Community celebrates 130th anniversary

"Valiant" might be the best word to describe the spirit of our founders, a spirit we celebrated on August 5 at our 130th anniversary gathering.  Without Crosier Father Edward Daems, Sisters Pauline La Plant, Pius Doyle, Christine Rousseau and Mary Van Lanen, our community would have never come into being.  As we read through our history we see time and again the moments when each said "yes" to God and followed the call into a future unknown.

One hundred and sixty years ago in Holland, the newly ordained Father Daems said "yes" to his religious superior when asked to join a handful of priests in serving the poor immigrants in the new -- but wild and severe - frontier known Wisconsin, specifically Bay Settlement and Little Chute.  Father Daems traveled the frontier and shared his deep love of celebrating Mass, sharing the Sacraments and healing the people as best he could.  He worked tirelessly, to the point of physical exhaustion while serving the people.  But this priest had a vision: to establish Catholic schools beginning with Holy Cross Parish School in Bay Settlement in 1865.

With no established community of Religious Sisters in the region, Father Daems wrote to the Dominican Order in Racine for help in staffing his school. Like so many religious communities, the Dominicans had no one to spare.  But, through God's providence, two Racine novices who grew up at Holy Cross Parish said "yes" to a calling and returned home in 1867.  Those novices -- Sister Pauline La Plant and her cousin Sister Christine Rousseau -- were soon joined by their Dominican friend, Sister Pius Doyle. When the school opened on February 12, 1868, the three sisters had 79 students, 25 of whom were between the ages of 15 and 27.

Recognizing that the Sisters needed some sort of formal community, Father Daems purchased copies of the "The Seraphic Manual of the Third Order of St. Francis" in the fall of 1874 and gave them to Sisters Pius, Pauline, Christine and a young neighboring farm girl, Mary Van Lanen.  On November 7 that year, the four said "yes" and were received into the Third Order of St. Francis.

Exactly 11 years after Holy Cross School opened, Father Daems died at age 52.  In a letter from Sister Pauline to Father Daems' Master General at the Crosier Abbey in Holland she wrote that between 3,000 to 4,000 people attended the funeral of their beloved pioneer priest.

Father Daems' vision carried on through the Sisters as they taught, healed and cared for people.  As the community grew, Sisters discussed the need of putting into writing their specific rules, prayers and charism.  Sister Pius developed such a document and sent it to the local Bishop, Most Rev. Francis Krautbauer, who signed it on March 14, 1881, thus establishing the first Constitution for the Franciscan Sisters of Bay Settlement.

We honor the courage, dedication and faith our founders exemplified.  May we always be as valiant as they were, willing to say "yes" and go wherever Our Creator may lead us.

Source: A History of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross 1868 to 1995, by Sister Louise Hunt.