Franciscan Sisters see world as their cloister
It all started with a fire.
The blaze, believed to be arson, curled its fiery tongue around a convent in Belle Prairie, displacing the 16 nuns who lived there as part of a congregation founded in 1872.
The founder, Elizabeth Hayes, had come from England to do mission work with Native Americans. But Hayes moved the congregation's headquarters to Rome in 1881. When the convent burned down in 1889, the remaining sisters were unable to contact Hayes.
A Little Falls man, David LaChance, offered the sisters temporary use of two houses on the northeast side of his town. After being unsuccessful in their attempts to contact Hayes for nearly a year, a bishop from the newly formed Diocese of St. Cloud ordered the sisters to either disband or form their own congregation.
They did just that. On March 1, 1891, the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Little Falls was established.
This year, the congregation is celebrating its 125th anniversary. The sisters will honor Founding Day on Tuesday, March 1, and host a series of events this summer before wrapping up festivities with the Feast of St. Francis on Oct. 4.
Built with their own hands
In the early years, the Franciscan Sisters built up their missionaries the same as they built their first house — by their own hands with the help and donations from others.
Maj. Ashley Morrill donated to the sisters 5 acres, on which they lived in a shanty built with materials donated by a local lumber company. A year later, the sisters had built a four-story building that was used as a convent residence, hospital and home for orphans and the elderly.
"They were responding to the need as it came," said Bea Eichten, community minister and president of Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls.
Orphans who lived with the sisters in Belle Prairie also moved with the sisters to their temporary shanty house. When the sisters learned of the need for elderly care and health care in the community, they transformed a section of their convent into St. Gabriel's Hospital.
The money used to build the sisters' home and missionaries was donated by the community.
"They had to be pretty tough ladies to make it because when they built that building ... they had no money," Eichten said. "They were given 5 acres of land and they went out begging."
On Jan. 15, 1892, the Little Falls Transcript said St. Gabriel's Hospital would care for patients associated with the Northwestern Benefit Association, which made a "specialty of caring for men in the lumbering business," according to Sister Elise Saggau.
"At that time in our society, our government did not provide nursing care or hospitals. The sisters pretty much started that and established this nursing system across the country," Eichten said. "There wasn't any other option here in town for health care or long-term care."
The sisters received requests from cities across the Midwest to help build hospitals and nursing homes. After building the first hospital in Little Falls, the sisters helped establish hospitals in Rock Island, Illinois; Breckenridge and Perham; and Dodgeville, Wisconsin.
"The story is they put Sister Benedict on the train with a five-dollar bill and sent her to Dodgeville to build a hospital," Eichten said. "And she did."
The St. Joseph Hospital in Dodgeville ran from 1914 to 1974, according to the Franciscan Sisters Archives.
Since the congregation's inception, it has been affiliated with 20 hospitals, nine nursing homes, four nursing schools, 21 parish education institutions and four education institutions owned and staffed by the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls.
Early stewards of health, education
In August 1893, a train carrying 33 orphan children arrived in Little Falls. Bishop Otto Zardetti had requested the Franciscan Sisters care for all the orphans of the St. Cloud diocese.
Two years later, the sisters began building a separate orphanage building and named it St. Otto's Orphanage. The orphanage sheltered up to 135 children under the care of 12 sisters.
In 1924, the bishop moved the orphans to St. Cloud Children's Home. The sisters continued to oversee the children for many years. The orphanage later transitioned to a residential care and counseling center for children with mental health and behavioral issues.
St. Otto's Orphanage in Little Falls became St. Otto's Home, where sisters cared for the elderly until 1968. The building is now named Mary Hall and is used as a residence for retired sisters.
The Franciscan Sisters' early history also has ties to the modern health care system, according to Franciscan Sisters records.
Sister Mary Anthony Lyons, the last living of the original 16 founders, is credited with having one of the early notions of health insurance. In her early years, Lyons was a designated beggar who solicited funds on the East Coast. From 1901 to 1950, Lyons lived in Breckenridge, where she helped build the original St. Francis Hospital.
When a larger hospital was needed, Lyons sold "tickets" for $7 in order to raise the $70,000 needed to build the hospital. Those who purchased the tickets where entitled to hospital care at no additional cost for one year. About 1,000 people purchased this rudimentary form of health insurance, raising enough money to build the new hospital.
The Franciscan Sisters were also early providers of social services. During the Depression, homeless men moving across the county in empty railway boxcars would stop by the convent or hospital kitchen of the Franciscan Sisters.
"We always had a big pot of soup to feed them," Eichten said, adding, "They found really creative ways to take care of people. A lot of people paid us with chickens or a side of beef."
Trading in the 'medieval costume'
The Franciscan Sisters saw an influx of postulants entering the congregation in the 1950s and 1960s, Eichten said.
"After the war, there was a time when there were not a lot of opportunities for women," she said. "If you wanted to be a teacher or a nurse, or be involved in some kind of major ministry, you had to be a nun. Or you got married and had babies."
In 1955, 29 women were received into the novitiate, which was a record number. The influx prompted a push for more education; sisters began attending colleges or professional training programs.
The Franciscan Sisters saw the highest membership numbers in that era, when the congregation reached about 430 members, according to Eichten.
At the direction of the pope, the Franciscan Sisters also changed their dress during these decades as a way to be more accessible to the people. The sisters traded their medieval-style habits to more contemporary clothing.
"When religious congregations started, they started as groups of ordinary women coming together to live in community, and they wore the same dress that the peasant women at the time wore. When, as the style of the peasant women changed, the sisters' styles never changed," Eichten said.
Today, about four nuns still wear habits, Eichten said, but many dress in slacks, sweaters and blazers.
"We don't look like nuns. In a sense, that's very deliberate because it makes us part of the people and it makes us accessible on an ordinary basis," she said.
'The world is our cloister'
Pope John XXIII also called for greater outreach in Latin America, so the Franciscan Sisters established a center in Yunguyo, Peru, where 16 sisters served between 1962 and 1980. Since the mid-century, missionary activities have expanded to Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
The sisters also worked in collaborative ministries in Thailand, Yemen, Vietnam, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Senegal and Cameroon. The most recent initiative was in San Rafael, Mexico, where since 2003, sisters have provided pastoral and other religious services to villages.
Franciscan sisters are often associated with the phrase, "The world is our cloister," because their communities are often not monastic.
"That's one of our favorite sayings," Eichten said. "One of the differences between us and monastic communities is that we ... don't all live together. That's not our style at all. St. Francis sent out his friars two by two to preach the Gospel."
In the 1970s, the sisters saw more change. This time, fewer women were entering the novitiate. But there was an influx of people who wanted to formally associate themselves with the congregation's life and ministry, just not as vowed members. Men and women, both married and unmarried, joined the Associate Relationship as a way to promote the Franciscan Sisters' missions.
With the advent of local health care and education systems, the Franciscan Sisters slowly relinquished control of its many hospitals, nursing homes and schools. Today, the sisters' primary missions are running a music center and health/recreation center on campus.
'Tough old ladies'
Many sisters have returned home to Little Falls in recent years, perhaps as a reflection of the aging population. Of the 128 active sisters, more than 60 live in Little Falls. The rest are scattered throughout the continent.
Twenty of the sisters are 90 or older, according to Eichten.
"They're tough old ladies," she said.
As the Franciscan Sisters celebrate 125 years and look to the future, they remain positive that God will lead the way.
"I don't think we're ever going to have 400 women again, but I don't know that we need 400 women," Eichten said.
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