are tradi­ found lasting institutions and retreated to the tionally pictured as silent representatives of more populous regions from whence they female purity or as extensions of the church came. By contrast, the four groups treated in hierarchy on the frontier. A more recent stereo­ this study succeeded where others failed. type attributes radical feminist motives of Through their resourcefulness and their flexibil­ separation from male society to female religious ity in responding to unforeseen circumstances, orders.1 they not only established and maintained The experience of the Catholic sisterhoods schools but also started hospitals and brought on the northern plains is far more diverse than much-needed health care to the people of the region. The challenges facing these sisterhoods in An associate professor of history at the Uni­ the often hostile physical environment of the versity of North Dakota, Susan Peterson has western frontier required traits and abilities published articles about religious communities that are often missing from stereotypes of reli­ of women on several plains frontiers. gious orders of women. The image of the sister leading a cloistered, confined existence, cut off [GPQ 5 (Spring 1985): 125-32. from the "evils" of the outside world, does not 125 126 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1985 fit the women of the four orders who made eastern and western provinces. Thus, when they the most lasting contributions to the social received a request for aid in founding a school development of the northern plains. These among the Devils Lake Sioux from Indian sisterhoods all came from outside of the United Agent William Forbes in 1874, their mother States. None of them had any experience with superior agreed to send four of her community's the people or the environment of the plains. members on the long journey from Quebec to For three of the groups, English was a new Dakota Territory. They envisioned no difficulty language to be learned, in addition to the var­ in a Canadian order working in the United States ious dialects spoken by the Indian tribes. One because the Grey Nuns were already working in group was accustomed to very cloistered living, missions in Ohio and Massachusetts that had and none had previous experience in nursing. been started several years earlier. 3 U.S. government Indian policy during those The Sisters of the Presentation were an order years was inconsistent. Despite these obstacles, founded in Ireland in 1776. Like the Grey however, these four orders became well known Nuns, they were dedicated to helping the poor, for their schools and hospitals within the thirty­ and their activity in Ireland centered on edu­ six-year period from 1874 to 1910. cating children from the slums of Irish cities. Of recent foreign origin, the four sisterhoods When Bishop Marty visited a Presentation con­ comprised a part of the late-nineteenth-century vent in Dublin on his way back to the United influx of immigrants to the West. All four States from Rome in 1879, he told the sisters groups began their tenure in Dakota Territory of his desperate need for teachers at mission as missionaries to the Indians; the Presentation schools he planned to found on reservations in Sisters and the Benedictine Sisters added non­ Dakota Territory. His visit proved successful; Indian parish schools to their apostolate, while three Presentation Sisters and two novices ac­ the Grey Nuns and the Sisters of St. Francis cepted the challenge and left the security of confined their activities to the Sioux of the their Irish convents for the uncertainty of the Fort Totten, Standing Rock, Rosebud, and Yankton Reservation in 1880. Some Irish Pine Ridge reservations. These same two orders Presentation Sisters were already working in retained ties with their motherhouses-in Mon­ the United States-in San Francisco and New treal for the Grey Nuns and in Buffalo, New York City-but nothing in the sisters' training York, for the Franciscans-while the Presenta­ or background prepared them for the hardship tion Sisters established motherhouses in Fargo, of the Dakota Territory environment or the North Dakota, and Aberdeen, South Dakota, rigors of educating the children of the Yankton and the Benedictines founded a motherhouse in Sioux.4 Yankton, South Dakota. Three of the four The Benedictine Sisters took a somewhat groups-the Presentation Sisters, the Benedic­ different route to the Standing Rock Reserva­ tines, and the Franciscans-arrived through the tion. This group had left Switzerland for the auspices of Martin Marty, OSB, the first bishop United States in 1874 because of difficulties of Dakota Territory. The Grey Nuns started with government authorities over their teaching their school because the Devils Lake Reserva­ activities, and they settled in Missouri near a tion had been assigned to the Catholic church Benedictine monastery, where they met Abbot as part of President Grant's peace policy, and Martin Marty. In 1881, after he had been named the Indian agent invited them because he was bishop of Dakota Territory, he asked the sisters familiar with their order since his cousin was a to staff a school at Standing Rock, one of only member.2 two reservations in Dakota Territory assigned The Grey Nuns were a Canadian order to the Catholic church under Grant's peace founded in Montreal in the 1730s to serve the policy. As the years passed and more Benedic­ poor, the ill, and the aged. They had a long rec­ tine Sisters from the Missouri motherhouse ord of service among the Indians of both the came to work at Standing Rock, the mother A WIDENING HORIZON 127 superior and her council decided to move their of the difficult frontier conditions. One of headquarters to Yankton, Dakota's territorial these was disease. Their school records all re­ capitol, in order to be closer to both the reser­ port illnesses such as measles, whooping cough, vation and the bishop, whose residence was in and scarlet fever among their students, and the the same city. 5 sisters themselves were not immune to such ail­ When Grant's peace policy came to an end ments. The Sisters of St. Francis experienced in the early 1880s, other reservations in Dakota a high rate of tuberculosis, with ten of their were opened to Catholic missionaries. In 1886 members at the missions in South Dakota dying Bishop Marty and the Jesuits on Rosebud of the disease between 1885 and 1910. The Reservation invited the Sisters of St. Francis to rigors of homesteading also brought about diffi­ staff the school they were building at St. Fran­ culties for two groups of sisters, the Grey Nuns cis Mission. This group of nuns was part of a and the Benedictines. In one instance, the Bene­ congregation of sisters who had come to the dictine Sisters agreed to homestead a section of United States from Germany in the 1870s as a land close to their convent near Redfield, and result of pressure from the government of Otto the two members who were sent to the fore­ von Bismarck. They had founded a motherhouse saken claim shanty had to endure scarcity of in Buffalo, New York, and operated schools in food as well as loneliness. As one sister com­ such far-flung areas as California and Nebraska. mented on the privations, "One can imagine the Like the Presentation and Benedictine sisters, insecurity and fear as they spent the long hours the Franciscans had no previous experience in of the night in their primitive shanty.,,8 teaching Indian children, but they were success­ All four sisterhoods came to Dakota Terri­ ful enough at Rosebud to help found Holy tory to serve as teachers; some taught at mis­ Rosary Mission on Pine Ridge Reservation three sion schools on reservations and others in parish years later. 6 schools in the growing number of farming com­ All four sisterhoods experienced the harsh munities in the eastern part of the territory.