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Chapter 1: Foundation and Growth in New Orleans
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13 C h a p t e r 1 Foundation and Growth in New Orleans On March 31, 1898, Mother Superior Mary Austin Jones of the Holy Family Sisters, her traveling companion Sister Mary Ann Fazende, the postulant Addie Saffold, and four soon-to-be-missionary sisters boarded a steamer, the Stillwater, at New Orleans.1 The intended destination of the seven African Americans was Stann Creek (today called Dangriga), a settlement on the Atlantic Coast of British Honduras (since 1973 called Belize), south of Belize City. There, the four missionaries—Sisters Mary Rita Mather, Mary Dominica Bee, Mary Emmanuel Thompson, and Mary Stephen Fortier—with the help of Saffold, who would work for a year in the sisters’ preschool program,2 were to run Sacred Heart primary school for mostly black Carib (Garifuna) students,3 whose ancestors had first settled the area in the 1790s.4 An English Jesuit, Brother Daniel Reynolds, had started the school,5 and it was the Jesuit Order that since the 1860s had labored virtually alone in evangelizing the Caribs,6 a close-knit people descended from shipwrecked African slaves and indigenous Caribbean islanders. After an uneventful voyage, the steamer docked at Belize City on April 3, where the seven religious women stayed overnight with the United States Mexico Gulf of Mexico Belize Honduras Nicaragua Panama Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Pacific Ocean Cuba Dominican Republic Haiti Puerto Rico Jamaica Caribbean Sea Colombia Venezuela Atlantic Ocean Mexico BELIZE CAYO TOLEDO Punta Gorda STANN CREEK Dangriga Belize City Belize Belmopan ORANGE WALK Guatemala COROZAL Maps by Matt Whetsell Central America [54.225.35.224] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:12 GMT) Foundation and Growth in New Orleans 15 Sisters of Mercy, a white congregation, who, like the Holy Family Sisters, were also from New Orleans. The Mercy nuns were the second Catholic religious order to enter British Honduras and had been teaching at St. Catherine’s and Holy Redeemer primary schools since 1883. In 1886 they had opened St. Catherine’s Academy, the oldest Catholic secondary school in Belize.7 The next morning, after a “hearty breakfast” provided by the Mercy community, the Holy Family nuns were given a tour of St. Catherine’s convent and “select school.”8 At about 3:00 p.m., the seven companions reboarded the Stillwater, which had finally finished unloading the bulk of its cargo. After sailing south for an additional thirty-six miles, the nuns reached their destination. Because Stann Creek had no wharf, but only a pier for small craft, all seven religious had to be lowered from the ship into a rowboat (called a “dorey” by the natives) about a mile offshore. Since they were dressed in their bulky habits, this transfer was not only a frightening experience but also an adventure that became part of the congregation ’s folklore. When they reached the pier, Jesuit Fathers C. J. Leibe and Matharus Antillach greeted them, as did a large contingent of townspeople. After a most impressive welcome, they were shown to their convent, a small frame building with a zinc roof, prepared for them by the Jesuits and the families of the merchants of the town, “who left nothing undone to make everything as comfortable as possible .”9 On April 12 the sisters took charge of Sacred Heart, which by British Honduran law served as a public school. They also opened a select school for students who could afford to pay tuition.10 On April 15, after making sure that all was in order, Mother Austin returned to New Orleans with her traveling companion. Sister Mary Francis Borgia Hart, in her in-house history of the Holy Family community, sums up the mother superior’s impressions of her first trip to British Honduras: “The primitive condition of the people, the unique reception given to the Sisters and the nature of the work which was to be done for God’s glory, so impressed the Mother, that Stann Creek and the Caribs won a place in her zealous heart, and until her death, its needs and the frequent replacements of its personnel claimed her attention, and were always the first to be served.”11 Perhaps Mother Austin realized that the mission begun by the four sisters whom she had left behind was a historic first, in that it was the 16 The Pre–Vatican II Period earliest missionary endeavor by Catholic African Americans, male or female.12 From extant sources, however, it is clear that she...