"Changing Lives"

"I Grew up on a Farm and my Parents were very Religious"

Sister Joanne (bottom left) and her 12 brothers and sisters

I came after five boys so I was a tomboy (laughs). And my mom did let me go out with the boys all the time when they did their chores, my dad was a farmer and he had cattle, and so I would always go out with them and- because she had four other girl- I mean she had five other girls that could do those chores… So, I didn’t learn to cook (laughs) maybe some positives and negatives in life. So, I’m real tough. I’m real tough with boys. You know, I always preferred to be with boys.  I mean, and there’s a lotta things my mom couldn’t teach us. You know? There are a lotta - because there are too many of us. And so… we did a lot. I mean, I hadda learn a lotta things the right way….  

I grew up on a farm and my parents were very religious.  And the priest, I went to catholic school too and the sisters there and I felt like I was being called.  I then entered [the convent (1)] a year after.  Well a year after high school.  In those years people entered when they were very young.  There were people that were fifteen years old that were in that state at St. Catherine’s and were called inspirants to the religious world.  Some of them didn’t stay but it worked out.

[At first I was] way up north near the Canadian border for thirteen years and I had been in nursing for quite a few years and, so I belonged to a sister community.  I asked for a year off to a sabbatical (2) and so they suggested either [Minneapolis] or St. Louis and my sister, blood sister, was here. So that's how I got here.

"I admire the Indian People"

[Rolla] is near Belcourt, which is through a mountain Indian reservation. It’s a twelve square mile reservation with - I don’t know how many - twelve thousand people I think, or, around that. And, so I lived in a community, Rolla, which is five miles from the reservation.  I admire the Indian people. When I would come home and people had no experience with Indian people, it would really kinda hurt me when they would make these crass remarks about them because, I just admire them. They were always so very reverent (3), to the sisters anyway. I mean they were just so...Well they were 95% Catholic, on the reservation. So they would, you know, like on Good Friday, they’d close Highway 5 and have the stations of the cross (4) (laughs), carry the cross on the highway.

And they would have their meetings and the, the leaders would get together and it was on the radio and probably the first on there was praying, so they were really, they’re very religious people, yeah. They were...and they were very artistic... I would go into homes and I’d see some of their drawings. It was just...I mean it was all so natural and so beautiful of nature...Like, at Hettinger (5) [North Dakota] they have that museum where those Indians would come in [to town] for their clinic visit and the lady would give them, she had some scrap paper and she’d just give them to draw, and they were so young. They’re worth like, thousands of dollars [now]. I worked with Indians, too. I had them on the staff...and I found them so- they weren’t always regular but they were, they were good people.

Indian Reservation that Sister Joanne worked on

People didn’t ever have any experience with them. But [it was hard] even [on the reservation]. There was always a lot of shootings, and a lot of it was due to alcohol. I always felt safe there because I wore a veil at that time, you know I always felt safe. I never [felt unsafe]. I knew when I needed to get out, like this one time I was visiting this elderly lady and... this guy came in drunk, her brother, and he became very boisterous in that. I just left. But otherwise they were extremely thoughtful people. Like, I had a jeep and I would, in the wintertime, I would be driving around the reservation and occasionally I slipped in the ditch or somethin, and there might be nobody around, but within five minutes I’d have people there helping me out. I mean they were just so… Caring!

"That was like a Divorce"

The biggest challenge I faced was - I belonged to a community in North Dakota - and when I came here for my sabbatical I got a job at Ramsey County public health and, after my year they wanted me to come back to North Dakota. I didn’t want to go because I like this job, ya know? And it was a good paying job and everything.  So they let me stay there for a while.  But they expected me to come back to North Dakota every month, ya know? For meetings and stuff.  And as I got older I always felt, I just felt I couldn't do it.  So, the idea came to me to just change orders.  It was hard. That was like a divorce, that was a big challenge for me.  And my relationship with them is good, I mean I go there for a retreat at Maryville Valley City.  But that… that was just emotionally just so hard because here I had these relationships for forty years and then I decided to change to another community and so… that... that was a big challenge emotionally.

[To change orders I had to] go through and novitiate (6) again.  I mean, you have classes you have to attend and… It's just like ... tough... and then you have to send in a request to the bishop.  And the bishop has to send a request to Rome.  I don't know if it's all that complicated [anymore] but you work with the… the team of the new order and then you have to, like legally, you have to get [all your legal documents] transferred over.  Like I gave up my retirement fund in North Dakota and the community was fine with that.  And ahh… it is a big process, a big process in the sense that I was working full time and I had to attend all these classes and do all this work.  You know?  In order to understand this order and get to learn their charism and... [at the new order] they were quite different from the order I came from.  They were very conservative, you know? And this order is totally opposite, You know? Very into justice and they did a lot in the community and it was... It was fitting!  I mean it was more... it felt more normal for me ya know?  So, that’s how things happened.  Now, [I have a great relationship with my old order] I try to go up there once a year to meet, a lot of them have died.  There still are some hurt feelings in the sense that they were very angry [when I left] and they never told me when people died.  You know? I may have lived with them for ten, fifteen years and I have to say, that's their problem, they have to accept it…

"It is Nice to Be Retired"

We live in a house on Marshall, near St. Thomas, and I live with a variety of personalities.  The personalities are very different, I mean, one teaches at Duluth, but she teaches online at the graduate program, another’s a telemarketer, which is so different. And the 85 year old who keep us all together is a, she works at the raptor center with owls. I mean with raptors. And she's (laughs) she, she is just a wonderful lady.

I’ve lived with her, with Silvia and Cathy, for 20 years now. And I've lived with the other sister... we lived together for awhile then she went and lived by herself for awhile. Then she came back. We know each other so well, but we still get in fights (laughs) [They’re all really supportive] thats what makes life peaceful, and I, I don’t worry like I used to. The community I now belong to is marvelous, they’re just marvelous, yup.

Sister Joanne likes working with kids

I do volunteer work, I like to. It gives, it gives me a feeling of worth while too, but it’s nice to be retired (laughs). I have to say. Right now I volunteer, because I like little kids, I volunteer at a catholic school in the library, and so I can reach little kids, so I do fun things. You know, when you’re a volunteer you can do what you want. Yeah, I don’t know. (laughs) Changing lives.

Footnotes:

1. Convent- A community of people in a religious order.

2. Sabbatical- A period of paid leave, granted for study or travel. Traditionally every seventh year.
3. Reverent- Feeling or showing deep and solemn respect.

4. Stations of the the cross- A series of fourteen pictures or carvings representing successive incidence during Jesus's progress from his condemnation by Pilate to his crucifixion and burial.

5. Hettinger, North Dakota- A small town in southwest North Dakota with a population of one thousand two hundred twenty-six. There is a museum displaying Native American art.

6. Novitiate- Period or state of being a novice. Especially in a religious order.

Story Facilitators: Tom Bibby, Maddie Schafer, Nick Connelly