Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters of Michigan by Patricia Montemurri (review)

Book Reviews 203 Patricia Montemurri. Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters of Michigan. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2020. Pp. 128. Bibliography. Paper: $21.99. Michigan’s oldest Catholic institution for women is neither a cathedral nor school, but a home in Monroe. There in 1845 the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHMs), started what became a fundamental part of Catholic education and community activism in the United States. Patricia Montemurri details this remarkable record stemming from the IHM Motherhouse in Monroe. The accompanying copious photographs, a hallmark of Arcadia Publishing’s Images series, illustrate these changes in the Sisters themselves and their surroundings. From their beginning the Monroe IHM Sisters pursued an active, engaged vision. Sister Theresa Maxis Duchemin, a Baltimore-born mixedrace Haitian, answered a priest’s call to build Catholic schools in eastern Michigan. In November 1845, she founded the Sisters of Providence in Monroe. In 1847 they changed the name to Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (hence the IHM designation). The IHMs came to be known as “Blue Nuns,” for their royal blue habits adorned with black veils. (11-12) In January 1846, the Sisters started Young Ladies Academy, which became St. Mary’s Academy, in a log cabin that doubled as their residence. From that humble beginning the Sisters’ home building kept growing. By 1866 a complex including an expanded Motherhouse, school, and orphanage arose on the River Raisin’s north bank. Meanwhile, the Sisters staffed parish schools throughout Detroit, southern Michigan, and the Midwest. A fire destroyed St. Mary’s Academy in 1929; rebuilding the school led to construction of a new Motherhouse in 1931. By the early 1970s there were over 1,300 IHM Sisters. The customary path to sisterhood took years: from postulancy, novitiate, first vows as a sister, and then, several years later, permanent vows. Most IHM sisters joined as teenagers, taking a religious name with their novice vows. Social interactions were monitored in silence. Consequently, the IHM Sisters’ energy poured into their duties, primarily staffing schools in the Detroit area including Marygrove College (founded 1929, closed 2019) and parochial schools in many now-demolished neighborhoods. (63-64) Meanwhile, Sister Ambrosia Fitzgerald earned a physics doctorate from the University of Michigan and worked on the Manhattan Project. (52) After the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), habit regulations were relaxed and many IHMs resumed using their birth names. Their energies turned to activism, especially the peace movement. (89-91) More recently this included environmentalism. From 2001-2003, 204 The Michigan Historical Review the IHM Motherhouse underwent a $56 million ecologically sustainable renovation. (93-100) While rooted in Monroe, the IHM Sisters expanded their ministries to Puerto Rico, Brazil, Uganda, and South Africa. The connections made there illuminated the IHM concern to serve “where there is need.” (8392 ) In recent decades the IHM numbers have declined. A common criticism argues that the IHMs eschewed their traditional habits and ways and now face irrelevance. Montemurri shows that, more accurately, the Sisters’ ideals and Michigan pragmatism shaped the changes in ministries. The book closes with another woman taking vows to join the community. (121-24) Montemurri’s experience reporting for the Detroit Free Press shines through her concise, expressive writing. This is her third book on Detroit Catholic subjects for Arcadia Publishing—after Blessed Solanus Casey (2018) and Detroit Gesu Catholic Church and School (2017). While amply illustrated with black and white photographs from the IHM archives, the book avoids the hagiography or apologetics one might expect from a history of a women’s religious order. The subjects themselves make their stories compelling. Montemurri indicates the reality often was not as stiff as the photographs might convey. (53) This visual work will appeal to historians of Detroit and southeastern Michigan as well as anyone taught by a Monroe IHM sister. Jeffrey Marlett The College of Saint Rose Ashley E. Nickels. Power, Participation, and Protest in Flint, Michigan: Unpacking the Policy Paradox of Municipal Takeovers. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2019. Pp. 272. Paper: $32.95. In Power, Participation, and Protest in Flint, Michigan, political scientist Ashley E. Nickels explores how municipal takeovers create new modes of political participation. Using Flint as...