With Loving Concern

By Sr. Virginia Kampwerth PHJC

With Loving Care is a book that describes the history of the American Province of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ from the time of its founding by five sisters who came from Germany to Hessen Cassel, Indiana, to serve the German-speaking people of Northwestern Indiana until the present day. The book was written to outline the efforts of the sisters with the people of the different geographic areas throughout Northern Indiana, all through Illinois and the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Wherever the sisters ministered, they also attracted other young women to join them, either as vowed members or as associates who would also serve the people following the charism of Catherine Kasper. The work of the sisters was in the general fields of health care, education, and childcare. As time went on, the apostolates expanded to include parish ministry, retreat ministry, and individual types of service with the people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524541798

Sr. Virginia Kampwerth PHJC

Sr. Virginia Kampwerth, PHJC, is a member of the American Province of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, who has served as an educator in all levels of education from elementary through high school and college levels. Her ministry has included teaching German, Latin, religion, and journalism. Sr. Virginia has earned degrees from Purdue University, Alverno College, and Saint Louis University that have prepared her for her ministry in the field of education. The book she authored, With Loving Concern, describes a way for her to pay tribute to all the sisters who preceded her in the religious community and as a way to honor their contribution to American society through their lives of loving service to the people of God.

Book preview

WITH LOVING CONCERN

SR. VIRGINIA KAMPWERTH, PHJC

COPYRIGHT © 2016 BY SR. VIRGINIA KAMPWERTH, PHJC.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER:   2016915034

   ISBN:   HARDCOVER   978-1-5245-4181-1

      SOFTCOVER   978-1-5245-4180-4

      EBOOK   978-1-5245-4179-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/13/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

746001

CONTENTS

Interested in Others

Caring about Others

Attentive to Others

Helpful to All

Assisting Others

Befriending All Around

Generous to All

Helpful in All Circumstances

Helpful to All

Neighbors to All

Accepting of All

Encouraging of Others

The years 1868–2018 mark the time span since the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ first came from Germany to the United States. Why the sisters came to the United States in the first place was the result of Catherine Kasper’s decision to respond to requests for sisters to serve the German-speaking immigrants who were living in the United States. Catherine made this decision with loving concern, and those three words also describe the attitudes of the sisters in their relationships with one another in the beginning of their ministry. With Loving Concern still describes how sisters and colleagues who minister with them relate to others. With loving concern, the sisters continued to respond to requests and to meet the needs of the people with whom they came in contact.

The year 1868 was only seventeen years after the foundation of the community on August 15, 1851, in Dernbach, Germany, when Catherine Kasper and four other women—Anna Katherine Schoenberger, Anna Marie Mueller, Elizabeth Meuser, and Elizabeth Haas—became Poor Handmaids.

Bishop John Henry Luers, born in Münster, Westphalia, in the northern part of Germany, came to the United States with his parents when he was eleven years old. In 1848, he was ordained as a Catholic priest in Cincinnati. In 1857, Fort Wayne, Indiana, was designated a diocesan see, and Bishop Luers became its first bishop. When Bishop Luers became aware of the many German-speaking immigrants settled in this section of Indiana, he recognized the need for sisters who spoke German to minister among them. The Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis from Aachen, Germany, had served in Hessen Cassel from 1864 to 1865, but they had left because of severe weather and other unfortunate events and misunderstandings.

Bishop Luers wrote a letter on May 12, 1868, to Catherine Kasper, in which he referred to an earlier letter of April 20 he had received from Father Wittayer. In this letter, Father Wittayer had asked Bishop Luers to send a personal letter asking for the sisters. That was why on May 12, 1868, Bishop Luers wrote a letter to Catherine Kasper herself, stating that he was looking forward with great joy to the arrival of the sisters in his diocese and that he would do all in his power to help them. He also mentioned that he hoped the sisters would eventually be effective in other dioceses of this large country of the United States of America. Bishop John Henry Luers had contacted another diocesan priest he knew who had come to serve in America, Rev. Edward Koenig, pastor of St. Paul’s Parish in Fort Wayne, to ask him for assistance.

Father Koenig then wrote to his friend, Father Henry Spaller of Gelsenkirchen, Germany, with the request to try to find some sisters to minister with the German-speaking immigrants in the diocese of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Father Spaller knew the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ because they had been ministering in the Diocese of Paderborn, Germany, since 1861, in eleven convents. This was the diocese where Father Spaller was serving as a priest. Father Spaller contacted his friend in Dernbach, Father John James Wittayer, who was a type of spiritual director for Catherine Kasper and the Poor Handmaids in Germany.

Fr. Wittayer spoke repeatedly with Catherine Kasper about this opportunity for the sisters to minister in America. Before Catherine agreed to this, she consulted Bishop Peter Joseph Blum, who had been her adviser and friend since the community began.

By February 18, 1867, Bishop Peter Joseph Blum of Limburg informed Father Wittayer that he approved of some Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ going to minister to German-speaking people in Hessen Cassel, Indiana. Then Catherine Kasper needed to choose the sisters to begin this ministry. She asked for volunteers. Of the 297 professed Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ in 1868, 245 volunteered to go to the United States. From this large number, eight sisters were selected for the American foundation. They went to the motherhouse in Germany in early July 1868: Sr. M. Bella Siewecke, Sr. M. Corona Jahn, Sr. M. Eudoxia Bender, Sr. M. Facunda Wand, Sr. M. Henrica Siewecke, Sr. M. Hyacintha Neurath, Sr. M. Matrona Mohring, and Sr. M. Rose Blum. They made a retreat there, and then Sr. Catherine Kasper and Sr. Edmond traveled with them to Le Havre, France. A missionary priest, Fr. Lambert Rethmann, MSC, cared for the departing sisters in Le Havre before they boarded the ship named Pereyre to sail on August 14, 1868, to New York. Catherine watched as the ship left the harbor, sailed on to the west, and arrived in New York harbor on August 24, 1868.

When the eight sisters arrived in New York, they were met by two Franciscan sisters who had been asked by a priest from Fort Wayne, Father Joseph Brammer, to meet the ship, in case he was not there yet. And so these eight Poor Handmaids stayed with the Franciscan sisters in New York for several days until Father Brammer arrived. Their trip from New York to Fort Wayne was by train, accompanied by Father Brammer. Their train left New York on August 26, but they did not arrive in Fort Wayne until August 28.

Often, people who rode trains had to change trains because competing railroad companies used different gauge, the distance between rails, when laying the tracks to make sure rivals could not use their tracks. It was highly likely that the sisters changed trains several times before arriving in Fort Wayne on August 28. The train fare was about three cents a mile in the east and another cent or so as the train went farther west. After a two-day train ride, they arrived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on August 28, where they stayed with the Sisters of Providence and then went by hayrack on August 30 to the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ’s first mission in the United States, St. Joseph’s in Hessen Cassel, Indiana.

The Father Joseph Brammer, who accompanied the sisters by train to Fort Wayne, was the same priest who was the vicar-general of the Diocese of Fort Wayne. In 1886, he became largely instrumental in the building of St. Vincent’s Orphan Asylum (History of the Diocese of Fort Wayne, Most Rev. H. J. Alerding, vol. 1, 1907, p. 84).

By September 10 of 1868, five of the sisters were teaching in the school, and the three others were nursing the sick in the area in their homes and caring for the needs of the church. Later that fall, Fr. Peter Fischer, administrator of some German parishes in the diocese of Chicago, Illinois, asked Sr. Rose Blum to come and take charge of the German Orphan Home in Chicago, sometimes referred to as Havelock. Sr. Rose sent this request on to Sr. Catherine Kasper, including her belief that the small number of children in the school at Hessen Cassel did not require five sisters to teach there and also that the scattered rural population in Indiana did not need three nurses either.

Sr. Catherine Kasper took the advice of Sr. Rose Blum and approved the request. On November 18, 1868, Sr. Rose Blum and three other sisters—Sr. Hyacintha Neurath, Sr. Bella Siewecke, and Sr. Corona Jahn—took the train from Fort Wayne to Chicago and started a new ministry there. AGO (Angel Guardian Orphanage) had been established in 1865 by five German Roman Catholic parishes in Chicago: St. Peter’s Church on Clark Street at Polk, St. Joseph’s Church on Orleans Street, St. Francis of Assisi Church on Twelfth Street, St. Michael’s Church on the near north side, and St. Boniface Church on Noble Street. There were about fifty families of German Catholics that organized St. Francis of Assisi Church. There were about sixty German families in St. Joseph’s Parish. By 1879, the number of first-generation German immigrants had increased to approximately 17 percent of the population of the city of Chicago. In 1865, these five parishes combined their money, a sum of $4,100, and purchased ten acres of land, together with a few buildings and an orchard on Ridge and Devon Avenues, adjoining St. Henry’s Church property.

The first children arrived at the orphanage, which was known simply at the time as the German Orphan Asylum, on November 1, 1866. Mr. and Mrs. Traufler were the initial caretakers at the orphanage. Fr. Peter Fischer was instrumental in convincing Sr. Rose Blum to send some sisters to Angel Guardian Orphanage. Sr. Hyacinth, Sr. Bella, and Sr. Corona went to work at Angel Guardian Orphanage and care for the thirty children who resided there. There was also a farm where vegetables were grown. The sisters lived in the farmhouse. In 1879, there was a fire that destroyed the farmhouse. In 1880, a new building was erected, which included a chapel, living quarters for the children and sisters, kitchen, and dining room.

The plan of the pastors of these five German parishes in Chicago was to find a place to care for orphaned children of Germanic origin. After finding a suitable location for the home, they looked for someone to care for the children. From 1865 until the coming of the Poor Handmaids in 1868, the orphans were under the care of the Catholic family of Mr. and Mrs. Traufler. The increasing number of orphans convinced the pastors to ask the German-speaking Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ Sisters to minister to the children. Sr. Hyacintha Neurath assumed the responsibility of teaching the eighteen children then living at the orphanage, as well as the children from the neighboring parish of St. Henry. This arrangement continued until the number of children at Angel Guardian Orphanage became so large that St. Henry’s Parish opened its own school for the children of this parish. Other Poor Handmaids also came to teach in that school.

Angel Guardian Orphanage grew from the founding in 1868 to a large institution that continued to care for many children. When, in 1973, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services took a stance in favor of the placement of children in private homes, the state of Illinois cut all state subsidies to Angel Guardian Orphanage. Without funding, the orphanage ended its program of childcare in 1974. However, in 1975, the Misericordia Home for Special Children took over the site and subsequently renamed the place Misericordia Home North, a residential facility for people with special needs that continues to the present time.

With mail delivery from America to Germany taking several weeks back in 1869, Sr. Rose Blum sent letters to inform Sr. Catherine Kasper what was happening with the sisters in America. In one such letter, Sr. Rose stated that Father Edward Koenig had purchased the Rockhill House in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for fifty-two thousand dollars on January 11, 1869, and given it to the sisters. This sixty-five-bedroom, bankrupt hotel became St. Joseph Hospital and the first provincialate of the American Province. Sr. Rose wrote to ask Sr. Catherine Kasper’s approval for this request. In a later letter, Sr. Catherine Kasper approved this request. By May 4, 1869, Fr. Koenig formally installed the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ in their new motherhouse, which also became St. Joseph Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In the following year, 1869, Catherine Kasper sent seven more sisters from Germany to serve in America. They arrived in Fort Wayne on July 28, 1869: Sr. Lucia Loeffler, Sr. Januaria Leicher, Sr. Eulogia Henrich, Sr. Remigia Oettgen, Sr. Appolonia Kocke, Sr. Athanasia Doering, and Sr. Clarentia Koster. The early chronicles stated that they stayed in Fort Wayne for some time to learn the English language. Two of these sisters taught in the school at St. Paul’s Parish in Fort Wayne, where Fr. Koenig was pastor. Fr. Koenig had converted the former pastoral residence on Fairfield Avenue in Fort Wayne into a school to accommodate about 150 children from grades one to eight. The school was supported by a group called the St. Paul’s School Society. The first lay teachers were assisted by Sr. Athanasia Doering, who taught the lower grades. When the lay teacher, Clementine Koenig, became ill, Sr. Athanasia taught the upper grades, and Sr. Clarentia Koster taught the lower grades.

Other young women were attracted to the way of life of the sisters, and already, on August 14, 1869, Catherine Becker of Fort Wayne entered as a postulant, and another followed on September 25, Catherine Welling from New Haven, Indiana.

Because the sisters made a yearly retreat, the first retreat in America took place from June 20 to 27, 1870, at the Fort Wayne motherhouse. This retreat was directed by a Redemptorist priest from Chicago, Fr. Robert Kleinedam. The sisters who were in the retreat included Sr. Rose, Sr. Matrona, Sr. Eudoxia, Sr. Facunda, Sr. Lucia, Sr. Hyacinth, Sr. Bella, Sr. Henrica, Sr. Appolonia, Sr. Athanasia, Sr. Clarentia, and the two postulants: Catherine Becker and Catherine Welling. The sisters were glad for a retreat after two years of adjusting to a new country and opening five missions. (Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ Calendar, published by General Leadership in Germany in 2002, has this comment as an entry for June 20, 1870.)

The following year, on February 2, 1871, three American postulants were received as novices. Catherine Becker received the name Sr. M. Joseph; Catherine Welling, Sr. M. Clara; and Maria Shuhmacher, Sr. Chrisostoma.

The following summer, from July 17 to 22, 1871, the sisters in Chicago made a retreat under the direction of Father Magarus. At the end of that retreat, Sr. Facunda, Sr. Appolonia, Sr. Athanasia, and Sr. Corona renewed their vows, since, when they had come to the United States from Germany in 1868, they were professed for varying amounts of time. So they needed to either renew their vows or make their final profession.

Fr. Magarus also went from Chicago to give a retreat at the motherhouse in Fort Wayne from December 1 to December 8, 1871. At the conclusion of that retreat, several postulants became novices, and other sisters renewed their vows. Two postulants became novices: Barbara Frank became Sr. Dominica, and Anna Assendrup became Sr. Aloysia. Sr. Rose, Sr. Eudoxia, and Sr. Matrona made their final vows, and Sr. Bella and Sr. Henrica renewed their vows for three years.

The first sisters had come to America in 1868. Just four years later, in 1872, Sr. Prudentia Martin came from Germany to visit the sisters in America and see them living as Poor Handmaids in this foreign country. Traveling with her were six more sisters to minister in America: Sr. Ermelinda Mischael, Sr. Blanka Bruehl, Sr. Polycarpa Multhaup, Sr. Radegundis Flach, Sr. Laurentia Aust, and Sr. Centolla Stroop. These sisters also began serving in different places of ministry.

Already on January 1, 1870, Sr. Eulogia Henrich became director of the school at Angel Guardian Orphanage in Rose Hill, Illinois, today a part of Chicago. Sr. Eulogia had come from Germany with the second group of Poor Handmaids in 1869 to minister in America. She started the school at Angel Guardian Orphanage. Sr. Eulogia worked there until August 20, 1889. Sr. Eulogia continued to minister in different places and died at the age of ninety-four years of age on February 12, 1933, and was buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Donaldson, Indiana.

There were quite a few sisters who died of typhus or typhoid fever between the years of 1873 and 1901 in the American Province. As early as September 2, 1878, Sr. Lucia Loeffler died of typhoid fever in Fort Wayne and was buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery in that city. Sr. Radegundis Flach died in February of 1884; a novice, Sr. Pulcheria Stark, made her vows before she died on September 1, 1885, of typhus. In 1887, Sr. Alexia Helmholz died in Quincy, Illinois. She had been ill with typhus for just thirteen days before her death on August 15, 1887. She was buried in Quincy, Illinois. Another novice, Sr. Lioba Leitshuh, made her vows on her deathbed and died of typhus November 18, 1888, in Fort Wayne. Sr. Paulina Gunkel died at St. Vincent’s Home in Quincy, Illinois, on June 10, 1894. Because she was originally from Fort Wayne and her parents wanted her buried there, she was buried with other PHJCs in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in Mount Carmel Cemetery there.

In 1872, on June 18, seven more sisters left Germany and came to America on August 7, 1872: Sr. Prudentia Martin, Sr. Ermelinda Mischael, Sr. Blanka Bruehl, Sr. Polycarpa Multhaup, Sr. Radegundis Flach, Sr. Laurentia Aust, and Sr. Centolla Stroop. In the German chronicles, it said that Sr. Prudentia had been the director of novices in Germany and was named by Catherine Kasper as the provincial in Fort Wayne, because Sr. Rose Blum was called back to Germany. So after Sr. Prudentia visited all the missions, she became the American provincial and remained in Fort Wayne.

On September 20, 1872, Sr. Rose Blum and Sr. Remigia Oettgen returned from America to Germany. For these sisters, it was their first trip back to Germany since they had come in 1868. Sr. Remigia became ill while in Germany and died there on September 29, 1872. Sr. Rose also remained in Germany and died there on September 16, 1912. She died in Dernbach at the age of fifty-six and was buried there in the cemetery with the other Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ.

The next summer, on June 5, 1873, nine more sisters came from Germany: Sr. Aloysia Volker, Sr. Bertha Uhl, Sr. Leonarda Weidner, Sr. Regis Werney, Sr. Ansbertha Hegemann, Sr. Ildephonsa Vollmer, Sr. Regula Heymen, Sr. Paschalis Hesper, and Sr. Winifreida Hehl. These sisters made a retreat in Fort Wayne from June 8 to 14, and at the end of the retreat, two postulants became novices: Mary Voelker received the name Sr. Aloysia, and Philomena Friedle received the name of Sr. Caecilia. Sr. Joseph Becker pronounced her vows.

On October 12, 1873, Sr. Blanka Bruehl died of typhus. She had been in America only one year, having come on July 8, 1872. Only thirty-four years old, Sr. Blanka was ministering at Rose Hill, Illinois, and was buried in St. Boniface Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois.

Three sisters went to minister in Carlyle, Illinois, on May 11, 1873. There were fifty students in St. Mary School, and the tuition was seventy-five cents a month. Besides teaching, the sisters nursed the sick in their homes and kept night watch with the dying. Sr. Joseph Becker and Sr. Athanasia were teachers, and Sr. Leonarda Netemeyer helped do home nursing. These were the typical kinds of ministry done by the Poor Handmaids in the towns where they served. In 1883, the sisters began to board girls for several months during the winter and spring in order to prepare them for First Communion. To defray the expenses by adding three rooms to the convent, the sisters conducted a house-to-house collection every year until the debt was paid.

With the addition of more sisters from Germany, the next few years saw more missions being opened in differing locations. On May 1, 1875, a group of four sisters began ministering at St. Boniface Parish, in Germantown, Illinois: Sr. Athanasia Doering and Sr. Joseph Becker were teachers, while Sr. Winifrieda Hehl and Sr. Ermelinda Mischael did home nursing.

In the summer of 1875, on July 6, 1875, fourteen more sisters came from Germany: Sr. Amanda Steinhauser, Sr. Ambrosia Muller, Sr. Bartholomeus Schmidt, Sr. Benedicta Pfaffhausen, Sr. Clotosinda Dahmen, Sr. Coelestina Bingen, Sr. Coletta Blind, Sr. Flavia Worsdorfer, Sr. Hermelina Annweiler, Sr. Secundilla Bemers, Sr. Hermina Ibach, Sr. Suitberta Vezin, Sr. Reingardis Sanders and Sr. Thais Ferres.

On July 9, 1875, another mission began at Our Lady Help of Christians Convent on the north side of Chicago, where the sisters had a kindergarten, gave catechetical instructions, and did home nursing. Sr. Prudentia Martin, provincial in America, took Sr. Bartholomeus Schmidt and several other sisters to rented quarters on North Sedgwick Street from which to do private nursing in the homes of the people. Within a week after their arrival, the Poor Handmaids purchased two lots near St. Michael Church on which to build a convent. By 1876, a convent was built. From 1877 onward to 1922, this convent was a place of annual retreats for the sisters of the community. The kindergarten opened on August 11, 1879, with 150 children, while the Notre Dame sisters and the Brothers of Mary conducted St. Michael’s Parochial School. When St. Michael’s Parish wanted to build a high school, they needed the block on which the convent was built. The Poor Handmaids sold the convent and the grounds to St. Michael’s Parish and withdrew in February of 1928.

Two more missions began the next year, 1876. On August 17, St. Mary Purification Parish of Trenton, Illinois, asked for sisters to teach in the school and nurse the sick in their homes. Sr. Facunda Wand, Sr. Athanasia Doering, Sr. Franciscka Rosswog, and Sr. Agnes Behar went there. St. Clare Parish in O’Fallon, Illinois, also asked for sisters, and so on October 17, 1876, four sisters went there to teach and nurse the sick in their homes: Sr. Corona Jahn, Sr. Januaria Leicher, Sr. Joseph Becker, and Postulant Magdalena Bartholett.

Also, in 1876, a loan was made to the American Province from Dernbach of $4,847. Money was necessary for the sisters to live and carry on their ministries in America. In 1877, Sr. Bartholomeus Schmidt became the superior of Carlyle, replacing Sr. Leonarda. On May 19, 1877, the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ left Avilla, Indiana, and on August 20 of that year, they left Hessen Cassel. By the end of this year, the American Province owed Dernbach ten thousand dollars.

In 1878, Sr. Lucia Loeffler died of typhoid fever in Fort Wayne on September 2 and was buried next to Sr. Laurentia Aust in the Catholic cemetery in Fort Wayne. Only forty years old when she died, Sr. Lucia had come to the United States with the second group of sisters on July 28, 1869. She served here in the United States for nine years. Unable to respond to the treatment for typhoid fever, she died from complications of this disease.

Regardless of deaths, the sisters continued to flourish. By 1878, there were fifty-four professed sisters, sixteen novices, and sixteen postulants in the United States. Another new mission opened that year, in St. Agnes Convent in Mishawaka, Indiana, and started on October 25, 1878, with three sisters: Sr. Leonarda Netemeyer, who came from Germany in 1873, Sr. Regis Werney, who had also come in 1873, and Sr. Clara Welling. These sisters were to do church work and nurse the sick in their homes in Mishawaka and South Bend.

Because there were more sisters in the Southern Illinois area now, annual retreats were held in Germantown for the sisters so they would not have to travel to Fort Wayne, Indiana, or Chicago, Illinois, for their annual retreat. During the July 6–11, 1879, retreat in Germantown, Sr. Hermine Ibach became ill and died of erysipelas, a bacterial infection. She was buried in St. Boniface Cemetery, Germantown, Illinois. Sr. Hermine had come to America in