These are excerpts from Spirit and Character of the School Sisters of Notre Dame of the Canadian Province, written by Katharine Reiter, SSND in 1985. (Canada was its own province until 2011, when it became a part of the Atlantic-Midwest Province.)
The School Sisters of Notre Dame have been in Canada since 1871. They were first called to the country from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1868. Mother Caroline Friess, the first Superior of the young congregation in America, actually touched Canadian soil at that time to judge for herself the feasibility of sending Sisters to this new field of labor. It was, however, three years before she was finally able to comply with the request.
In those early years, all of the Sisters were American-born and yet chose, through obedience, to spend their whole lives in Canada far from home and kin. Moreover, here – as in the United States – many of the places requesting Sisters were poor rural parishes, which entailed numerous hardships and privations for the Sisters.
Until 1927, our Canadian pioneer Sisters received their initial religious formation at the Motherhouse in Milwaukee. Here they quickly imbibed the adventurous and self-sacrificing spirit of their Foundress, Mother Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger, and of Mother Caroline Friess, the young Superior in America. When they returned to Canada, they were prepared to spend their zeal and energy wherever called by the Lord to answer a need.
It is from these beginnings of sacrifice and love that the spirit and character of the School Sisters of Notre Dame of the Canadian Province grew.
It was on October 5, 1871 – a scant 24 years aft the arrival of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in America – that Mother Caroline, together with Sister Mary Joachim Buschmann and Sister Mary Hunigundis, left Milwaukee for Canada via Detroit. Even on the first night of their journey, God put to the test the mettle of his self-sacrificing young missionaries with a forest fire that destroyed all the freight cars of the train carrying their four trunks. Only by a miracle were the passengers saved and unharmed.
When they arrived at Petersburg, Ontario, Canada, the nearest railway station to their destination in the village of St. Agatha, there was no one to meet them. Father Eugene Funcken, CR, who had invited them, was away from home at that time. A Catholic book agent, known in the district as Holy Marx, happened to be at the station with his horse and wagon. He offered to take the Sisters to their new home. When he came within hailing distance of the orphanage, he shouted joyfully that he was bringing the Sisters. The twenty orphans and their nurses gave them a most hearty welcome. (From The School Sisters of Notre Dame in Canada, pgs. 1-2)
The second formation quickly followed the first. Father Joseph Schmitz, who had been a seminary student in Milwaukee at the outbreak of the Civil War, was helped by Mother Caroline to get to Canada to avoid conscription. He was transferred to a seminary in Montreal, Quebec. After ordination, he was promoted pastor of Formosa, Ontario. As such, he urgently requested Sisters from his spiritual mother, Mother Caroline. In 1872, Mother Caroline herself accompanied the four Sisters who were to staff the boarding school there. The school persisted for 50 years before being destroyed by a fire in 1926.
At the turn of the century, subjects of the curriculum in most schools in Norther Ontario were taught in French because of the influx of French settlers and because the teachers who had been ousted from France were members of the immigrant Religious Orders.
To ensure that Ontario remained an English-speaking province of Canada, the government passed new legislation in 1907 declaring “All subjects must be taught in English. All teachers employed by school boards must hold Ontario Teachers’ certificates.”
Our Sisters from the United States were, thus, not considered qualified by the Department of Education, because they did not have Ontario Teachers’ certificates, and many taught in the German language to help the German immigrants.
This situation proved to be a serious predicament, but the Sisters lost no time arranging with the proper authorities for a way out of the difficulty….The Department of Education set up a six-week summer course in three centers in Kitchener, Toronto and Peterborough. The one held for our Sisters was at St. Mary’s School, Berlin (Kitchener). This summer school resulted in forty-seven American Sisters becoming qualified to teach in Ontario schools.
To ensure that Canadian girls wishing to enter the congregation would be qualified to teach in our schools, some provision had to be made to prepare them in Canada. This need gave birth to the idea of establishing St. Anne’s Convent School, which became the “aspiranture,’ a place where young recruits were introduced to the life of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Eighty-four aspirants became School Sisters of Notre Dame during the twenty years St. Anne’s was operative from 1907 to 1927.
Establishing St. Anne’s solved one problem but led to another. Candidates were obliged to go to Milwaukee for their Novitiate training because Canada had no novitiate at this time. The head tax levied on each person crossing the border to the United States between 1914 and 1918 became a matter of concern. Women who wanted to become members of the School Sisters of Notre Dame were required to spend slightly more than a year in Milwaukee for their religious novitiate training. The fee to be refunded was only for those who returned before the lapse of one year. Hence, the tax…became a costly bit of red tape. It became imperative that a Canadian Motherhouse be established.
It was not until 1925, however, that a movement toward this goal began in earnest. A site near Hamilton was decided upon, because the Notre Dame schools were all located in the Hamilton Diocese, and students could readily attend the Hamilton Normal School. Through the efforts of Mr. Thomas Mahoney, MLA, then Minister of Highways, the present site was found, and arrangements were made for its purchase. The cornerstone of the new building was laid on May 24, 1926, and quickly the limestone structure rose on the Snake Road about a mile from the town of Waterdown. It had a magnificent view of the city of Hamilton and Burlington Bay.
By February 14, 1927, the Motherhouse was ready for occupancy.
Canada Becomes a Province
The Provincial Superior in Milwaukee felt that she really did not know the sisters missioned in Canada because she had limited personal contact with them. So, in 1926, Mother Stanislaus Koska, Commissary General, received permission from the Generalate in Munich to form a province in Canada.
The Canadian Province was the 12th province within the international congregation. In 1927, there were 19 missions in Canada with 123 sisters – 67 Canadian and 56 mostly American Sisters, with a few from Germany. The new motherhouse was home to the newly elected provincial council, young women in formation, those attending Hamilton Teachers’ College and those who taught in Hamilton schools. There were spacious classrooms for elementary and high school students and attractive bedrooms for 40 boarders.
Establishing Roots in Western and Northern Canada
In 1926, at the same time the motherhouse was being built, a convent boarding school in Leipzig, Saskatchewan was also taking shape, the first mission in western Canada. Soon sisters were invited to staff other schools in Saskatchewan. The sisters missioned in western Canada inspired many vocations to SSND. Girls received the candidate’s bonnet in Leipzig before entering the candidature in Waterdown. Later missions in British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba were opened.
The first mission among aboriginal peoples was in Aroland in 1971. Nine other northern communities were opened prior to 2003. Sisters taught in schools, served as parish administrators, provided religious instruction and responded to the various needs of the peoples. Fort Good Hope – approximately 30 miles south of the Artic Circle – was the most northerly mission. Here two sisters were in pastoral ministry for 12 years.
