After I entered the convent, two good things happened to me that I hadn’t planned. I became a nurse and a missionary. After graduating from Marquette University School of Nursing in l961, I spent a year at St. Michael´s Hospital in Milwaukee. During that year I rotated through all the departments of the hospital. This experience gave me some knowledge and appreciation of all the departments in the hospital and the importance of all departments working together. That year also gave me more experience and preparation before I was asked to assume supervisory positions. At the end of the year, our Province asked for volunteers to start a mission in Brazil. I was one of three chosen to start the mission.
We began preparations for mission work. I spent two weeks in the tuberculosis sanitarium in Milwaukee. This was followed by two weeks at a leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana. That was a new eye opener. Then I made an 8-month course in midwifery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which was given by the Medical Mission Sisters, who already had much mission experience.
Not knowing how else to prepare ourselves, Sr. Gemma, Sr. Adrienne and I started our voyage to Brazil. Sr. Fidelis accompanied us to New York. We waited a week in New York till the ship was ready to leave. After a ten day non-stop trip on the freighter, we arrived in Belém, a city in the state of Pará in Brazil. We spent a few days in Belém getting our documents in order, then we continued on to Santarém. After a few days of checking things out in Santarém, we went on to Manaus, Amazonas, where we spent four months with the Precious Blood Sisters, who taught us Portuguese. After that we had to “sink or swim!”
I continued to learn more Portuguese when I was giving basic health classes to groups of mothers out under the trees in the neighborhoods. We distributed government food rations to the poorest of the poor. We would offer a basic health class before dispensing the food. I made house calls to the sick who were unable to come to our medical post. I also did this for some communities out of the city. Some lived in the colonies and on the Tapajos and Amazon Rivers. I traveled by jeep, by boat, by outboard motor, by ox cart, by bicycle, and sometimes on foot! When asking for directions to a certain place, a common expression is “just right over there”, and then you might end up walking 5 or 6 blocks to get to it.
In l968 we opened up our own Maternity Hospital, knowing that in having contact with mothers we could teach them some basic health habits and in that way try to prevent some of the common health problems. Besides teaching the mothers, we trained our own hospital personnel. In order to reach more people in the more distant villages of the Diocese, I began a midwifery training program in l970. This program continues today and has helped many people.
In 1989 it was decided that we would begin a Brazilian Community and I was asked to be the novice directress. Since l989, my main job/responsibility has been helping with the formation of young women who want to be Franciscan women religious, but I still keep my hands and heart in touch with the health of the people.
Every year I give a course on anatomy of the human body to our novices and the OFM novices. That, of course, includes nutrition. They all like the practical part of the nutrition classes, because they get to eat what they learn to bake. One of our Brazilian Sisters is a great help with the midwifery program. She is now a teacher and gives the classes, both theory and practice. She does all the arrangements for the students. This year I hope to get all the information and statistics up to date on that and then turn it over to our Brazilian sisters.
Occasionally I still make house calls to the sick. I also try to look out for the health of our Friars (Franciscan priests and brothers). On a few occasions I have accompanied some of them to Belém and/or to the States, when they are too sick to travel alone. They help us in other ways and so we help them when we can. Recently one of the Friars was hospitalized. Their novices and postulants and our novices and postulants took turn staying with the sick Friar in the hospital. One of their Franciscans, who is from the South of Brazil, told me that he knows many women religious congregations in the South, but he has never seen a group that works so closely with the Friars as we do. I thought that was a very good observation and it was nice to hear it.
Sr. Alice, Brother Harry and I are now in the faze of teaching our Brazilian Sisters to assume the responsibilities, so that when we are no longer here they can carry on without us - as good Franciscan Religious.
