Order took root in diocese amid hardscrabble conditions
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles about the Sisters Adorers of the Blood of Christ from ASC Sr. Helen Streck’s book West-Wind, Spirit-Wind.
By Christopher M. Riggs
editor emeritus
A wall of books, let alone a series of articles, could never contain the myriad of stories about the hundreds of Sisters of St. Joseph and Adorers of the Blood of Christ who have molded the lives of thousands of the faithful of the Diocese of Wichita.
Most of their stories of love and dedication were never put to paper, but are part of the wealth that the sisters built up in Heaven, known only by them and Our Heavenly Father. As Adorer of the Blood of Christ Sr. Tarcisia Roths wrote in the introduction of Sr. Helen Streck’s West-Wind, Spirit-Wind, the history of the ASCs up to 1984: “Sr. Helen has admirably portrayed the broad strokes of the picture; many of the fine lines, the nuances of color, the intricate details, are necessarily left unspoken, unsketched, and will remain inscribed only in our memories, and in the mind and heart of God. Yet, the richness of this history is in the women who have lived its story – whose names do not appear in its pages, yet whose lives are intricately woven into its fabric.”
Sr. Tarcisia’s comments apply not only to the Adorers, who tirelessly worked to build up the Church in the diocese, but to the Sisters of St. Joseph and the women of the other orders who have served in the Diocese of Wichita.
The Advance is printing a series of articles to honor those sisters, living and deceased, who have played such an important role in forming what is arguably one of the finest dioceses in the United States. The articles are mostly taken from history books compiled by historians of the orders. West-Wind, Spirit Wind was written by ASC Sr. Helen, a member of the first class of postulants in 1929, and printed in 1984.
“This brief chronicle is an attempt to record the significant events in the communal life of the Adorers in the Province of Wichita, since their coming to Kansas from Ruma in 1893,” Sr. Helen writes in the foreword. (The Adorers were founded by St. Maria de Mattias in Italy and came to the United States in 1870. Ruma, Illinois, is located south of St. Louis, Missouri.)
West Wind, Spirit Wind is divided into the eras of the community’s leaders in Wichita. The first was Mother Clementine Zerr, who served from 1893 to 1906.
Mother Clementine Zerr
Bishop John J. Hennessy, the first ordinary of the Diocese of Wichita, was ill on April 2, 1902, the day he sent two priests, Fathers Patrick J. Malone and Michael J. O’Farrell, in his carriage to meet four sisters at Wichita’s train station. “Mother Clementine Zerr, the leader of this first small group, was the vicaress for the American branch of the Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood who had formed a union in Germany to honor the Blood of Christ,” Sr. Streck writes.
Mother Clementine, who had been the mistress of novices for the German community in Steinerberg, Switzerland, traveled to the United States in 1873 in response to the Kulturkampf – German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s attempt to subject the Roman Catholic Church to state controls.
The newly-arrived sisters lived at Mount Carmel and walked every day to their future home, cleaning and preparing a building “on College Green” in Wichita that the order purchased from Bishop Hennessy. The bishop bought the building in 1889 to establish a boys’ college, but abandoned the project because he was unable to obtain teaching brothers. Bishop Hennessy lived there for about 12 years. Before it was sold to the Adorers, part of the three-story, 24-room building was used for two years as a girls’ orphanage, managed by Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother.
Sr. Streck writes about the tremendous amount of work involved in preparing the building and six acres of land. “Shortly thereafter, they named it St. John’s Institute, in honor of the chaplain and spiritual director of the sisters at Ruma, Reverend John Neuhaus,” she writes.
One of those early pioneers, Sr. Jerome Gehringer, would die in Wichita in 1964 at the age of 94, a veteran of the trials and tribulations of the early years. Brief biographies of the other sister-pioneers, Sr. Johanna Siedler and Sr. Josepha Goedde, are chronicled in the book.
The Catholic Advance reported that the building they were to occupy was sold to the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood, but didn’t document the sisters’ arrival in Wichita. (The name change from “Sisters of the Most Precious Blood” (Ad.PP.S.) to “Sisters Adorers of the Blood of Christ” (ASC) occurred in 1984, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of their founding.)
“Most Reverend J. J. Hennessy, Bishop of the Diocese since 1887, was pleased to have the sisters in his See, particularly for the many parishes founded by the German-speaking farmers in the small towns around Wichita,” Sr. Streck writes in the book.
She adds that the Wichita sisters weren’t the first Adorers in Kansas. Three sisters were sent to Westphalia, Kansas, in 1893 to teach at St. Teresa School. They left in 1900. (Westphalia is located about 20 miles north of Iola.) By 1902, when Mother Clementine moved to Wichita, the schools taught by Adorers were St. Joseph in Ost, St. Mary in Aleppo, St. Mark’s in St. Mark, St. Joseph in Andale, St. Mary in Herndon, Holy Family in Odin, and St. Boniface (later renamed St. Anthony) in Wichita.
Boarding and day schools
Sr. Streck writes that the sisters, with their red sashes, golden hearts, and distinctive wimples (the headdress around the face), became known as the Sunflower State’s Sunflower Sisters.
The sisters spent the spring of 1902 preparing the building for the sisters and future students. “After their walk to Mount Carmel each morning for Mass, they returned to their tasks,” the book states.
That same year, Mother Clementine announced plans for a boarding school for Catholic and non-Catholic girls between the ages of 12 and 20, “the principal object of which will be to give a systematic and thorough training in practical house-keeping.” The curriculum included cooking, washing, ironing, English and German languages, reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, grammar, composition, single and double entry bookkeeping, vocal and instrumental music, religious instruction to Catholic pupils, “and politeness and correct deportment to all.”
The sisters also planned a day school for girls ages six to 12, teaching the regular school subjects, including instrumental music in English and German.
Amid the success of their boarding and day schools in Wichita, the sisters didn’t neglect their mission schools in the diocese’s small towns. “On most missions, there was a ‘housekeeping sister’ who cared for the home and prepared meals,” Sr. Strecker writes. “In some instances, they also substituted for teachers as needed, gave music lessons, or helped in the choir.”
Bishop Hennessy and many of the visiting priests were benefactors of the sisters in their early years. They donated chapel furnishings, vessels for Mass, and priest vestments. Priests from the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception offered Mass for the Sisters and heard their confessions. “In spite of hard work and long hours, the sisters devoted themselves lovingly to their spiritual life,” the book states.
Sr. Streck writes about many events hosted by the sisters, including retreats led primarily by Redemptorist priests. Mother Clementine, who was local superior and American vicaress, made annual visits to Ruma “to take care of the business of the vicarate.” She also made adaptations from the Italian Rule that did not transfer to American culture, such as the requirement for a traveling companion for any sister, dowries, and allowing novices and sometimes postulants to teach “to fulfill the demands for school on this new frontier.”
Mother Clementine would often visit the homes of young women considering the religious life, encouraging them and often bringing them to Wichita herself.
Final days
Sr. Streck writes about the difficulty of transportation and the primitive living conditions – especially for the sisters outside of Wichita who had to carry water from wells, and use wood-burning stoves, kerosene lamps, and outhouses.
“By 1904, the building at St. John’s was becoming overcrowded and an addition was planned,” the book states. The addition was dedicated in 1905. Because of a demand to educate boys, the sisters converted a frame cottage located on the 10 acres of land they had purchased south of the original building and opened a boys’ school there. “The boys came to the girls’ building for meals and for chapel services,” Sr. Streck writes.
Mother Clementine became ill with pneumonia in 1904 and never fully regained her health. A chronicle of her last illness reports that on Saturday, Jan. 19, 1906, she contracted a severe cold while spending several hours before the Blessed Sacrament in the new chapel. “During the night, she became very sick, and on the following morning, Sunday, was unable to rise. The physician was summoned, and he at once pronounced her case critical.” A Franciscan priest from St. Anthony Church was called to administer the last sacraments.
She died on Wednesday after calling Mother Pauline and Sr. Johanna to her side with instructions about how to move forward. “You will have lots of trouble yet, but our dear Lord will always help you again,” she told them. A few minutes before she died, she blessed the sisters with holy water, “gave a surprising glance upward, shortly after closed her eyes and died peacefully without a struggle.”
At the time of her death, the Wichita Adorers were staffing 14 schools in Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Nebraska. Thirteen sisters served at St. John’s, where there were five novices, 10 postulants, and about 100 students.
“The foundress had come to America in 1873, had led the sisters to the foundation in Ruma, and had then extended the frontiers of their work to this ‘western mission,’” the book states, “but the spirit she had nurtured was to continue, with sisters from two centers, Ruma and Wichita, carrying on the pioneer spirit that she had so ably demonstrated.”
Sr. Streck details some of the purchases Mother Clementine made in 1902, showing their “ausgaben,” German for expenditures. One of the expenditures in 1906 was for a casket, embalming, funeral services, Masses, and the final journey back to Ruma, Illinois, for Mother Clementine, a total of $108.