At Home in Many Worlds
Memoirs of an Iowa Farm Girl Who Had Far to Go
By Sister Jane Fell, MMS
Copyright © 2011by Society of Catholic Medical Missionaries aka Medical Mission Sisters
Smashwords edition.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment, only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the original work of this author.
Foreword
Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not. Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own. Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger.
I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter; I forget that there abides the old in the new, and that there also thou abidest.
Through birth and death, in this world or in others, wherever thou leadest me it is thou, the same, the one companion of my endless life whoever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar.
When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the one in the play of the many.
(Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore, pp. 42-43)
As a child I feared to be away from home. During my one experience of camp I suffered from homesickness the whole three days that I was there. Who would have believed that as life unfolded I would be comfortably “at home” while living in 11 localities in six countries and three states? But such was the case. Born and raised on a farm in Iowa, I joined the Society of Medical Mission Sisters (a Religious Community) at the age of 22. Following my three years of education for living religious and missionary life, I have been assigned to:
• Philadelphia for one year,
• Pakistan for 10 years,
• Afghanistan for four years,
• North & South Carolina for seven years,
• Papua New Guinea for four years,
• Ghana, West Africa for six years, and finally,
• Uganda, East Africa for 17 years.
It was from Uganda at the age of 75 that I finally repatriated back to the United States. I have loved every bit of my life. I came to experience the truth that each place has its own unique flavor and yet at base we are all the same regardless of religion, race or education.
As I sent letters to my family and friends telling stories of the inside of a convent; the adventures in my travel by freighter, train and horse-drawn tonga to get to my first mission in Pakistan; my struggles to communicate in a foreign language; nursing within the Moslem culture; travel by local bus through the Khyber pass into Afghanistan with only $7.50 in my purse; adventures, close shaves and fun among the Pathan tribes of Afghanistan; being with the highlanders of Papua New Guinea as they emerged from the Stone Age; trying out “simple living” in a remote village of Ghana: encountering Congolese rebels in Uganda; and learning how to be architect and building contractor in a part of Uganda not far from the “gorillas in the mist”; they were intrigued. They told me I should “write a book.”
Having grown up on a farm I have always felt more comfortable in a rural setting than in a city setting. Fortunately, virtually all of my assignments as a member of the Medical Mission Sister society have been to rural areas. While reading this book it is important that the reader remember that I was experiencing life and living conditions in the rural areas of the various countries. Amenities such as electricity, telephones, paved roads, running water and a variety of foods would have been available at least in the larger towns and cities while not being available in the rural areas at the time that I was there.
I was blessed to be in all of these countries during the “good” years. I hope that I can give you a glimpse of what the life of the people was like when they were not in crisis.
My personal gifts seem to have included the gift to intuit the potential of others. Again and again throughout my life I have been able to enable others to develop and to use their gifts. One part of the Medical Mission Sisters’ mission is to bring an endeavor to the point where others can carry it on, thus allowing us Sisters to go to other places of need. Thus my ability to help colleagues and employees to further develop their skills has contributed to this aspect of mission. It is one reason that I have been able to move on to yet another place so many times.
We all have our inner journey as well as our external journey in life. I have tried to include something of this in these pages.
I have a sense of humor and many of my stories are told with the humor that I experienced on looking back after all was over, and nothing terrible had resulted. Often these events were not funny at the time they were happening.
I originally wrote this for family and friends who were already aware of the context. I have tried to add more context for the sake of those who do not know me or the Medical Mission Sisters, or the countries in which the events happened.
Finally, these are my Memoirs; my memories! They may vary slightly from the facts or from the memory of others involved in the same location.
I am told by early readers of the manuscript that I held their attention and helped them to feel as if they were right there with me. They have encouraged me to make it available to a larger readership. So here it is. Enjoy.
Abbreviations Used in the Text
MMS Medical Mission Sisters
PNG Papua New Guinea
PINDI Rawalpindi, Pakistan
VHC Village Health Committee
CHW Community Health Worker
TBA Traditional Birth Attendant
HOME ON AN IOWA FARM: EXPERIENCING A CALL 1934-1956
Childhood
I was born the fifth of seven children, living on a farm near Council Bluffs, Iowa, just as the family was emerging from drought and depression. It seems that I was a bit of a surprise as Mom & Dad had already decided that two girls and two boys nicely completed a family. My siblings and I can claim to be eighth generation Americans. And we are typical Americans. We are a mixture of German, French, English, Irish, and Welsh ethnic background.
I was born on a Thursday and as we know, “Thursday’s child has far to go.” It seems that I began life on a rocky rather than a rock foundation. My four older siblings were ages three, four, six and seven years when I came into the world. I must have been for them the ultimate toy, i.e. I cried, drank milk, peed, etc....all those things an expensive doll should do. At first, maybe because the family had used up all the beds before my arrival, I was bedded down in a dresser drawer in my parent’s bedroom. The dresser was on wheels and one rainy afternoon, according to my mother who was downstairs at the time, “the four” decided to play choo-choo train with the dresser in which I was sleeping. Great fun until the dresser fell over on its face with me inside it. Could this explain my feeling the need to be “on guard” the whole of my life?
Our farm was only four miles from the city of Council Bluffs, so we had the best of two worlds, i.e. access to good education, jobs, and shop-ping, plus the simpler life of a farm. Council Bluffs is across the Missouri River from Omaha, Nebraska.
Jane attended a one-room school for nine years.
My education began in a one-room rural school, Garner No. 3, where one teacher handled kindergarten through eighth grade. When I began school, my four older brothers and sisters were there in the same room. When I finished grade school, my two younger brothers were there. No chance to keep secrets from mom and dad. In fact, dad was the director of the school. It was he who not only saw to the maintenance of the school, but who signed the teacher’s pay vouchers as well. So we Fell children felt very important. It also had its responsibilities. We Fell children were responsible to bring a five gallon milk-can of drinking water with us when we came walking to school. We used a little red wagon in the warm weather and a sled in the winter. In winter, if heavy snow meant the teacher couldn’t make it to school, it was we Fell children who decided to dismiss school and send everyone home. “Everyone,” in fact, numbered at the most 20 students. Most of the time the school had only about 15 students enrolled. I went through 13 years of school in the same grade with twin boys, Ronald and Roger, and with a girl who’s name, like mine, was Jane. Our first nine years were in this one-room school.
As there was only one teacher in the school, there was only time for a 15-minute recitation period for each grade, for each subject, so we really learned self-study. I used to enjoy finishing my own study quickly so that I could listen to the recitations of the older students. One day I got so absorbed in the older students’ class that when the teacher asked a question and they didn’t reply, my arm shot up before I remembered it wasn’t my class. The teacher just laughed and let me give the answer. In this setting a teacher could spend more time on an area in which she was confident, and less on an area that was not so easy for her to teach. For instance, one teacher taught us the basics of music, including the complicated skill of how to change the notation from one key to another. This knowledge of how to read and understand music served me well as a Medical Mission Sister, as singing has always been an important part of our lives.
One aspect of winter I remember is how we managed to have a hot lunch. Each student carried a raw potato to school. These were put into the coals of the wood stove that heated the schoolroom, and by lunchtime they were nicely baked.
On really cold, winter evenings when we arrived home from school, half frozen from the long walk, Mom would have hot, homemade, cream of tomato soup and shell-shaped crackers waiting for us.
Life on a farm included a lot of shared family activities. One was producing our own food. In addition to the large fields, we had a big garden, two vineyards, and a big orchard with fruit trees, strawberry beds, raspberry patch, and asparagus bed. We had cattle and pigs and chickens for meat. We also had three or four milk cows. Selling cream and eggs provided our mother’s spending money.
From five years of age, all of us had tasks appropriate for our age to help sustain all of this. Typical jobs for me included: gathering eggs, cleaning pig and cattle pens, separating milk to obtain the cream and helping to cook (when forced to do so). All of us helped to grow and preserve food. In order to assist the boys and men in the fields while they were loading bales of hay onto a wagon to bring it into the barns, I learned to drive horses (from age six), and a tractor (from age 10).
Our father was employed as a motion picture projector operator in a theater in town. To supplement his income, he grew and processed popcorn to sell to area theaters. From about five years of age, we children stood along a conveyor belt that was installed in a room above our garage, where we cleaned popcorn by removing stones, etc., from among the kernels. Our father then bagged the corn and took it to the theaters. Until my older brothers got old enough to manage the farm, my father hired a man to help to do farm work, so that Dad could continue working in the theater. This, in addition to the marketing of popcorn, gave us a security our neighbors lacked during drought and depression.
I experienced my first flight when about five or six years old. It was a winter morning with a foot or more of snow on the ground. My older brothers and I were going over the hill to our grandparent’s house. At the top of the hill, my brothers caught hold of me under the arms, and ran full speed down the hill, leaving my little feet barely skimming the top of the snow. How wonderful.
A highlight of farm life was the 4-H Club. The four “H”s stood for head, heart, health and hands. I belonged both to the girls club, where I learned sewing, cooking, and home furnishing, and to the boys club, where I raised cattle to “show” at the county fair, and to sell to make money for my college education. I had time for the outside activities because my two older sisters, much to my delight, assisted my mother with the cooking. Needless to say, as an adult, the fact that I lacked skill/confidence in the culinary arts was sometimes a bit of a problem.
Of course farm life was not all work. During the summer time we spent the afternoons exploring the surrounding woods and creeks. Our active imaginations defined Devil’s Den, Phantom Canyon, and Ghost Creek Canyon. Once my legs were long enough, I was allowed to join in these excursions with “the four.” Prior to that, they refused to take me despite my cries of protest. As it would be another four years before my younger brothers came along, I felt abandoned when this happened. Mosquito Creek was a source of cooling off on a hot day. I remember once being escorted by one of my big brothers to within a safe walking distance to return home, so that my Uncle John and my brothers could go skinny-dipping.
My siblings insist that I was “Dad’s favorite,” and one of their proofs is that when I was of right age, he bought me a riding horse! I, of course, made it plain to all my siblings that they were free to share the horse. It wasn’t my fault that they had trouble staying on top of it. For me the horse was the source of hours of freedom, enjoyment, and beginning contemplation. He carried me to secluded vales, or to the nearby experimental fruit farm. In the latter I would begin my ride in the vineyard, proceed to the apple trees and peach trees, and then finish in the strawberry patch, sampling as I went along.
Once, before Dad bought me the horse, I tried my skill at riding by another means. One day I was in the pasture with the cows. Impulsively, I jumped onto the back of an older calf. As I thought he would do, he started out running for the barn. I was getting a wonderful ride. He ran and ran and ran, and then he suddenly stopped…right in front of the big water tank, throwing me over his head into the water! Really!
Our family worshipped in a small rural church, which was a mission of the Columban Fathers. Alice, my older sister, played the organ and the rest of us, along with our cousins and a few other parishioners, formed a choir. Mom sometimes invited the priest or the Mercy Sisters, who had come from their convent in town to teach us our catechism, for breakfast. This wasn’t so much fun for us children as we felt intimidated. I was great at memorizing the catechism. It would be many, many years before I understood what I could so easily memorize.
At the same time, our religion was an ever-present part of our living. I remember to this day the disbelief that I experienced after entering a public high school that none of my peers knew or cared that the first of November was the Feast of All Saints. I had gone to Mass before going to school that day.
We were taught from childhood to pray hard when danger threatened. If it started to hail, we rushed to light the blessed candle, knelt down and started to say the rosary. The hail, which had the potential to wipe out a whole crop, never persisted beyond the first decade of the rosary.
Years later there came a day, when I had just finished getting ready to go on duty as a nurse at the Council Bluffs hospital, that I saw fire! Someone had tried to burn the waste paper, and the wind picked up pieces of flaming paper, periodically dropping it to the earth where it ignited dry grass in the pasture. The flaming paper kept going up and down, creating a path of flames headed directly towards our grandparents’ house, which was surrounded by evergreen trees. My older brother tried to contain it, but it was moving too fast. Down I went on my knees, and prayed like mad. Just before the fire reached our grandparents’ homestead, the wind changed direction 90 degrees, blowing the fire into the corner of the pasture. As the corner was in the intersection of two roads, my brother could then contain the spread of the flames. No damage occurred, except that part of our vineyard was burned. Thank you, God.
Dad loved to drive. On hot summer evenings and Sundays he would pack my mother and all seven of us children into the car and drive us somewhere. We enjoyed visiting with our relatives and Dad and Mom’s friends. In those days there was no TV to compete with our entertainment.
Dad taught me many skills useful in repair and maintenance. I have been able to utilize these skills in every place and every mission where I have lived and worked. Also, being comfortable with isolation and solitude, a trait that I developed while living on a farm, attracted me to living in rural rather than urban areas. I was happy that my mission assignments were to rural areas. As health care personnel are less available in the rural areas this was an asset to the country as well as to my life as a missionary.
Another experience that helped me to adjust to religious life was my being the third of three girls. I had little experience of wearing new clothes except on Easter as most of my clothing was passed on from my older sisters. Also, the feed store in town started selling chicken feed in colorful cloth rather than burlap bags. I remember choosing the cloth that I wanted for the sewing of my next dress when I was with my father to buy chicken feed. That was farm life.
A tragedy hit the family one day. Dad was in the feed lot on a ladder replacing broken windows in the barn when the ladder broke. One of his feet was broken almost completely off. A few miracles saved him and his foot. First was that the hogs did not attack him. Second my uncle who was on a noisy tractor a quarter mile away “heard” him calling for help. He responded immediately and drove Dad to the emergency room. Next, the artery didn’t blow until he was on the table in the ER where the hemorrhage could be managed. Finally, his surgeon had just returned from serving in World War II. He had experience not only with trauma but also with penicillin and it had just been released for civilian use. When he returned home we children took turns substituting for a whirlpool by powering an egg beater while his foot was in a bucket of water.
The accident happened during the planting season. One Sunday afternoon six of our neighbors arrived with tractors and plows. Following one another they plowed the large bottom field so that it was ready for seeding. My picture memory of this is watching my brother John on our small Allis-Chalmers tractor trying to keep up with all the big men on the big ones.
High School
When I was 14 years old, I graduated from the one-room grade school and entered a high school with a thousand students. That was quite a transition! i.e. like from being a big fish in a small pond to being one of a thousand minnows. While registering for classes with my friend, Jane Mark, the director of the orchestra and marching-band came into the office. He said that he needed majorettes for the band and bass-fiddle players for the orchestra. He signed us up right then and there, without audition, and proceeded to teach us both skills. (This was after World War II and he was a refugee from Austria. Whereas in Austria he would have been employed as a skilled musician, he was now reduced to directing the orchestra and marching band in a Midwestern high school.) Traveling and marching with the band, and playing in the orchestra were the highlights of my high school years. Years later when I decided to take up the guitar, the skills were there to do so.
Socially I was very shy, which was probably a symptom of poor self-esteem; something I would have to work on all of my life. Scholastically I was good, and graduated as an honor student. Perhaps I compensated for poor self-esteem by working hard to get good grades. That worked well for getting the teachers to like me, but it didn't mean much to my peers except for their getting my help with their assignments. They probably liked me for myself, but I didn't know that at the time.
But, my peers did admire my suntan. The first cutting of alfalfa to be put into the barn for winter-feeding occurred before the end of school. As soon as I got home from the day’s classes, I changed clothes and took over driving the tractor so that one more man could work at loading the bales of hay. This produced an enviable suntan before my friends even thought of going to the lake to get one. On arriving back in school they wanted to know where I had gone to get it. But that was my secret.
At the age of 15, I had to get a driver’s permit, so as to get to school by driving either the car or pick-up. My brother John had graduated from high school, and there were no buses to take us to town. This was a common occurrence for rural students. Having a vehicle at our disposal made us the envy of the city kids.
Nurses Training
The same year that I graduated from high school, nearby Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs began an experimental four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing program in affiliation with Duchesne College of the Sacred Heart in Omaha, Nebraska. For me it was a wonderful program. I enjoyed studying the humanities at Duchesne (where my mother had also studied) while getting a good basic nursing education at both the nursing school and the college. The experimental part resulted in us college students getting almost as much practical experience as the three year, basic nursing students received. This was a big plus for me when I became involved in health care in Asia and Africa. Later, I found students in most colleges of nursing had received far less practical experience. I have always found exams easy--it seems I can kind of psych them out--and I tied for the highest marks in the State Board exams.
Jane at college graduation.
Besides the humanities, the Sisters at Duchesne also tried their best to make ladies out of us. We were taught how to admire and correctly identify works of art and music. We were also taught how to curtsy and had classes on how to eat, how to sit properly, how to stand without moving for a long time and other useful things that have served me well throughout life. I’m sure that those who know me have noticed how well I’ve been taught to be a lady. Ha!
After completing the first scholastic year at the college, I was required to take up residency at the school of nursing.
Our family was certainly a “warm” family as far as our relationships and interactions were concerned. But we were not a “kissing and hugging” family during the time of my childhood. I once wrote a poem about my leaving home to join nurses’ training and here it is:
I left my home for the nurses’ home at nineteen years of age.
“No big deal” said I, “I’ll only be four miles away.”
And so I waved goodbye to Mom who was hanging clothes upon the line…
whose thoughts were certainly NOT on clothes…
who said in her grief: “aren’t you going to kiss me?”
And so, feeling a bit of shyness and shame, I did.
(Neither of us knew that within another year she would be beyond the reach of kiss, or so I thought of death.)
Just the two of us. Where was Dad? I left him too but never thought to give him kiss.
Or brothers. They too were left behind as I stepped boldly out into the world.
Death of Mother
During my second year of nursing school, there were two major events in my life. The first was that my mother, who had had surgery seven years earlier to remove a cancerous kidney, now was found to have cancer in the liver and lungs. It was 1954. At that time, it was customary to keep bad news from the patient, but together with the doctor I decided that Mom should be told. It was tough, but in fact she was relieved. She thought the lung problem was tuberculosis and that she was a danger to her family! I wish we had had the insight to be as open to my younger brothers, who were 13 and 15 years of age, of the fact that Mom was going to die. But, we weren’t. In those days bad news was kept secret from children. They had to find out from brother-in-law Harvey, after going through a lot of agony wondering what was happening. In 1954 there were no cancer cures and Mom was never admitted to the hospital. A month before she died, Dad and my brothers came to the nursing school and said that Mom could no longer manage without me. I took a leave of absence from the school, and was able to go home to care for her. She died at home in her own bedroom. Hospice care hadn’t yet been invented. Towards the end, my brothers and I took turns staying with Mom day and night until the last night, when my father took over. We were supported medically by my Uncle John, who was a medical intern, my sister-in law Dee, who was a nurse, and a cousin Barbara, who also was a nurse.
We were also supported by our neighbors. For the last two weeks of Mom’s life we did not have to do much cooking as our neighbors sent casseroles, other main dishes and desserts to us. We could even joke that when we wanted a repeat of a certain dish then we sent back that container to the woman who had cooked it.
Caring for Mom, and having her die peacefully in my arms, gave me a comfort with death. This was of great help to me when I was working in other countries. From my own experience, I knew how to comfort parents and relatives when patients under my care died.
After Mom’s death I returned to the nursing school. I was in residence but got permission to stay overnight at home, when I wasn’t on duty, so that I could help and support my Dad and younger brothers. This was quite against the rules back then, and I was told I could only do so if I kept my grades up. My older brother John had been deferred from military service during Mom’s illness, but now he had to leave for the army. As my two older sisters and oldest brother were all married and had children, my father and two younger brothers were left at home.
Call to Religious Life
The second event that year happened during a three-day religious retreat at the school of nursing. I experienced a Call to religious life! This came as quite a shock. No one in our family or in our parish had entered priesthood or religious life. Saying to myself that I would deal with this after I finished school, I kind of ran away from it. However, I remember that one day, while at home with my mother, I mentioned to her that I thought I would like to be a missionary. She affirmed me, and I’ve always been happy that this exchange occurred as she had died before I really decided to accept the Call and enter a religious community.
The Call came again and again. Every time I made the Stations of the Cross in the Duchesne Chapel I experienced the Call. I was tempted to stop making the Stations of the Cross! Finally, in my fourth year of school, I started writing to missionary congregations that did medical work. In this way I learned about the Medical Mission Sisters (MMS).
I set about informing family and friends about my decision. First was my father. We were driving somewhere and would have the whole day together. Considering that it was a good opportunity to tell him that I was thinking of becoming a Sister, I did so while we were traveling at 60 miles an hour. He went off the road and we almost had an accident. A few weeks later, I broke the news to my Uncle John under similar circumstances and he also went off the road.
The Medical Mission Sisters arranged for two Sisters who were traveling in the Midwest, asking for funds for the missions, to come to see me. We met at Duchesne College, and then went together to the farm, to see my father who already knew of my plan. He had tears in his eyes, but said it was all right with him for me to go, if that is what I wanted to do. I had been getting some counseling from the chaplain at the hospital, and had discussed with him the issue of leaving while my Dad and younger brothers were alone at home. His opinion was that if instead of entering religious life I wanted to leave to marry, no one would question my doing so. So, he didn’t think that I should delay entering. That reassured me but it certainly wasn’t easy for any of us. I was very happy when three years later my father remarried.
Once I was accepted to join the MMS community, I had four months to graduate and to wrap up my life as it had been. Anxious to do things I thought I wouldn’t be able to do after becoming a nun, I read the book “War and Peace.” I also joined my aunt for a train trip to Florida. There were three Afro-Americans in our High School and one of them, a girl, was in the orchestra with me. I had no experience of segregation. Half way to Florida we had to change trains. As we walked to the waiting room I saw signs that indicated that there were two waiting rooms. One sign said “White” and the other “Colored”. Well I like color. So, I started into that room only to be turned back. I then learned something about segregation in our country.
Time to leave my first home. I booked a night flight to San Francisco because it was cheaper. I was grateful for the darkness on the plane, as I cried most of the way.
Before taking the night flight to California, Dad and my brothers and I went to the nearby steak house, Club 64. Our neighbors were at the next table. They expressed surprise upon seeing me, saying that they had never seen me clothed in anything other than jeans.
Old Doctor Brown from Council Bluffs was the one who helped my mother to give birth to me. Now he would help again. He arranged for his daughter, who was living in San Francisco, to meet me at the plane. She generously did so. She showed me the sights of San Francisco, and gave me a good dinner and box of candy, chocolate turtles, before putting me on the commuter train to Mountain View, California.
ANSWERING THE CALL: BECOMING A NUN 1956-1959
EDUCATION FOR RELIGIOUS LIFE
First Stage: Postulancy…California
In 1956, my year of entry, the Medical Mission Sisters had 48 candidates for the postulancy (the first stage of education for religious life). Because they lacked space in Fox Chase, Philadelphia, seven of us, including myself, were told to enter in California at the postulancy at Mountain View, south of San Francisco. This suited me fine, as I’m more comfortable in small groupings. Besides, it was a beautiful place that had been given to us by a wealthy benefactor. There was a swimming pool and tennis court. There were also stables but, unfortunately, no horses.
I really knew very little about convents. One thing I assumed was that convents were always clean--in other words, no dirt. Sister Mary Conahan met me at the train. I was just in time for supper, at which time I met the other sisters and the other six girls who had already arrived. After eating we were told how we could help with clearing the table and washing dishes, etc. I was instructed to sweep the kitchen floor. How surprised I was to see crumbs on the kitchen floor of a convent.
Early the next morning, a donkey arrived with a cartload of manure for the garden. This was something I knew about, so I volunteered. I spent my first day in religious life shoveling manure. Other skills that I had acquired on the farm were also appreciated as the days went on, e.g. how to pluck and cut up chickens, how to remove the down from ducks, how to do simple home repairs.
I enjoyed the postulancy very much. I had been carrying a lot of responsibilities, and the life of the postulancy was like a long vacation. For me the study of Scripture and singing were the highlights. We were seven postulants and five professed sisters, and our voices were equally divided between soprano, seconds and altos. We made beautiful music together. One time I wrote home: “This is a wonderful life. We are taken care of. We are told what to do. We don’t have to make any decisions.” Years later, when I realized the import of what I had written, I was horrified that I had slipped into such an immature mind frame. In fact 15 years later education programs for Religious Life were radically changed to address such issues, and make the experience more true to life, and more growth producing. But I enjoyed it as it was.
In addition to what we learned in classes, what we learned from just living with the Sisters was of great value. My only previous contact with Sisters had been as they taught me catechism in Sunday school, and as they taught me and supervised me in nurses’ training in the hospital. I had the impression of strict persons trying to catch you making mistakes. I recall one day early on in the California postulancy we were preparing to serve coffee to a women’s guild that was meeting at our house. Just as the women came out of the chapel for refreshments, it was discovered that we had made hot water rather than coffee. Somehow the coffee urn hadn’t been properly assembled. I remember cringing back against the wall, waiting for an explosion such as I had sometimes experienced during nurses’ training, when things went wrong. The explosion never came. The Sister Superior, Mary Conahan, simply said, “Oh, my!” and then did what she needed to do to get the coffee made. I thought, “Wow, I like these Sisters!”
It was nice spending the winter in California, but time moves on. After six months it was time to join the others at Fox Chase in Philadelphia. Three in California had already returned home, as had several in Philadelphia. This made room for us. We were to fly across the country to join the others and to prepare to enter the novitiate (the second stage of formation). On my 23rd birthday, May 3, l957, dressed in our navy blue postulant dresses, we set forth on United Airlines. Picture this: four women wearing long navy-blue dresses, black hose and shoes, gray gloves, topped off by round brimmed, navy blue hats! Needless to say we were noticed—as in a sideshow—by the other passengers. Before long the stewardess came to ask who we were, and I think something like a public announcement was made. Fifteen years later the custom of religious garb was changed.
The Fox Chase community when we joined with them. Postulants are in front, Novices in Center, and Professed Sisters in top rows. Mother Anna Dengel, our foundress, is in the center of the second row.
Second Stage of Education for Religious Life
The Novitiate…Fox Chase, Philadelphia
Fox Chase is the closest thing Medical Mission Sisters have to a motherhouse. At the time I arrived there our foundress, Mother Anna Dengel, MD, was in residence. Also in residence were about 50 to 60 sisters who had made religious profession, 24 novices, and 30 postulants. We were to join the ranks of the latter. In 1957 the Society was 32 years old. There were 470 Sisters who had made religious profession and they were already living and working in 10 countries. In addition to Fox Chase we had novitiates in England, The Netherlands, North India, South India and Indonesia. We had hospitals in Asia, Africa, Indonesia and the United States.
In Fox Chase, Philadelphia, we had a large tract of land on both sides of Pine Road. It was a farm with milk cows and pigs, cornfields and huge vegetable gardens, and fruit orchards. Buildings provided residences, a chapel, offices, kitchen & dining, a big laundry, barns, a walk-in refrigerator/freezer and guest housing. We had a farmer and his family in residence, and one Sister managed farm affairs. Depending on the season, we postulants and novices worked on the farm helping to plant, weed and harvest. Besides providing us with lots of food, this provided moments of humor when some in our ranks couldn't tell the difference between a vegetable plant and a weed.
When at home in Fox Chase, Mother Dengel, the Foundress of our Community, took a big interest in us. She was especially gracious to the families of the Sisters. She was in on the decision of whether or not we could make profession of vows, where and what we would study, and where we would be sent for mission service. We felt very privileged whenever she came to visit and share with us.
At that time, every thing and every body in Fox Chase had one great focus: the overseas missions. During the Second World War, when it was difficult to travel from country to country, a midwifery service had been opened in New Mexico and a clinic for the poor in Atlanta, Georgia. But the focus was definitely overseas mission. Whenever any of the Sisters returned from “overseas” they were brought to the Postulancy and Novitiate to share with us their wonderful tales of mission life.
The professed Sisters staffed various offices and functions that supported the missions. Or they were waiting for visas to go to the missions. Or they were studying to be doctors, nurses, administrators, medical technologists, or pharmacists, etc., in order to be able to serve in the missions.
The professed Sisters lived separate from us, but all of us met in the main chapel and the dining room. It was quite a sight: The professed sisters dressed in gray habits and blue veils, novices in gray habits and white veils, and postulants in blue dresses. I remember once that the sight stopped the traffic out on Pine Road. It was fall and the whole group of novices and postulants were out on the huge lawn in front of the novitiate building, raking up leaves. People just couldn’t pass us without getting a picture of that!
On June 10, 1957, 32 of us were received into the novitiate. This was a major change as far as our personal identity was concerned. First was that we now wore the religious habit, that is, a gray dress with a white veil. Then, even our names were changed as we were given a religious name. For the next 10 years I was called Sister Mary Petra. The midwifery certificate I earned in Pakistan is in that name. I was very happy with that name as it is the feminine form of Peter, and I have always had a close affinity to St. Peter. I felt he would understand me as no one else could. We have lots in common such as getting in trouble from what we say or from some impulsive response. Though I changed back to my given name, Jane, 10 years later, when I also changed out of the Religious Habit, I’ve carried on my friendship with St. Peter. I still wonder what value it had for active religious to take on such a radical change in image.
We novices lived in the old Ury house that was built before the Revolutionary War. George Washington had eaten strawberries there, and John Adam’s signature was clearly scratched into a windowpane in the downstairs parlor. In the basement was an entrance to a tunnel that led from the house to the barn. It was part of the Underground Railroad that assisted runaway slaves to move from the South of the U.S. to Canada, where they would be free. So it was a very historic house, but it wasn’t built to house 45 to 50 people. Bunk beds were everywhere.
Our day in the novitiate started at 4:55 a.m. with rising, meditation, praying the Divine Office, Mass and breakfast. Classes or work filled the morning until lunch. After lunch we had an hour of leisure. Around 3 p.m. we had prayers again, after which we had classes or work until supper. After supper we enjoyed about an hour and a half of recreation. The day ended with night prayers. Tired, we dropped into bed by 9:30 p.m. Bedtime came after 12 of us had passed through one bathtub in an hour, and about 15 of us had passed through each shower. The cooperation of we young women to manage this was awesome.
The novices and postulants were studying to be both good religious sisters, and good health workers who would go to foreign countries. In the meantime, we helped to support the motherhouse by doing sewing, laundry, farming, and housekeeping, in addition to helping to grow, prepare, cook, and serve meals. This was considered important to learning how to be an organized, efficient worker in the missions, or in support of the missions.
We spent a lot of time singing.
Maybe this is why we would be assigned to the task least known to us. For instance, I never was assigned to work in the dairy to separate the milk, as that was something I was skilled at doing. One of those from the city was usually assigned to that chore. However, I did get assigned to shoe repair. With 60-some women walking on unpaved ground, this was a much-needed service. Replacing heels on shoes was one outlet for my creativity. Not that there weren’t limits. I was told that we did heels but not soles. But, one day a novice brought her beautiful, Sunday shoes to me with the soles half off. And there was that pot of glue up on the shelf! Well, why not? I poured glue into the spaces and applied clamps and let them set for the rest of the week. On Saturday I returned the shoes to Sister. They seemed firm. That Sunday we had to stand for the reading of a particularly long Gospel. Then as we went to sit down, I noticed a bit of a commotion in front of me. The sister with the newly repaired shoes was having some difficulty sitting down. It seems that she was glued to the Chapel floor!
We had many classes, some more interesting to me than others. When I look back with hindsight, I can say that while most classes were very good and helpful, the “spiritual reading” was not. While eating in silence during breakfast and supper, we listened while being read to from some ancient spiritual book. I got the impression that only writings that were more than three or four centuries old were considered holy. The focus was often on the virtues such as one author’s 18 degrees of humility! I was trying to take these things seriously and was experiencing a widening gap between how we were told we should be as religious sisters and how, deep down, I knew myself to be. I remember once saying, "I feel like a hypocrite!" It was a moment of grace, but I didn’t know how to move forward with it.
We enjoyed singing and celebrating life. To me this was well within Mother Anna Dengel’s philosophy and spirituality.
Summers were enjoyable but strenuous. We usually worked long hours in the gardens in the morning, coming in for lunch soaked from sweat. In the afternoon we might have the challenge of staying awake during a few classes. One summer we had a class on writing, and one particular day we were encouraged to write a poem. I feared that I wasn’t capable of that! But it was one of many times that, under the influence of grace, my subconscious or intuition came to my rescue. During that night, I awoke in the midst of reciting a poem. I concentrated on memorizing it, and the next morning wrote it down. Here is the poem:
“Hush my noisy heart, be still...He approaches and is here.
Rest now, satisfy your thirst, from Waters that will never die.
Quiet now, let Him do His work. Listen.”
Sometimes a truck would arrive full of fruit from a benefactor. Then everything else stopped while we prepared and preserved it. It was during one of these activities that we got to meet Mother Teresa of Calcutta! She had come to visit her friend Mother Dengel. When Mother brought her to meet us, our hands were deep into peaches.
Jane’s profession & passport photo.
After supper we might go out to pick raspberries, just sit and talk, or sit and sing. We really became good at singing voice-part music. When Sisters came to Philadelphia from around the world to participate in a General Chapter in 1957, we were ready to entertain.
And what an esprit de corps! Humility wasn’t yet a strong point. We thought that we were unique and that we were the best. We were ready to go forth and stamp out sickness and suffering in the world. Well, we actually were unique in the sense that the Medical Mission Sisters Society was the first in the Catholic Church that was dedicated to providing full professional health care service in developing countries. At one time we had 60 Medical Doctors in our society in addition to fully qualified nurses, laboratory technicians, pharmacists etc. But best? Humility would come later. We were ready to give and to suffer a lot to achieve our goal of health for all, while saving our own soul and hopefully those of others as well. As one of our documents describes it: “Our priority is to go to those who are more in need, the critically broken, to those who are without resources, and to whom others are not willing to go.”
One big aim of the postulancy and novitiate was for both the person and the Community to discern whether the person really had a “call” to religious life. If both sides decided: “yes,” then the person made profession to religious life. So, on August 15, 1959, at the age of 25, together with 18 others from the group, I made the vows of Chastity, Poverty and Obedience Religious Life for three years. Three years later we would make vows for two years. Then at the end of five years we would make vows for life. Fifteen of us did so. By that time we were scattered around the globe.
My older brother Bill, his wife Dee, and my younger brothers Leo and Robert came to my profession ceremony. It was the first time I had seen them in three years. In fact, I remember starting to walk right by my “little brothers” before I recognized them. They had changed from being boys to being young men during the three years since I had left home. I was so happy to see them.
Professed Religious Life
My First Year as a Religious Sister.
Wearing our new blue veils, we received our first assignments. Four of us were nurses, and we were immediately assigned to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Philadelphia. St. Vincent’s belonged to the Diocese and was a home for unwed mothers and their babies. These girls were trying to keep their pregnancy secret, and would give up their baby for adoption so that they could return to school and go on with their lives. One of our senior Sisters ran the program for the mothers. We four were assigned to care for the babies. We proudly put on the white habit and white veil that was worn for hospital work. We had around 100 babies who, less than one year of age, were waiting to be adopted.
I mentioned earlier that I prefer rural living. As St. Vincent’s was in the city, living there was quite a jolt. It seems that I was affected by an absence of color. We wore white mission habits and veils of white. The walls of that old, stone building were gray. All linen was white; the plates on the table were white, and even the eggs that came on the plates for breakfast, were white. I sorely missed the colors of the farm. It was a hard year for me. The absence of color must have struck others as well. The Diocese built a new building for the program, which we were to move into that year. Our Sister-administrator, at the suggestion of sisters who had served in St. Vincent’s in previous years, splashed color all over the place!
And I loved the babies. Once while on night duty, I picked up an infant and when I put him on my shoulder, he actually purred.
After the Sister social workers of another Religious Community had finished making arrangements for the adoption, it was our task to introduce the new parents to their new baby and then try to tell them how to make the milk formula for the infant. This was a special moment for the couple, not unlike that experienced by couples first meeting their own biological baby. They were euphoric! However, here was often another element involved when it was my turn to do the introduction. At some point, as I was trying to explain about the formula, etc., I would see their glazed eyes staring at me. I would stop and say, yes? Then they would ask, “Sister, how old are you? You look to be about 15!” We had to handle that before we could continue! It seems the habit made all of us look younger. But, for me it was about 10 years younger.
During my year there, the new building was completed that was to replace the hundred-year-old, rock construction that was housing the babies. I was asked to organize the moving of the furnishings from the old building to the new one. When I heard that the movers were each going to get the extravagant amount of $10 per hour, I did a lot of homework. I got it organized so that they wouldn’t waste any time! And they didn’t. However, they threatened not to return the second day. I had made them work too hard. This trait to organize others, not always to the liking of the “others,” was to be with me throughout my life. But it got a lot accomplished.
My overseas mission assignment came after a few months. It was to Pakistan. I had kind of dreamed of going to Africa, but still, I was elated. In those days the Superior and her assistants made the decision as to where one was to go. Usually we Sisters were not consulted. I was comfortable with this, assuming that, as I had not forced the decision, then it was “God’s will” that I go to and be in that place. Then, I reasoned, God’s presence and grace would always be there for me.
With mounting excitement I commenced getting ready to go: first a visa, then shots, then getting enough white habits, and finally, best of all, going home for a visit.
My father had remarried the previous year. On one day of my visit home, an open house for all my friends and relatives was arranged. Due to heavy rain, the road to our farmhouse was almost impassible. My brothers spent the afternoon pulling cars around with the tractor. One thing that stands out in my memory is that my stepmother’s sisters did the catering. I was very touched that these women, who I had never met before, were doing such a nice thing for me.
This is how I felt during this visit: I wasn’t comfortable. I was in the religious habit, gray dress with blue veil, and I had come to think that because I looked different than other people, that therefore I was somehow different. I couldn’t figure out my identity within my own family now! When, 10 years later, we changed out of the habit into normal clothing, for me it was like shedding scales. I suddenly felt a wonderful sense of freedom to be myself. I swore that never again would I wear a habit and, when possible, not even a uniform.
Now came the second of many good-byes from my family, always a heart wrenching process. In those days it was not uncommon for us Sisters to stay overseas 10 to 12 years before returning to the States. For me, it would be eight years before I saw the United States again.
AT HOME IN A MUSLIM WORLD: RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN 1960-1970
Traveling by Ship to Pakistan
Jane on SS Steel Chemist in Nov. 1960.
We were traveling by freighter. Sr. Pat Travaline, who was assigned to East Pakistan, and me, Sister Mary Petra Fell, aka, Jane Fell, who was assigned to West Pakistan, were traveling together on the SS Steel Chemist. The freighter was carrying eight passengers. One reason for sending us this way was that we were allowed unlimited luggage. Each of us was carrying over 30 crates of supplies. No, it wasn’t all personal. Our personal belongings hardly filled a trunk. The rest were supplies for the hospitals to which we were going. In those days at Fox Chase, we had a big operation of collecting both donated and purchased drugs, medical supplies and other items, and to packing them in tea crates for shipping to our many hospitals. One of the stories resulting from this responsibility of carrying medical supplies that I particularly like was told to me by another Sister. She was given long glass tubes—maybe a yard long—to carry by ship to our hospital laboratory in Karachi.. She really struggled so that they wouldn’t get broken. After wrapping them carefully in cotton, she packed them between the elevated side of her berth and her mattress. Storms came and her biggest concern was for these thin glass tubes. She made it. When she set foot into the hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, she delivered them to the lab, unbroken! Later, she was given a tour of the hospital. At the lab, she found the lab sister sitting in front of a Bunsen burner, flaming the glass tubing, and breaking it into seven-inch-long pieces, to be made into pipettes!