Sentinel on the Hill

Sentinel on the Hill: Monte Maria and the One Hundred Years - Monastery of the Visitation, 1966, Richmond, VA

Who wrote this? I suppose the research was a collaborative effort, but the writing voice sounds individual. There's one anecdote that seems as if the author is writing about herself in the third person, but now I can't find it; it's a personal little remembrance by "a young sister" who received advice from a named older sister.

Is the magnolia tree we have the same as the "giant" magnolia mentioned many times here? It's possible, and H is sure that it is, but I'm inclined to say no. Its current position doesn't seem to match the descriptions.

There's got to be more pictures, somewhere, of the grounds and buildings, especially during the school days...right? I'd especially love to see the makeshift chapel inside the "old mansion," any pictures of the "slave quarters" transformed into a dormitory (said to be wooden), and after the destruction of the old house - the new cloistered porch in byzantine style with arches.

Only three employees are mentioned by name, Anderson Early, Earsell Jeffers, and Old Mr. Martin, but at least one other "laundress" is mentioned, as well as other contract workers. Is there a way to find out how many folks were regularly employed over the years?

notes

• The past, the present, are not only here embodied in bookform, but as a living fact
• God is found in all things, great or small. The spirit of the visitation is one of this simplicity.
• Bishop McGill bought a piece of cornfield beyond the city limits (later the cathedral)
• "Bishop McGill purchased at a cost of $15,000 from Thomas Ellett, executor of Loftin N. Ellett, the half square on Church Hill fronting on the south-side of Grace Street and extending from 22nd to 23rd streets with an old-fashioned but comfortable wooden residence thereon"
• wrote to Venerable Mother Mary Paulina Millard, superior of the Visitation Monastery in Baltimore
• Mother Mary Paulina, elected superior of Georgetown in 1830, 35yrs, served four triennials, later chosen foundress in Washington-Bethesda and Brooklyn. Now at 71, again a foundress for Richmond
• Mother Juliana will be Superior, and we will have six sisters...we will go from here to Richmond on a steamboat... Sr Mary Louis Williamson
• first conducted to St Joseph's Academy where the daughters of St Vincent de Paul graciously welcomed
• [this history claims house first built by John Coles, but that is mistaken, "In its great sweeping hall, Washington and Lafayette danced and made welcome]
• the stately house with its four chimneys (the sisters could never find but two), dormer windows, shingled roof
• also unnoticed by Father Hitzelberger, but breath-taking for the sisters, was the magnolia tree with its head lifted to the sky and its great branches like outstretched arms sheltering the garden and the wind-blown paths
• at noon the good Sisters of Charity came, carrying a picnic lunch for the sisters and priests
• the small chapel, a few feet square and situated on the groundfloor
• we place you like sentinels to guard our discese, to draw down graces upon our priests and people
• first students - non catholics as well as catholics, numbered  ten boarders and forty-six day students
• Miss Lizzie, our next door neighbor, spy for the federals, helped prisoners escape from libby prison (?)
• the boys tried to destroy her fruit, she won them over with ice cream party
• St Patricks built in 1859
• two schools, not four blocks apart, opening in september 1866, in richmond!
• "our school is still very poor; but persons tell us that next year it will be better, if we do not have another war, which is threatening...last week the James overflowed
• death of Mother Juliana; Mother Paulina took her back to Georgetown
• Henry Stratton gave $1000 in cash for education of Mary, Eliza, and Nellie...with this ready money the sisters were able to transform the old wooden structure that was originally the slave quarters, into a large refectory for the young ladies; and by raising the roof of the first story and adding a second, airy and attractive dormitories were constructed
• Sept 9, one year after the foundation, our Blessed Lady made a "secret Visitation" to the heart of a girl of twenty-one. Born in County Kerry, Ireland, Catherine Mary Sullivan...moved to Washington DC, first postulant in Richmond
• sometime in 1870's,  City Council permitted sisters to bury in the convent
• Bishop Gibbons at the commencment, "I am sure that nothing that has influenced you under the teachings of the good sisters will ever lead you to become in after life women's-rights women. You will never mount the rostrum to advocated the so-called rights, but in reality the abuses of women"..."among women the needle is mightier than the ballot"
• from the very beginning, grates had been erected in the chapel and parlors, with a small turn for business transactions
• 1868, twelve members, and school growing
• during these years, the fatherly physician of the sisters was Doctor Beal. The good doctor, Jewish and a very religious man, asked for no other renumeration than their prayers
• John Tabb often told the story of how proudly his 'mammy' would show him off and say, "He's the ugliest baby ever born in Virginia"
• in the garden a shrine to Our Lady
• May 8 1877, Bishop gave deed to house to sisters
• Bishop Keane 1883 bought Taylor-Palmer house gave to sisters, twenty rooms
• also "by yielding up the terraces running south to Franklin St. to the city; the city in turn, close the street which will become your property
• "...sewing for the Franciscan Sisters today. They're awful poor. They work for the colored folk and are having a hard time getting started"
• Sisters of Visitation, Franciscans, Little Sisters, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity
• "a life vowed to perfection isn't a prolonged endurance contest, as the world would have you think. No, dear children, it is a leap into the arms of God
• St Francis coat of arms: heart, pierced by two arrows - love of God and love of neighbor - love is bitter and sweet - encircled by crown of thorns
• Bishop Van and Mr and Mrs Fortune Ryan, 1894 Mrs Ryan gives check of $5000 for chapel
• in the niches - statues of the sacred heart of Jesus, Blessed Mother, and St Joseph
• Sister Bessie, remained in the monastery as a benefactress
• plays every spring in the lawn
• Living through it, who will ever forget that summer of 1914? The outbreak of World War I; the sorrowful news of the death of the saintly Pius X; the anxious waiting for the election of a new Pope - and then Benedict XV was given a world filled with sadness, gloom and fear
• started an Alumnae Association
• idea to raise funds for an academy building that would lend itself to dormitories for the boarders, a refectory, kitchen, infirmary and parlors would be included
• golden jubilee in 1916, lots of music, organ violin favorite hymns
• fidelity, prayer, sacrifice - these were the means sister employed to spread the fire of God's love over the face of the world; and these words reveal a part of her secret greatness, though hidden behind convent walls for sixty-four years. We dare say no one in the city of Richmond was better known than Sister Mary Francis de Sales Gahaghan
• sisters from all over - bavaria, dingle county kerry, mobile alabama, germany, mexico
• the visitandine life embraces the prayer of labor in which the nun moves in the atmosphere of union with God, and finds Him in her service to her neighbor
• for example, Sister Claude Simplicia, her corn bread and coffee were nationally known; Teresa Josphine - laundry, rub-and-tub with a prayer; Sister Mary Martina "queen of the walk" in her cherished henhouse and chicken run "every biddy knew her voice and the touch of her hand, and never did they fail her when she looked for an egg. those were the days when an egg was worth its weight in gold..."
• "in the folds of her mantle or tilma, the Indian mother carries her youngest"
• annual retreat when the school closed for the summer
• 1918 or so, academy had to refuse 60 applicants b/c not enough space; Bishop O'Connel raising money in earnest for new dorm
• cost $46,093.25
• Mrs Dooley tried to keep the Major from going back to his catholic faith; a priest slipped in to hear a confession close to time of death
• Mother Mary Magdalen Dooley at first only left $5000 in his will; but had to re-do will b/c she didn't have kids; and new law not clear if wife could leave to whomever she wanted; so divided up more equally
• Paray-le-Monial, vision of the sacred heart of Jesus revealed to St Margaret Mary of the visitation order
• dorm construction during the summer, supposed to be ready for the new school year; sisters helped clean up
• "she was a delightful little Rebel - always!" MMM Dooley, story of her talking with Gen Lee
• 1927 MMM Dooley died, left a lot of money to sisters
• not sure if could keep up with education standards, discussions with Bishop to close school
• secret vote, unanimous
• last graduation June 10 1927
• vocations increased
• reunion on the academy grounds
• Annecy, home of Visitation
• remodeling academy buildings
• "to restore the 'Old Mansion' so as to render it habitable and safe would have been far too costly, and it was necessary to relinquish any idea of saving even a portion of it or the grand, wide-spreading trees about it. Fain would the sisters have cried, "Woodman, spare that tree!"
• "however, upon the foundation of the Old Mansion, a cloistered porch in Byzantine style, with open arches on the south, east and north, was erected and close by a greenhouse was in the planning"
• two sisters sent to Wilmington to learn firsthand the economy of a non-teaching community
• requirements for entrance into novitiate - suitable health, body and soul; a right intention; 10-12 mo postulant; then reception of habit; one year after taking habit then temporary vows; then three years and perpetual vows
• "the most soul stirring event in the religious life is the solemn profession
• priests at St Peters and St Patricks acting as chaplains
• Then 1931, A.J Van Ingelgem,  81yr old, Belgian born priest in VA for long time, retired and became chaplain; Buddy his dog; built cottage for him; eccumenical spirit; died 1935; many other beloved chaplains
• "Father has made friends in the little Ethiopia wherein lies his domain; as one small colored boy put it, 'He's a real priest and we like him.' ??
• great crucifix in the little cemetary "God's Acre"
• plans made to transform second floor of chapel into tribune for sick and several infirmary rooms
• Sister Mary Fidelis Sanders - skilled builder and contractor; (copy that poem!); also served as portress
• Anderson Early, longtime employee, Testimonial, celebrated Jubilee; note left by grandson (copy that page)
• "Old Mr. Martin, another loyal caretaker of a later time"
• "A laundress, Earsell Jeffers, worked for the sisters for a great number of years"
• "Love Love Love" was an ending that Reverend Mother Mary Elizabeth continually used in her letters to all Visitandines to whom she had occasion to write
• the "Minor Seminary of St John Vianney" - Chester Michael one of the first rectors
•  1960, Sisters of Bon Secours arrive in Richmond, good friends with Monte Maria, help with care for sick, etc
• Queen's Party - held on eve of Epiphany, one time out of year where talk at dinner
• genesis of print shop; started in coal cellar (on the west end?); Operation Homefront; Our Lady of Thule (airbase in Greenland)
• Sister Fidelis designed and built cinderblock print shop; on may 21 1960 cornerstone laid by Mother Mary Gertrude
• Mary Louise Verleysen, Belgium, inspired by Katherine Drexel, "who devoted her life and fortune to the care of the Indian and Negro races," ends up at monte maria
• "the story of the monastery of the Visitation in Richmond has always been closely linked with the lives of the bishops of the diocese"
• "a religious of the Visitation is taught that seven-eighths, so to speak, of her time should be given to thanksgiving. For as St Francis de Sales once said, "Gratitude is your special means of union with God and with neighbor"
• a picture of Blessed Mother of Perpetual Help at top of the stairs leading to the sisters choir and around the corner from the infirmary
• Joseph Bliley devoted to the sisters
• grave setting with giant iron crucifix at one end, the giant magnolia at the opposite, and the solemn line of hemlocks
• "Old Church Hill struggles between slum and historic restoration"
• "there will always be a need for souls to consecrate themselves entirely to God, with lives separated from the world, dead to its vanities and fleeting pleasures in order that they may the more deeply and positively involve themselves in the course of its salvation