The Demands of Rome / Her Own Story of Thirty-One Years as a Sister of Charity in the Order of the Sisters of Charity of Providence of the Roman Catholic Church

by Elizabeth Schoffen

Soon after I had received the appointment of officer of the third floor there were many complaints from the patients and physicians about the food and the manner in which it was prepared. So it was decided that some of the sisters should go to a cooking school which was being conducted by a woman by the name of Miss Porter, in the Exposition Building, Nineteenth and Washington Streets. I happened to be one of the chosen number, and we took a series of twelve lessons, principally on preparing dainty dishes such as could be used for the sick.

After I had completed this course, I was appointed to teach cooking to the nurses in the training school and the young sisters in addition to my other duties. I conducted this class from two to three-thirty in the afternoon.

Our rules prescribe that the hour from two to three be observed by profound silence, and also that no sister shall partake of any food outside of the dining-room without special permission from the superior. During the teaching of this class on cooking, I was compelled to talk to the sisters, and it was also quite necessary that they should talk to me, in order that they could get the proper instruction. When they would cook some dish I would request them to taste it, that they might judge for themselves as to the seasoning. These were serious breaks of the rules, and it caused trouble for me after I had been instructing the class about six weeks.

My young sister pupils plotted with the superior to cause my removal, and wrote to the Mother Provincial, Sister Mary Theresa, who was at that time in Oakland, California, instituting a new house of the order. Sister Mary Theresa did not write to me about the matter, but took it up with my superior, who came to me and said that there was so much complaint about me causing the sisters to break the rule that she would have to change me. She was going to take the superintendency of the third floor away from me and send me to the basement to the fruit cannery to teach cooking. I told her that I could not do that. I had learned how to cook because she had wanted me to, and that if I was going to teach it, I was going to teach it right; and if she would delegate some other sister, I would teach her all I knew about cooking and I would be through with it. But she did not want me to do that, she wanted me to keep the class.

I had done the very best I could with the class, and all this trouble was caused, not because I was unsuccessful, but because the sisters broke some of the rules of the order, which could not be avoided if they wished to learn. The action of the superior had caused me much distress, both of heart and mind, and with the assistance of two stewards of my floor, I placed all the cooking utensils and supplies of the school in a large box and sent it to the superior's room. For weeks she tried to prevail upon me to take the school back, but I refused to have anything more to do with it.

This instance may not be very interesting to my readers, but I relate it to show how little petty happenings cause so very much trouble, and very often serious trouble for the poor girls in these institutions. There are many more instances of this nature I could relate, but I do not care to burden you with them. My action in this little matter caused me to be looked upon with great suspicion and a certain amount of contempt from the other sisters. It was this sort of treatment that caused me to write notes of the cruelties I, with other sisters, had to endure. I expected to give these notes to some trust-worthy friend to read after my death, but for some unknown reason I kept them and have them at the present time.

About this time, also, I had a class of about twenty young sisters to whom I taught what nursing I had acquired, principally from experience. This was soon abandoned, for the reason that it interfered with evening prayer and retirement at nine o'clock, the only time that could be found during the day to hold the class.

Of all the superstitious and pagan practices that enforces the vow of obedience, is the traditional exercise of penances or penalties. The most inhuman, unjust, humiliating and very often torturing punishments are imposed upon the sisters for breaking any of the many childish rules—rules that just as really and truly bind the poor victim as though she was a criminal in the penitentiary.

A sister is only human. The "holy" black garb she wears does not change her. She is subject to the same sorrows, the same joys, the same love, the same hate, the same humility, the same pain as you. But here in these hellish, soul-destroying institutions, walled high "to keep the Protestants out," they say, there is a system in vogue that holds women in servitude—yes, slavery—and for failing to heed the "voice of God," which is the voice of the priest, or superior, or the toll of the religious bell, or the observance of the book of rule, there is a penalty imposed, penalties such as will torture or humiliate the poor subject.

Some of the torturing penances are the wearing of the armlet—a chain with little prongs on it to prick the flesh; the scourging of the bare body with the "discipline" or cat-o'-nine-tails—constructed of heavy, knotted cord; kneeling and praying with arms extended in the shape of a cross; and the wearing of the chastity cord—constructed of heavy, knotted cord. This practice ties up our virtues and keeps us chaste and pure.