Sr. Eugénie g

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´The mouth smileswhile the heart sheds tearsµ:

A Grey Nun·s care of the sick at a boarding school

on the Mackenzie River1916-18

Walter Vanast

Draft 6. May 10, 2011

Corrections and Suggestions invited.

[email protected]

[email protected]

What was it like to be a religious sister at a native boarding school early the last century, when the

prevalence of tuberculosis in native communities soared and many children died? To glimpse an answer,

this story looks at lines written by Sister Superior Sainte Eugénie in the diary of the Grey Nun establishment

(a residential school, home for orphans, and infirmary) at distant Fort Providence on the Mackenzie.

Given her vow to serve God no matter how hard the task, Sister Eugénie could show no distress in

diary entries. And as head of the local nuns she had to seem serene, acknowledge Heaven¶s will, and focuson the good. Yet her anguish was such it needed release, and metaphor offered the means.

Time ran short as she directed the raising of orphans, boarding of students, feeding of clerics, and

teaching at the school. She functioned as physician to the region, made housecalls in the village, saw

outpatients at the convent, admitted serious cases, and filled the needs of Dene Indians when several times a

year they came to the fort. In spring when boats arrived from the South and again in winter when the mail

sled passed through, a virus always came with them , vastly increasing her work.

In early 1916, the sister could hardly keep up. Tuberculous students needed extra watching, the

chaplain fell ill, a wounded trapper required assistance, and many families at Fort Providence had caught the

flu. All needed visits. Helping keep up her spirits was Father Duchaussois, who had come from France to

write a book about the nuns, but when he left in March she felt it acutely. As a poet had said, ³Parting is a

little death.´



When days later a young girl, Marie-Adèle, passed away, she remembered that Chateaubriand called

suffering a form of prayer. ³One feels the need to fall on one's knees when one is unhappy,´ she paraphrased

while asking for grace and forgiveness.

In April priests and brothers caught another flu, Indians often asked for pills, and an elderly native

woman, deaf, blind, and ill, needed admission. House-calls continued, as did the watch over ailing students.It was just then, as happened each year before Easter (as a reminder of Christ's death on the cross) that the

mission bell ceased ringing. "We find ourselves in the silent week,´ the sister wrote, as the absent peals

matched the lack of joy in her heart.

Two tuberculous girls, Marie-Anne and Thérèse, were put outside in a tent when the weather

warmed, but sunlight did not help and the latter bled from the lungs. Soon they and David, a teenager

confined to bed, received the last rites. "Life is full of sadness,´ the hard-pressed nun put to pen as clouds

moved in, ³yet no one wants to leave it." The comment referred as much to her own sombre thoughts as to

her young patients.While rain pelted windows and prevented sleep Sister Eugénie thought of the onslaught of illness

inside. Then, recalling Saint Thérèse¶s description of life as but ³a night of storms spent in a bad inn," she

strained for a positive note: ³ When one finds in that lodging not only friends but obedient, pious, and

loving children, it just isn't possible to complain of streaks of lightning, bolts of thunder, and blackened

skies."

A fine morning brought no cheer, for like other pleasant things it would "pass too soon." The next

day Thérèse and David passed away. "My God!" she cried while forcing herself to see a silver lining, "Since

we must witness such deaths, how good it is²how necessary it is²to believe that one day we will see themagain in another life." Shortly after, dogs killed the cat she much loved.

After consumption showed on June 26 in two small children, Marie-Céline and Augustin, the nun

could no longer deny her pain, though she kept her outward composure. "When the mouth smiles," she

recalled a saying, "the soul is shedding tears." Still, the crises continued.

Grasshoppers destroyed the vegetables, ailing Oblates required care, boats brought a nasty cold,

ailing Indians clamoured for help, and students were so sick with a virus ³as to evoke pity." The superior,

herself affected, felt sick both in body and heart.

An outdoor religious procession brought no help from God as within hours little Jean, who had beenscheduled to go home, showed signs of tuberculous peritonitis. "Again, my Lord!" was the sister's cry when

he passed away. Catching herself, she added "Thy will be done." That evening Augustin declined some

more and Sister Yves, a convent mainstay, developed abdominal cramps.

The superior could take no more and defiance, though in muted terms, marked words to her maker:

³My God, we are almost tempted to say µIt is too much all at once.¶´ She longed to tell the mother superior



of all the Mackenzie District of the endless tests of illness and death²it would be like ³pouring the

overflow into another vessel.´ But although the Northland Trader arrived as expected, the mother was not

on board. Augustin died days later.

Beset by grief, Sister Eugénie tried to think of rewards. ³To dry a tear, to trigger a smile,´ she

reminded herself, ³those are pleasures one can readily procure.´ But she felt increasing isolation. Not onlywas she far from her family in Québec, she had wandered from trust in God. When a priest spoke of

Christ¶s healing of the lepers, she thought of her ailing faith. "We too, O Jesus," said her prayer, " want to

be healed. We want to return to the resolutions of our days of fervour."

Her gloom deepened, in part because of an encounter with a favourite former student who had

become mentally ill. ³Alas,´ she confided to the diary, ³nothing offers peace, nor is there anything of which

one can be certain.´

For weeks migrating birds cried to the nun to come with them. "I have lost my wings," she

lamented, "and cannot fly along." How fortunate the air-borne travelers were to have all that air and lightwhile those below faced exile. She envied the ease with which they packed²they had "neither suitcases nor

baggage," and God paid their hotel. The fall's single mail in late November brought three letters, all for

another nun.

At the onset of winter¶s darkest month, two sick youngsters, Alphonse and Lazare, rapidly sank.

"Must we really open still more graves?" was the sister's angry response. But she allowed that God had

rules. "My Lord," she intoned, "it is true that you measure each person for a cradle, a life, and a tomb." The

boys, such reasoning implied, had grown to the pre-ordained length of their coffins, and her prayers could

not change the course of events.When Alphonse left this world, the sister chose to be even closer to ailing youngsters, so they could

receive the warmest, most constant of care. Like a mother hen protecting her brood underwing, she placed

Lazare in a bed beside her own, where he continued the "gentle" voyage downward. Then one morning he

told her to stop fussing over him and to "run to breakfast" as it was already late²when she returned, he was

breathing his last. "We don't want to complain," the sister told her Lord, "but we know you are a good father,

so please listen to our sighs and give us the grace of resignation." What she really meant was "Please stop

the killing."

Yet no lament flowed from her pen when little Joseph, who next stayed by her bed, left this world.Having got some rest, she was able to keep anger in check. No other patient lay seriously ill, housecalls had

dwindled, and the Indians' visit to the fort had easily passed.

Other factors also helped. It was the golden anniversary of the nuns' arrival at Fort Providence and

to mark the event, the head of the Grey Nun order paid a visit from Montreal. Ceremonies, banquets, and

entertainment by the children followed.



As December drew to a close, the superior learned that war in Europe had ended, but the news was

not all good. Spanish Flu had killed thousands and a number of close acquaintances, nuns in Montreal, had

succumbed. Sweeping west, the virus was sure to reach the Mackenzie. Yet given what had happened at the

convent the past three years, and the care she had given to so many dying infants, Sister Eugénie faced the

threat with utter calm, though of the darkest kind, as before a storm. If she must pass through another test,that was part of her lot²and should she cease to be, little would be lost.

Reflecting on New Year¶s eve about the past and future, Sister Eugénie saw how little of either she

knew: "What remains of the one? What do we possess of the other? Nothing. Here, a few memories, there

a few hopes carried off one by one, washed away in time. A fading day, a closing night²life is but a

mixture of the two."

Sr. Eugénie g

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