new home will be in nice hilly country but there are no mountains like those of Maria Rickenbach. The rolling prairie stretches away as far as the eye can reach. There are very few shade trees and the place is exposed to every wind that blows. At this time of the year the weather alternates between extreme heat and extreme cold and the winter proper has not yet begun. Still, I have come closer to freezing to death here already than I ever did in the depth of winter at Maria Rickenbach. We find it necessary to think of some warmer covering for our heads, even though as nuns our heads are pretty well wrapped up already.18
The sisters remained at Maryville until December 1875, when their combination convent and school was completed at Conception. Three of them moved to their new home, while the other two remained in Maryville to maintain a school there. Apparently, Mother Gertrude back in Switzerland had some concerns about the building and the speed of construction, for Father Adelhelm wrote to her in February of 1876, “There is no reason for worry about the new construction at Conception. I think the Sisters’ new convent is sufficiently dry. It was quick work, yes, but here in America all is done in a hurry. Don’t worry; nobody will get sick on account of too much moisture in the building; the Lord takes care of his spouses.”19
Thus, when Sisters Bernardine and Scholastica arrived in the summer of 1876, they found a newly built frame building, which would serve as their convent home and as a school. The church and monastery building completed what would today be called the physical plant from which the Benedictine monks and nuns of Conception were to live their religious life and carry on their work.
3 • Conception and Maryville
The new members of the Conception convent community received a warm but simple welcome that June of 1876. Precious time and energy could not be wasted on elaborate ceremony, even if the precarious finances of the group would have allowed it. A large garden had to be tended carefully because the sisters, as well as the monks and some boarding students, would depend upon its produce for winter survival. There was a fat little pig to care for against the day it would become ham and bacon for the table. Of immediate importance was mastery of English or at least enough knowledge of the language to enable the sisters to manage classrooms when school would begin again in September. Sister Rose Chapelle had come from her convent in Ferdinand, Indiana, to help the sisters learn the American language and ways.1
Furthermore, the small group had to be divided between Maryville and Conception, each of which places was trying to maintain a school, take care of a parish church and sacristy, and cook the meals and do the domestic work for the equally overworked priests. Even the care of stables and horses, not to mention chickens, fell to the sisters.
On July 12, 1876, Mother Anselma wrote from Conception to Mother Gertrude at Maria Rickenbach, “Bernardine helps with the washing and with the garden work. Scholastica does the cooking, which is not quite easy for her and requires all her strength throughout the day. Novice Anna is ready for everything . . . Tomorrow English instructions will start for Bernardine and Novice Anna; both have a will for it.”2 She also mentioned that Sister Rose would return to her convent in Ferdinand in the fall.
In this letter, Mother Anselma revealed inner tensions and difficulties that plagued the community at Conception, and which would be intensified as time went on. Her hope was that, with the help of three new members, and with Sister Rose removed from the scene in the fall, a more peaceful life could be assured. In retrospect, one can sympathize with this harassed woman trying to start a religious community in a completely unfamiliar environment. She had been appointed superior of the group before they left Switzerland with the understanding that Conception would be merely a branch house, with the final authority vested in the superior of Maria Rickenbach. At the same time, Abbot Anselm Villiger of Engelberg, as spiritual director of the women’s community, also played an authoritative role. On the scene in Missouri, Frowin Conrad and Adelhelm Odermatt sometimes acted like little abbots on their own, and took upon themselves the direction of the sisters’ lives. Added to that was the day-to-day necessity of staying alive on the prairie, which required quite different skills from the settled environment the sisters had left behind on the Alpine slopes.
Apparently, Sister Rose Chapelle, since she spoke English and had been imported into the Conception convent to help the sisters adjust to American ways, also believed she should have some authority over the group.3 Mother Anselma found herself in the middle, with the responsibility for the sisters and their well-being, but with little to say about their work load or the arrangement of their lives. She too suffered from homesickness, and from a chronic annoying cough. In a touching paragraph, she thanked Mother Gertrude for sending her a flower and picture. “It reminds me once more of the dear unforgettable mountain where I enjoyed so much good and joy, and that I shall never see again in this world.”4 She mentioned her cough and her conviction that she would not live long. She grieved over her father, recently deceased, and a cousin who had been kind to her and the sisters. Almost apologetically, she asked for prayers and for patience with her inability to get more work done under the circumstances.
Of supreme importance to Mother Anselma was the ideal that Conception should be an extension and continuation of Maria Rickenbach; that the customs, prayer life, and spirit of the new convent should reflect and enhance that of their Old World home. From the beginning, Sister Rose was an outsider. She spoke very little German. Her convent at Ferdinand was already several steps removed from its European origins, St. Walburg Convent in Eichstatt, Bavaria. This ancient German house took great pride in its eighth century beginnings. Sister Rose brought with her to Conception a mix of ancient German tradition and American language and life style which must have been confusing, probably threatening, to the newcomers, whose Swiss motherhouse was scarcely a generation old. At any rate, Mother Anselma found Sister Rose’s presence increasingly annoying and was eager for the day when her services could be dispensed with: “When once Rose is gone, I can act more freely with the Sisters in Maryville.”5
A disagreement had arisen almost immediately upon Sister Rose’s arrival at Conception. The official prayer of the community at Ferdinand was the Office of the Blessed Virgin, recited in Latin. The Maria Rickenbach sisters, on the other hand, recited a modified form of The Exercises of St. Gertrude, in German. Since Sister Rose was not adept at German and believed that she should help Americanize the immigrants, she suggested, with the backing of Abbot Martin Marty of St. Meinrad’s (another authority figure moving in), that the sisters at Conception adopt the Latin prayers. Frowin Conrad became aware of this, and consulted Abbot Anselm of Engelberg. The latter’s reply was unequivocal. The sisters were not to depart from the prayers or customs of Maria Rickenbach. When a second plea came from Frowin, pointing out that the American candidates seeking entrance to the community knew no German and that St. Gertrude herself recited the Latin office, Abbot Anselm was more adamant than ever.6 The distressing fact in all this was that the sisters, who were, after all, the ones to be sanctified through the prayer life of the community, did not have the freedom to make practical applications to their own difficult situation.
Mother Anselma evidently confided in Sister Bernardine almost immediately upon the latter’s arrival at Conception. Sister Bernardine had spent scarcely a month in Missouri before she wrote to Abbot Anselm, telling him frankly of her own temptations and difficulties, and of the atmosphere of the house. “What a difference . . . between the spirit of M. Rickenbach and here. The Sisters told me that the superior became so intimidated by the reproaches of the Sisters (that she was too strict with them and with herself) that she only seldom dares to interfere or give orders. Therefore everyone goes her own way.” She wrote of criticism and lack of seriousness and reverence. She noted that Mother Anselma had talked with her about her difficulties with the sisters:
I spoke my mind frankly. According to the admonition of the Holy Rule that the superior should never keep silent in view of the transgressions of the disciples, I said that I did not have the impression that she was too strict, but rather too indulgent, and that I consider it the duty of the superior with love to interfere, to refuse, to reproach, to order, to command whenever needed. The Sisters
