
Tabernacle carved and painted by Mother Joseph
a few weeks after the Sisters’ arrival in Vancouver.
Courtesy of Providence Archives, Seattle
When Bishop Blanchet, Father Rossi, and Mother Joseph and her
companions disembarked at Vancouver on December 8, 1856, Father
Brouillet was waiting on shore. Their reception, Mother Joseph wrote,
was “as cordial as we could have hoped.” They had about a mile to walk
to get to the Cathedral: “The road which led there wasn’t made to be
walked on in dainty ankle boots,” wrote Father Rossi. “We sank in to the
knees, and it wasn’t always easy to get out of those unexpected ruts.
When we reached a little wooden ramshackle house, I asked Father
Brouillet what that shanty was. ‘It’s the bishop’s palace,’ he replied.
The bishop’s palace!!!”
Bishop Blanchet soon discovered that, in spite of his instructions,
no accommodations had been prepared for the Sisters—at least, not in
Vancouver. Father Brouillet felt that the Sisters should be in Olympia,
which was more populous than Vancouver and growing every day, and he had
counted on Bishop Blanchet seeing things his way. But Bishop Blanchet
wanted the Sisters to be where he was. There was a somewhat heated
exchange between Blanchet and Brouillet before everyone trooped into the
bishop’s house to make do with what they had. An unfinished attic,
divided in two by a slight partition, became the temporary home for the
five sisters and Father Rossi, who could only go to bed after the
Sisters had retired and had to get up and get ready before they rose.
There was no rest for the Sisters after their long journey: instead,
they good-humoredly threw themselves into cleaning and rearranging their
new quarters: it was “the first of many house-cleanings in Vancouver,”
as Sister Mary McCrosson, SP wrote in The Bell and the River (1957),
“not only the herald but the symbol of how the sisters would put their
impress on the mission.”
At last, the entire party sat down for dinner. It being a special
occasion, Father Brouillet slaughtered a pig which was served along with
an abundance of other good things. Mother Joseph noticed, however, that,
hungry as they were after their long voyage, the Sisters were
tongue-tied and barely touched their food. Soon she realized that they
were paralyzed with fright at sitting down to dine with two priests and
a bishop, something they had never done in all their lives before! After
that, arrangements were made for the Sisters to take their meals
separately.
A few days after their arrival, Bishop Blanchet’s housekeeper,
realizing her workload had doubled with the advent of the Sisters,
handed in her notice. This proved a blessing. The Sisters moved from the
attic into the housekeeper’s room. It was, Mother Joseph wrote, “a small
chamber 16 feet by 10—I assure you that after placing five beds in it
not much space remains for the table where we take our meals.”
Nevertheless, she wrote, “I must tell you that for my part I encounter
much less privation than I anticipated or desired.”
Mother Joseph’s skills in carpentry and design were soon put to use.
Wooden boxes were turned into chairs for the Sisters, shelves for the
prayer books, and a neat fold-down table for meals. Among the odds and
ends stored in the Bishop’s attic, Mother Joseph found a beautiful
embroidered image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which became the
centerpiece of a shrine on the wall of the Sisters’ room, a focal point
for their devotion. Meanwhile, Christmas was approaching, and Mother
Joseph and Father Brouillet were determined to decorate the little
tumbledown St. James Cathedral for Christmas. Father Brouillet collected
evergreen branches from the forest and the Sisters filled the little
building with wreaths, festoons, and sprays, as well as making
hand-dipped candles for the altar.
Construction on a separate building for the use of the Sisters had
begun almost immediately, and by Ash Wednesday, the Sisters were able to
move in. Bishop Blanchet dedicated a small chapel for them, and reserved
the Blessed Sacrament there. The Sisters’ annals for 1857 report: “With
a few boards, Sister Joseph built a suitable altar; from a candlebox she
made a gem-like little tabernacle, painted and decorated with delicate
gold ornament with the best material she could afford for a tabernacle
veil.”
By June of 1857 – just six months after their arrival—the Sisters had
opened a school with a dozen students, had taken in two orphans, and had
nursed ten sick people in their homes and visited many more. “We are
always busy, from morning to night, from night to morning, “ the little
community wrote home to Montreal. “They fooled us well who told us that
there was nothing to do here. If there were ten or twenty there would
still be work for all.” And Mother Joseph wrote: “It seems to me that we
will love to recall these small beginnings.”
Corinna Laughlin, Director of Liturgy
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