Chapter 2

Going Away

At the tender age of thirteen, with soft, brown curls, blue eyes and fair complexion and a healthy body, I boarded the train with mother and father for my Convent schooling. I was given the privilege of taking my dolls, doll clothes, family pictures and other paraphernalia I was also told I could write once a month to my family.

Oh, the thrill to think that I would be the Spouse of Jesus Christ! Father and mother could not have been happier had their son become President of the United States.

After being in St. Joseph’s Convent a few months, I was transferred to St. Teresa of the Little Flower Convent, fifteen hundred miles away from home on the coast. I lived in a convent that was in close proximity to a Hospital.

Life in this convent involved frequent visits to the Hospital by tunnel where I trained to be a registered nurse. My plans were to be a Nursing Sister of the open Order. During my nurse’s training the Mother Superior influenced and persuaded me to enter a Cloister. A Cloister is a secluded and confining convent in which we could receive no visitors and experience a life completely shut away from the outside world. I would never leave the convent for even a visit outside into the world. Incessantly, Mother Superior told me I had the qualifications to make a good cloistered Nun, and how nurses were needed in the Cloister.

Because I was very religious and conscientious, I prayed daily before my Patron Saint as to the will of God in my life. Up until that time, everything was still beautiful. What an honour was offered to me! Why wouldn’t I want to become the Bride of Christ? Why wouldn’t I want to suffer penance for the lost and dying? After all, my Father Confessor had told me of how the brutality of earthly husbands could be. To become a Bride for Christ was to enjoy bliss of the highest order! To be married in this world might bring disaster and possible deprivation of many necessities. Furthermore, to suffer penance for the lost and dying would not only result in joy and blessings in this life, but eternal bliss and a throne in Heaven.