Life With Mother Superior (4 page)

Chapter Seven: Sister Mary William

Unless one-qualified for honors, one’s opportunities
to leave St. Marks, except at the end of term, were
extremely unusual and rare. If you hit the honor roll,
you were allowed to drive into town for sports events,
movies of certain religious origin, museum trips, and
so on. For the first two years of my life there, I saw the city only in passing from the train station to the school
and vice versa. Then, I heard about Sister Mary
William and her Social Action Committee, and even
though there were certain drawbacks to belonging to
her group (such as working for missions in your free
time), I felt that one might balance the other. The
“other” was a series of little excursions to places where
we could perform Social Action.

To parents, it must have seemed unusual that their children, at the tender ages of fourteen and fifteen, had been through places they most likely had not—such as the recreation room of Joliet Penitentiary, the Old People’s Home run by the Little Sisters of the
Poor, the Foundling Home for Wayward Mothers, and
dozens of other attractive places in the same genre.
Sister Mary William was a do-gooder and she also had a tremendous sense of wanderlust. Thus, she arranged
for her group an itinerary that would have made Sir Edmund Hillary blanch.

The first trip of the year was to the Poor House—a
rickety red brick and frame building of the early 1900’s.
What Sister Mary William thought we should get from going to the Poor House I’ll never know, but if she only accomplished one thing, it was the desire in all of us to be lucky enough to die young and in the bosom of a wealthy family. Sister Mary William
offered our services for a Sunday—all we had to do was
serve the old folks dinner, help with the dishes, and
sing our class songs. Whether this, in any way, cheered
up the octogenarians or not, I have no idea. Probably
we depressed them with our youth as much as they did
us with their age.

“Sister, the gravy is gray . . .” I whispered at Sister
Mary William, who was in hog heaven cheering up the
old ladies.

“Hush now, the gravy is not gray.”

One old lady concurred, and toothlessly screamed
out, “The gravy is gray, the gravy is gray.”

“Now see what you’ve done, you’ve started something,” Sister Mary William scolded me. “Go and get
the bananas we brought them.”

There was a terrible fight over the bananas and even Sister Mary William began to wish she hadn’t brought
us. The old ladies grabbed at them and at Florence and
Lillian, who were distributing them. Within seconds they had every banana hidden on their person or in drawers.

Each of them had a special place to sit at the long refectory tables. The tables were of that peculiar
orange-y burled wood, and under each place setting
there was a drawer in which they could stash away
anything they didn’t want to eat. Several of the old ladies had to be reprimanded for putting the lumpy mashed potatoes in there.

By the time we were to sing our songs, none of us
could keep from crying. And even though Sister Mary
William swung to and fro trying to lead us, it was a pitiful chirping of our usually raucous rendition of St. Marks’ old Alma Mater.

Bowed, but not bloody, the Social Action Committee
then performed at the County Jail. This meeting wasn’t quite as exciting as the old people’s, since we didn’t get to serve the food. All I can say is that the number of bad dreams and nightmares that followed the jail expedition canceled that permanently from the tour.

Sister Mary William really rehearsed us for our next
appearance—at the Arlington Park Cemetery for the
Memorial Day services. We recited “In Flanders fields
the poppies blow, between the crosses row on row.” This new method of group vocal was one of Mary William’s inspirations, and it preceded by many years
the much-touted Menotti.

One thing could always be said for Sister Mary William—we were on time. In fact, when we arrived,
not a soul except the cemetery watchman was there. It
had rained the night before Memorial Day, and by the
time we had weaved our way in and out of the tombstones, the hems of our white Sunday uniforms were
dripping wet and our white shoes squeaking. The
chairs were too wet to sit on, and only a sparse crowd
of die-hards had arrived at the cemetery by the time we were seated and waiting. Of course, we were forbidden
to move and if you didn’t toe the mark, you knew you
would miss out on the next exciting side trip into Limbo.

We watched them hang the flag over the speaker’s
platform and soon a few marines arrived with bugles.
One of them winked at Ramona and Sister Mary William came flying down on him like an irate bald eagle.

There was an interminably long speech on courage
and bloody death to give us our freedom, which was
delivered in somewhat of a Baptist minister’s mood by
the head of the American Legion. Then, Florence
read “Battlefield” after which we recited “In Flanders
Fields,” and then taps were played. Sister Mary Wil
liam cried, and so did the American Legion man. We
weaved in and out of the tombstones looking at names
and dates, and realizing that people (or past people)
were lying under there.

But the trip of the year was the trip to the World’s
Fair before it opened. This meant we would go all the
way into Chicago and to the lake front. Sister Mary William, with her usual original touch, had arranged
for us to go through it all by ourselves—and in January.

Her first step was to charter a bus. Since she didn’t
have enough money, we got a bus that had no working
heaters. Of course, we were by this time fairly con
ditioned to no heat as we had none in the dormitories
at night, and most of the nuns kept the windows open during classes. I often used to wonder why. Now I know: we smelled. With twenty or thirty little girls all
wearing the same uniforms day in and day out, we must
have been a mighty advertisement for the use of a
deodorant—of which none of us had ever heard.

Even Jessie Wozynoski seemed well enough to go. Sister felt she could manage her since Jessie had just fainted in Ancient History two days before, and Jessie seldom fainted twice in the same week.

Jessie was a sad, dark eyed girl who lived with her grandmother and grandfather. She was our only contact with the Continental life, for Jessie had been born in Paris, and spent her first and formative years shuttling between the Italian and the French Riviera. Her father was old Polish Aristocracy and her mother a Bavarian princess. Neither of them had much fun
together and no official country to have what little they
had together. From what we had heard, Jessie’s parents
had shipped the grandmama and grandpapa and Jessie
to this country while they still shuttled between Rivieras. Jessie usually left school a good month before we did to join them in some exotic spa like La Napoule or Biarritz. She was the only person we had ever met who had their own room every year on the “Queen.” Jessie was taller and paler than any of us, and I think a year or two older than the rest of us. We all rather liked Jessie, as she was sweet and provided us with a twist from our common heritage. The only problem with Jessie was that she fainted. And she fainted rather dramatically. None of this business of just slumping down. No. Jessie would stand dramatically—bolt upright—in the middle of Ancient History or Algebra or wherever she was about to go, utter a superb moan, “Siiiiisisssster,” and crash down flat on the floor and on her face. She often cut her lip or her eye on the sides of desks, but no one ever doubted the authenticity of the faint. No one would just crash like that unless they meant business.

Mother Superior sent her off to the convent doctor who pronounced her sound of body but high-strung; the chaplain’s doctor pronounced her sound of mind but peaked. Sister Nurse thought her blood was weak, Sister Cook made her drink heavy broths with egg in them and Jessie had to report before lunch for a pill and a glass of port. Jessie’s only active thank you for the attention was to faint one day in the kitchen.

Of course, we treasured the moments of her downfalls since they afforded a good fifteen minute break in our monotonous morning or afternoon. Most of all, we enjoyed Jessie’s fainting at the Communion Rail or at a public ceremony. But basically, there was nothing really wrong with Jessie—at least not enough for the school to send her away, and somehow we all learned in our years at St. Marks to be quick enough to try and catch Jessie (though she was very crafty about timing), and if we didn’t catch her we at least knew we should pat her wrists, get a cold cloth and fetch the first Sister that we could.

Sister Mary William made a point of taking Jessie with us. She felt that Jessie should see something of scope in our country. “After all,” she said, “she’s seen the famous landmarks of Europe—why not right here in Chicago.” Mother Superior wasn’t keen at all and Jessie bit her nails and tried to stay upright for a week so that she, too, could visit this Mecca of the Midwest.

Mother Superior herself bundled Jessie into her clothes. In fact, Jessie looked like a large walking
mummy with a stocking cap and two sweaters, a coat
and a large scarf that was wound Nefertiti fashion from
her bosom up to her nostrils. In fact, the fashion back
ground we all received at St. Marks was certainly a firm foundation for a life of a frumpdom.

By the time the bus left, the driver was trying to
keep his window clear of steam—if was so cold in the
bus that our breath quickly frosted the windows,
leaving him in somewhat of a cloudlike atmosphere. Also, we sang a lot—which didn’t help him one whit.

It was one of those icy-red days in Chicago, when it’s so cold the wind seems to unbutton your coat and
twist around you like a muffler. The bus could only go
as far as the main entrance, so Sister Mary William
pushed us off the bus there. None of us wanted to
leave the cool confines of that old car—it wasn’t warm,
but our body heat was preferable to the wind of the lake outside.

“I’ve never seen such a bunch of sissies in my life.”

We breathed deeply, much as a paratrooper must do before jumping, and joined Sister. By this time
her cheeks were bright red, her shawl clutched around
her, and her bright blue eyes were running almost as fast as our noses.
“Why, when I was young, we would have thought
this was a nice day.”

“Where did she grow up—Iceland?” Mary yelled over the howling wind.

I’m sure if our parents knew that that very day St.
Marks had put us out in the cold,
they
would have fainted. But they never heard about these trips until the end of the semester. And, by that time, our bron
chitis had cleared up. Anyway, most of the stories we
told they didn’t believe.

The fair grounds were vast and totally devoid of human beings that day. Men who worked there
deliberately stayed home to avoid the cold—but St.
Marks girls had courage. We started walking, running,
anything to keep moving and warm. The Science
Building loomed majestically in front of us. It was
unheated, but it was at least out of the wind. Sister Mary William shepherded us into it and even she looked disappointed when she saw that nothing—not one thing—was in the building. The most scientific
experiment we saw was an old man opening his lunch
box with a pair of pliers.

From the Science Building, it took all our energy to buck the wind to Fort Dearborn. This was a fas
cinating reproduction of the old Fort, faithfully carried
out in logs. We did not like this building as well as the Science Building as the wind came whistling through the logs. By this time, most of the Social
Action Committee were reduced to frozen, crying mum
mies and Sister Mary William decided to seek out a
rest room. The bus driver told her where to go and we
were so grateful to get somewhere that was heated, we
made her promise we could stay there until blood
circulated in our feet once again. There were a few
other groups of children in the large cafeteria lounge
and Sister Mary William borrowed money from her mission funds to buy us hot chocolates. After this,
Mary and I and Jessie went to the washroom. It was
then that Jessie took one look in the mirror, made a feeble moaning sound and crashed down between
the sinks. Neither of us was equipped for this. Jessie
had promised not to faint at the World’s Fair, and here
she was, white as a sheet on the floor. I started to
throw cold water on her but she looked cold and blue
enough. Mary ran out and down the hall screaming at the top of her lungs . . . “She’s having a spell. Sister Mary William. Jessie
fainted.”

This, of course, amazed the few workmen, who put
their sandwiches down and stared. Mary, flying
through the stairwell with her navy beret pulled down
over her ears, her uniform mid-calf length with black
stockings and shoes, all lent a certain amount of humor to the picture.

I joined the race. But by this time Sister Mary William had heard the frightening word, “Jessie,” on
the floor below, and as she flew up the stairs I flew
down. As I passed her by, shouting, she grabbed me,
and while I hung suspended on the steps, she whispered in my ear, “Stop shouting the message. I have
received it.”