The 12 foundresses of St. Mary's Academy, the first Sisters of the Holy Names in Oregon, posed for this photo in 1863.
Holy Names Heritage Center photo
History class is in session at the parish school in St. Paul, Ore., and two guest speakers hold the pupils’ attention. Holy Names Sisters Kathleen Hepner and Rosalie Anderson are visiting the class to explain how in 1859, 12 Holy Names Sisters sailed from Montreal to Portland to set up St. Mary’s Academy, their first ministry beyond Canada.
Six weeks after leaving Quebec, and 7,000 miles from home, the Sisters’ steamship docked in Portland on Oct. 21. In their chronicles, the Sisters expressed gratitude: “The future we place in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary – our anxieties, our griefs – we are the weak instruments chosen to make these Holy Names known and loved.”
During the classroom visit, students use maps to track the voyage. They try on clothing in the style worn by Sisters and priests back then. They learn that 11 of the 12 Sisters on the voyage got seasick – and that hardly any of those Sisters smiled in their group photo because the cameras back then required long stillness. The children hear that St. Mary’s Academy was up and running only two weeks after the Sisters’ arrival in Portland – there were six students that first day; now there are 600. The Sisters continued to go where the spirit led them, to places like St. Paul, Oregon City, The Dalles, Salem, Medford, Eugene, Bend, Astoria, Jacksonville, and Lake Oswego. Sisters Rosalie and Kathleen know those towns well: “Between the two of us, we taught in most of them,” Sister Kathleen says.
In 1869, Jacksonville in southwestern Oregon experienced a severe small pox epidemic and Sisters of the Holy Names (who had come to start a school in 1865) ignored the warning of danger and ministered unselfishly for eight weeks to those affected by the disease. The people of Jacksonville, including those who had previously had antagonistic feelings for the Sisters and members of St. Joseph Parish, were impressed with the courage and unconditional love these women displayed in their care of the sick. As a result there were many conversions to the Catholic faith, according to historical society records.
Other missions and new ministries followed. Today, Holy Names Sisters literally can be found around the world, and the Holy Names Heritage Center is in its third year of offering the “Oregon in 1859” program to all Catholic elementary schools in Oregon.
When the lesson is over, the children mail thank-you notes to the visitors. Last year, a girl named Katie penned this note on red construction paper: “Thanks to you, I learned that we are part of that story.”
On Sunday, Oct. 18, the Holy Names Sisters, their lay Associates and St. Mary’s Academy will be the ones saying thank-you. A public 150th anniversary liturgy of Thanks and Praise, followed by a recepton, begins at 10:30 a.m. at the Chiles Center at the University of Portland.
Sister Joseph Mary Basick, who turns 101 in November, has experienced more of the Holy Names’ history than any Sister in Oregon. She is the second-eldest of the 590 Sisters in the United States and Ontario, and makes her home at Mary’s Woods continuing care retirement center in Lake Oswego.
“When we were born, there was no plumbing, no running water, no electricity, and we had no car,” Sister Joseph Mary recalled in an interview for the Heritage Center’s Oral History Project, which is in the process of recording interviews to document the congregation’s history through the work of individual Sisters. Living in Helvetia in Washington County, the family walked six miles to North Plains to shop. “We’d carry a bucket of eggs to sell along the way, and it was heavy. We would switch it back and forth from one arm to another. We were pooped by the time we got there. But the great thing was a real feeling of community back then.”
The Holy Names community included two siblings of Sister Joseph Mary: Sister Magdalene Basick (Sister Ruth Ann), who lives at Mary’s Woods, and Sister Mary Doloreen, who passed away in 1998.
Sister Joseph Mary enjoyed 27 years as an elementary school teacher and 20 years as the postmistress at Marylhurst, followed by 12 years in the business office at Marylhurst University.
At the post office one day, she caught a young man reaching into the money drawer. She recalled that she calmly approached him and said, “You don’t really want to do this because it’s a federal offense.” The would-be robber dropped the money and ran. Later, the regional postmaster scolded Sister Joseph Mary: “I was told that anytime someone comes asking for money, I am to give them the money. Your life is worth more than the money!”
Changes in the church after Vatican II left her unfazed. “The changes were gradual so it didn’t make much difference,” she recalled. After all, she said, everything had been changing. And Sisters had been at the forefront.
As far back as 1912, Caroline Gleason — later Sister Miriam Theresa — worked undercover in Oregon factories and compiled research that led to the nation’s first enforceable minimum wage law. In the 1920s, Sisters boycotted businesses that symphathized with the Ku Klux Klan. That same decade, Sisters fought the Oregon Compulsory Education Law that would have closed down the parochial and other private schools in the state. The U.S. Supreme Court declared that law unconstitutional in 1925.
In the 1930s, hard-working Japanese-American parents had little time to be with their children. The Archdiocese of Portland and the Sisters of the Holy Names to open a Japanese Catholic daycare and school. Today, the Sisters’ mission — the full development of the human person through education, social justice, contemplation and the arts — continues to inform the Sisters’ work, including ministering in parishes, universities, hospitals, and prisons; providing spiritual direction and religious formation; transforming lives through systemic change, justice actions and the arts; empowering immigrants; mentoring; and caring for the Earth. The Sisters’ legacy lives on at Marylhurst University, the roots of which go back to St. Mary’s Academy, and at ChristieCare, which evolved from one of the Sisters’ earliest ministries – caring for orphans.
About three decades ago, the Sisters accepted their first Associates – lay men and women who share the Sisters’ charism. Now there are more than 400 Associates in the U.S. and Ontario. Realizing that older Sisters would need more care, the Sisters opened Mary’s Woods continuing care retirement community in 2001. And in 2006, the Sisters reconfigured their five English speaking provinces into the U.S.-Ontario Province. Its offices are on the Marylhurst campus south of Lake Oswego.
“The wonderful work the Sisters have done for these 150 years … reminds us all about how significant was the partnership of the Sisters with the local church for a century and a half,” says Archbishop Vlazny. “I thank God that this partnership is still alive today.”
