A BRIDGE BETWEEN SPANISH BENEDICTINE MISSIONARY WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA A BRIDGE BETWEEN SPANISH BENEDICTINE MISSIONARY WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA KATHARINE MASSAM Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: anupress@anu.edu.au Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au ISBN (print): 9781760463519 ISBN (online): 9781760463526 WorldCat (print): 1200780874 WorldCat (online): 1200780878 DOI: 10.22459/BB.2020 This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode The ANU.Lives Series in Biography is an initiative of the National Centre of Biography at The Australian National University, ncb.anu.edu.au. Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover photograph: Benedictine Oblate Sisters of New Norcia, early 1931, NNA W6-B3-4-108. This edition © 2020 ANU Press Contents Foreword vii Sr Veronica Therese Willaway OSB Acknowledgements ix Illustrations xiii 1 To Name and to Remember: The Reunion of 2001 1 2 The Company of St Teresa of Jesus at New Norcia, 1904–10 35 3 Benedictine Oblates: Outsiders in Community 73 4 St Joseph’s Native School and Orphanage: Workers at the Edge of the Town 105 5 Agencia Benedictina : Burgos, Belgium and the Kimberley 131 6 Monastic and Missionary Sisters: ‘Their Currency and Savings Were the Work’ 165 7 Gathering New Energy: Abbot Catalan Recruiting in Spain, 1947–48 211 8 Triggering the ‘Second Part’: Old School Patterns, a New Bindoon Community and Visiting the Villages Again 239 9 Winding Together: ‘The Grace of God Is Not Tied to Any Colour, Race or Nationality’ 257 10 Spinning Apart 309 Bibliography 357 Appendix 1: Numbers at a Glance 383 Appendix 2: Benedictine Missionary Sisters of New Norcia 387 vii Foreword Sr Veronica Therese Willaway OSB I am very honoured to be writing this foreword to welcome you to read this important book by Katharine Massam about the Spanish Benedictine Missionary Sisters of New Norcia. This book is much more than words to me. It holds a significant part of my youth and history. I was one of the girls who lived with and was educated by the Benedictine Sisters, and at 14 years of age I entered the Congregation. Monastic and missionary life was not easy. It was a shock to my Aboriginal existence to overnight change my life and leave my peers behind to become a religious Sister. After some time, I came to realise how dedicated these Sisters were to their religious life and vocation to be missionaries working with Aboriginal people. Some people will find that hard to believe. I know New Norcia was also a place of suffering, and I know Katharine understands that too. Walking together and listening has made this book possible. These values run deep for me. I am an Aboriginal person of the Yued and Whadjuk peoples of the Noongar Nation from the southwest of Western Australia. I am also a Benedictine Missionary Sister and have been a nun for over 60 years. The Yued traditional lands include the region where New Norcia is located. New Norcia is my family’s cultural and spiritual home. My ancestors have had a close connection with New Norcia since not long after the Aboriginal mission was established there. This includes my great- grandmother Eliza Willaway (née Tainan). She was one of the Aboriginal women replaced in her role as matron of the mission when the first Spanish nuns arrived. She is included in this book too. My family is very proud of our long association with New Norcia and the Benedictine community there. Following the closure of the mission at New Norcia in 1974, my Congregation returned to live in Spain. I went with them and stayed A BRIdGE BETWEEN viii there for three years before coming back to Australia. In the last 25 years I have been based in a Benedictine Missionary Sisters Congregation in Nebraska, USA. Katharine is very well placed to write this book about the Spanish Sisters. She has written extensively about the history of women in the Catholic Church. She has had over 25 years’ association with New Norcia, including being a member of the Archives, Research and Publications Committee for the Benedictine Community. I know the remaining Spanish Sisters have wholeheartedly supported Katharine writing this book and they have entrusted her with information, some of a sensitive nature, to faithfully tell their story. This book about the Spanish Sisters and their experience as missionaries in the distant foreign land of Australia tells a story I am pleased to know. It is a careful step along the way to more storytelling and deeper listening. The curious title, The Bridge Between , is insightful. It reminds me that we can all build bridges when we share stories and listen well. It reminds me we are always ‘between’ hearing and understanding more. This book has become part of my journey too. I remember first meeting Katharine in 1999 in Perth when she started to write the history of the Spanish Sisters. I have shared my story and insights of the Benedictine Sisters with her on many occasions in the intervening years. I accepted an invitation to attend a reunion with the ‘mission girls’ in 2001. The reunion was a very heartfelt occasion and showed the depth for feeling between the Sisters and past residents. Katharine was there too, and I saw how she listened. In 2015, I accepted another invitation and collaborated with Katharine in a workshop for theological students about monasticism at New Norcia. In 2016 we co-presented a session at the Conference on the History of Women Religious in Santa Clara, California. Through these activities, Katharine has become a dear friend. This book has been written slowly with patience, resilience and dedication. I warmly invite you to read it. 22 June 2020 Whadjuk Boodjar Perth, Western Australia ix Acknowledgements Help and encouragement have come from many directions to sustain and enliven this project. My deepest debt is to the people who have shared their stories and photographs, inviting me into their memories of life as a Benedictine sister or a child in care at St Joseph’s, usually over several conversations. Those interviews have been a privilege. Three stakeholder communities enabled the work and facilitated connections. I am grateful to the New Norcia Aboriginal Corporation, especially the members of the executive, Mary Nannup, Margaret Drayton and Paul Willaway, and to Mae Taylor whose careful initiative prompted the reunion of 2001. The Benedictine Missionary Sisters of Tutzing have been gracious hosts in Kalumburu, Madrid and Nebraska, where Sr Winfrieda Bugayong, Sr Maria Gratia Balagot, Sr Margargeta Wegscheid and Sr Pia Portmann made further introductions to the house of oblates in Barcelona, the Cistercian community in Valladolid, the Benedictine community of San José in Burgos, and to the families of the sisters. The generosity of the Benedictine Community of New Norcia also underpins this book. Abbot Placid Spearritt responded warmly to an initial enquiry with an invitation to ‘come and see’ what the archives might yield about the Spanish sisters. His vision for scholarship at New Norcia enabled the early stages of the project, and the hospitality of both the archives and the guesthouse of the Benedictine Community of New Norcia have remained a mainstay under the more recent leadership of Abbot John Herbert. Bernadette Taylor and her team at the guesthouse always smoothed the way, and the community’s archivists Wendy McKinley, Leen Charles and Peter Hocking have contributed countless hours of professional expertise, regularly going the extra mile with patience and good humour. In particular, Peter Hocking’s cheerful help and acumen, across a continent and three time zones, has been invaluable. A BRIdGE BETWEEN x Research over decades is a rare freedom in contemporary academia. At the outset I was a member of the History Department at the University of Adelaide where a period of study leave made the first steps possible. The project was both fruitfully disrupted and ultimately enriched by my move to the United Faculty of Theology, and more recently Pilgrim Theological College, within what is now the University of Divinity in Melbourne. In a context where small group teaching is still valued and possible, students in the New Norcia intensives have engaged with the Benedictine story and the mission town, and expanded my understanding of how the site itself speaks. Along the way friends and colleagues have read and improved drafts, responded to papers and answered queries. I’m especially indebted to Edmund Campion, Graeme Davison and David Hilliard who read and discussed the full draft with typical generosity and insight, and to Kellie Abbot at the National Archives of Australia, Sally Douglas, Sarah Gador-Whyte, Stefano Girola, Anna Haebich, Andrew Hamilton, Kerrie Handasyde, Margot Harker, John Kinder, Margaret Malone, Lauren Mosso, Jill O’Brien, Carmel Posa, Randall Prior, Sharne Rolfe, Howard Wallace, David Whiteford at the State Records Office of Western Australia, and Naomi Wolfe, Indigenous Theologies Project Officer at the University of Divinity. Carlos Lopez, Kerry Mullan, Teresa De Castro and Fr David Barry translated material from historic handwriting. Stuart Fenner and Adrienne Maloney transcribed recordings. Joe Courtney made time to draft the maps and Alejandro Polanco Masa brought them expertly to life. Mary Nannup, Margaret Drayton, Paul Willaway and Sr Veronica Willaway advised on photographs and sought permissions. Merryn Gray, Carl Rainer, Lauren Murphy and Geoff Hunt brought technological magic and eagle eyes to the manuscript. The ANU.Lives editorial board and the editorial team at ANU Press were consistently perceptive and professional. Vivienne Halligan shared her family’s stock of the sisters’ embroidery. Patricia Weishaar with James Wahl and Chase Becker managed transport from Minnesota to Nebraska and back; and Helena Kadmos and Kevin Crombie made key trips to New Norcia to assist. Anne and Joe Courtney regularly made space for a visiting researcher in their home, and so did Sue Chapman, Helen Brash and Tim Featherstonhaugh, Phil and Imogen Garner, Tom Sutton, and the Fenner-Kadmos household. Kai Jensen, Jane Kelly, Kathleen Troup and Carole Carmody were always interested and insightful. The Dalton McCaughey Library is an ecumenical collection of visionary breadth and depth, resourcing conversations across the disciplinary boundaries. It has been a pleasure to share that conversation with good colleagues at Pilgrim xi ACKNOWlEdGEMENTS and in the Catholic history seminar at the University of Divinity. I have also benefited from discussion with colleagues at the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences symposium on women and missions (Brisbane, June 2013), the University of Notre Dame symposium on the Nun in the World (London, May 2015), the US Conference on the History of Women Religious in St Paul (2013) and Santa Clara (2016), and the Third and Fourth International Monastic Symposia at Sant’Anselmo, Rome (2011, 2016), supported by funds from the Research Office at the University of Divinity and the Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania. Some time before this project began I met my husband John H. Smith at a land rights demonstration. Later, we got to know each other at the monastery. He has been the sustaining constant through all the phases of this project. He has kept the kitchen humming and the household ticking beyond any rational accounting of tasks, while his commitment to good scholarship and to the Rule of Benedict informs and inspires my own. It is no platitude to say that without him this book would not have been completed. For this and for all, I am so grateful. Katharine Massam xiii Illustrations Figure 0.1: Map of Australia, showing locations in the text. . . . . . . . . xix Figure 1.1: New Norcia cemetery, graves of the Spanish Benedictine Missionary Sisters, March 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Figure 1.2: Ms Mae Taylor, Sr Francisca Pardo, Sr Visitación Cidad, Fr Anscar McPhee and Sr Teresa González in the cemetery at New Norcia after the memorial service in October 2001 . . . . . 4 Figure 1.3: Teresa, Francisca, Pilar and Maria Gratia recording memories of the mission around the library table in Madrid, 2004 (left); Scholastica telling the stories of her photo album in Kalumburu, 1999 (right) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Figure 1.4: Sheila Humphries’s painting Life at St Joseph’s , within the liturgical display at the reunion, Mass of Thanksgiving, October 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Figure 1.5: Members of the reunion on the steps of the Abbey Church, October 2001. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Figure 2.1: Brother Friolán Miró and the residents of St Joseph’s before 1904 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Figure 2.2: The first Teresian community at New Norcia with residents of St Joseph’s, 1904 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Figure 2.3: Detail of Teresian arrival: Aboriginal matron with a cockatoo on her shoulder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Figure 2.4: Detail of Teresian arrival: Teresa Roca and other sisters with St Joseph’s girls behind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Figure 2.5: Fr Henry Altimira and Fr Planas with plans for the Drysdale River Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 A BRIdGE BETWEEN xiv Figure 2.6: St Joseph’s from the southern tower of St Gertrude’s, c. 1907 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Figure 2.7: St Joseph’s girls assembled to show skills in weaving and sewing, with the towers of St Gertrude’s in the background . . . . 68 Figure 2.8: St Gertrude’s College c. 1909, with the buildings of St Joseph’s to the left and cottages in the foreground . . . . . . . 68 Figure 2.9: St Gertrude’s and St Joseph’s looking east c. 1908 . . . . . . . 69 Figure 3.1: Interior of the Abbey Church ‘before 1923’ or as it would have been on the morning of 1 July 1909 when Maria Harispe made her profession as an oblate of New Norcia . . . . . . 76 Figure 3.2: Maria Harispe c. 1915 with St Joseph’s residents. . . . . . . . 77 Figure 3.3: A First Communion photo c. 1908 including the Aboriginal matrons in the main doorway of St Gertrude’s College. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Figure 3.4: The St Joseph’s girls with Aboriginal matrons on the back verandah of St Gertrude’s, c. 1908 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Figure 3.5: The Sisters, dressed in Benedictine habits with the St Joseph’s girls, after December 1915 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Figure 3.6: Mother Elias Devine, Easter 1933, aged 95, ‘a woman of uncommon common sense’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Figure 3.7: Consuelo (centre) with Teresa (left), Maria (right) and residents of St Joseph’s, after September 1912 and before December 1915 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Figure 3.8: Teresa Roca, one of the original Teresian community, remembered in the Notebooks as setting out again in 1915 ‘without fear and with great confidence in God’ . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Figure 3.9: Teresa Roca and Aboriginal girls working at embroidery and crochet in the sewing room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Figure 4.1: Maria and children of St Joseph’s near a swing, with laundry in the background, c. 1912 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Figure 4.2: Detail of Maria and the children. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Figure 4.3: Detail of laundry work at St Joseph’s, after 1910 . . . . . . . 107 xv IlluSTRATIONS Figure 4.4: The drawings that guided the renovation at St Joseph’s in 1910 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Figure 4.5: Cottages for Aboriginal workers and families in front of St Gertrude’s College; St Joseph’s rear left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Figure 5.1: Home villages of the Benedictine sisters who arrived at New Norcia, 1921–33 (Cañizar de los Ajos, Cavia, Corella, Palacios de Benaver, Sasamón, Tapia de Villadiego and Villorejo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Figure 5.2: The village of Tapia de Villadiego, Burgos . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Figure 5.3: Monastery of San Salvador, Palacios de Benaver, Burgos . . 143 Figure 5.4: Display of needlework by St Joseph’s Girls, St Ildephonsus College Magazine , 1929, 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Figure 5.5: Maria Harispe, c. 1925; the photograph that accompanied her obituary in the Perth Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Figure 5.6: Emmaus House, Maredsous, Belgium, 2010. . . . . . . . . . 157 Figure 5.7: Abbey church at the monastery of Maredsous, Belgium, 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Figure 5.8: Arriving at Pago Pago Mission in the Kimberley, 18 August 1931. Benedictine sisters at right in shoes and stockings, possibly Abbot Catalan in bare feet . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Figure 5.9: Transferring to Drysdale River site, 1932 . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Figure 5.10: On the lugger Koolinda ; Matilde, Escolastica and Hildegard with Fr Boniface and Aboriginal children . . . . . . . . 159 Figure 5.11: Gertrude, Escolastica and Hildegard with Aboriginal children on the steps of the first convent at Drysdale River, 1931 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Figure 6.1: Benedictine Oblate Sisters of New Norcia early 1931 . . . 166 Figure 6.2: Benita and Felicitas en route to Belgium with Fr Paul Arza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Figure 6.3: Benita Gozalo to Abbot Catalan, June 1936 . . . . . . . . . . 179 Figure 6.4: Escolastica’s sewing machine put to another good use, 1937 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Figure 6.5: Escolastica Martinez to Abbot Catalan, 1937 . . . . . . . . . 186 A BRIdGE BETWEEN xvi Figure 6.6: Interior of the church at Drysdale River c. 1947, Sister Magdalena Ruiz with a First Communicant . . . . . . . . . . 187 Figure 6.7: Interior of the church at Drysdale River c. 1947, sanctuary and two side altars, St Joseph and St Thérèse, patron of missions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Figure 6.8: Washing in the river, but wearing collars . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Figure 6.9: Washing as it was more usually done, without collars and with helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Figure 6.10: Magdalena (seated), Ludivina and Maria (in apron) on a picnic at Drysdale River, c. 1939 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Figure 6.11: Escolastica with her class at Drysdale River, 1932 . . . . . 196 Figure 6.12: Fr Boniface Cubero with a camp oven on a picnic, 1930s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Figure 6.13: Posing for a photo on an excursion, 1930s: Hildegard (left), Escolastica (right), Matilde in front, local ‘bush’ men, woman in mission dress, and Benedictine monk with rifle . . . . 198 Figure 6.14: Josephine and Visitación with fishing nets at the beach, 1970s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Figure 7.1: The 12 who arrived at New Norcia in November 1948 on deck of the Toscana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Figure 7.2: Postulants on a picnic, 1949: Josefina Carrillo (standing left) and Amalia González (standing right) . . . . . . . . . 235 Figure 7.3: Fatima Drayton brings a crêpe paper parasol from the school concerts forward at the reunion liturgy, 2001 . . . . . . . . 238 Figure 8.1: First Community at Bindoon, c. 1949 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Figure 8.2: A studio portrait to send to their families was a thank-you gift to the Benedictine sisters at Bindoon in the 1950s (Hildegard, Visitación, Florentina and Lucia). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Figure 8.3: Home villages of the Benedictine sisters to 1950, still focused on Burgos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Figure 8.4: Visitación Cidad under the fig tree, Murray Street, Perth, 1950 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 xvii IlluSTRATIONS Figure 9.1: Back left to right: Cecilia Farrell, Ludivina Marcos and Mary Cidad. Front left to right: Angelina Cerezo, Dolores Vallejo, Magdelena Ruiz and Benita Gozalo, c. 1960 . . . . . . . . 261 Figure 9.2: Veronica Therese Willaway, Pius Moynihan, c. 1962. . . . 261 Figure 9.3: Scholastica Carrillo, making cheese in the 1960s . . . . . . 264 Figure 9.4: Scholastica with cooking pots at Kalumburu, 1970s . . . . 264 Figure 9.5: Needlework was a sustaining tradition in the convent and at the school . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Figure 9.6: New dining room at St Joseph’s, 1956 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Figure 9.7: St Joseph’s marching team at rest, New Norcia sports day, 1960s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 Figure 9.8: The novices and postulants playing hockey at the back of St Joseph’s—Imelda and Josephine in white veils, Veronica centre and Pius right, c. 1959. Fowl yard in the background . . 303 Figure 9.9: Sr Veronica Therese with her family on the day of her final profession, 12 March 1966; left to right: Rose, Philomena, Veronica, Peter, Harold, Gabriel and Isobel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 Figure 10.1: Young members from the Spanish house of formation in the late 1960s at Hildegard’s tombstone in Zaragoza . . . . . . 313 Figure 10.2: Natividad Montero makes her profession as Sister Josephine, March 1964 at New Norcia. Students from St Gertrude’s College and one of their teachers to her left, Felicitas, Veronica and Antonia to her right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Figure 10.3: Scholastica, Florentina and Visitación, and Kalumburu’s cat, with chorizo made from the local wild boar that fed on the monastery’s figs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322 Figure 10.4: Speeches during an annual dinner at the New Norcia hotel to celebrate the adult education classes, 1970s. Mr Peter Cuffley standing, Abbot Gregory Gomez and Br Anthony McAlinden to his right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326 Figure 10.5: Chapel at the Girrawheen convent, showing tabernacle and wall cross by Robert Juniper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 Figure 10.6: Ora et Labora banner by Iris Rossen, now in the chapel of the Benedictine Missionary Sisters of Tutzing in Madrid . . . 333 A BRIdGE BETWEEN xviii Figure 10.7: The last of the community from New Norcia embarks for Barcelona, 20 March 1975; left to right: Margaret, Veronica, Dolores and Felicitas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 Figure 10.8: Benedictines and community assembled for the reunion liturgy, October 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 Figure 10.9: The abbot greets the sisters at the monastery gate as the liturgy begins, Abbot Placid Spearritt and Sister Carmen Ruiz Besti. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 Figure 10.10: Benedictine sisters (Veronica, Visitación and Carmen) with the congregation in the church for the reunion liturgy . . . . 353 Figure 10.11: Mae Taylor (left) and Anne Moynihan (Sr Pius) bring bread and wine for the Eucharist to Abbot Placid Spearritt and Dom Chris Power. The abbot is wearing the chasuble made by the novices in 1948 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354 Figure 10.12: Praying the Lord’s Prayer during the Eucharist . . . . . . 354 xix Figure 0.1: Map of Australia, showing locations in the text.