All work and no play makes...
Usually, I worked in the kitchen with two awe-inspiring, very French nuns, Sister Marcella and Sister Martina. What was so marvelous about Sister Marcella? Word had it, that at one time, Sister Marcella had seen a real ghost. Whenever I was around her, I wanted to ask her about that grapevine gossip, but I never got the nerve. She was always very quiet, hard working, a heavily built, muscular woman. She did the outside work, kept the furnace going, planted and cared for the gardens and milked the cows. I was glad I never had to help with that latter chore because I had never got the hang of milking, even though my brothers had tried, in vain, to teach me while I was at home. Beside the outside work, Sister Marcella helped in the kitchen. She could always be seen, doing the heavy lifting, scouring and cleaning chores. There was always a peaceful calm about her. Her smile was radiant, sincere and contagious.
The very plump and jovial Sister Martina had come straight from France. She spoke very broken English. She was a marvelous cook. She never tried to teach me French cuisine but I did come to love hearing her speak and I did increase my French vocabulary working with her in the kitchen. Despite my first hateful experiences with the French language, I learned to love its melodic cadences and intriguing grammar.
Sister Marina was the most jovial person I had ever met. She never demanded much of me. Most of my kitchen duties consisted of pealing potatoes, washing vegetables, cleaning the pots and pans and doing odds and ends for her. I was used to hard work but she made it seem like fun.
One day while I was sitting in the classroom, I looked out the window to see Sister Martina working in the basement kitchen just below and across from my vantage point. She was mixing up batter for the huge, delicious chocolate cakes that were her specialty. The mixing bowl was mammoth. She had all the ingredients measured out. What made me stare with bulging eyes was the way she was mixing it. She extended her large, fat hand into the batter and she stood there whipping the living daylights out of that mix. I always wondered why her cakes were so marvelously light and fluffy, so much so, that a piece of her cake would literally melt in your mouth. At first, I thought it was a very unsanitary way to mix cake. Then I thought about my mother kneading bread with her bare hands. I was relieved at that thought because I did not want to forgo eating Sister Martina’s cakes in the future. Beside from my observations thus far, there was nothing cleaner than these nuns. They seemed to totally believe that cleanliness was next to godliness. Sister Martina also used her strong hands to knead the dough that she made into large batches of delicious bread. Sometimes she enlisted my help to put the dough in pans and then carry them to the huge oven that baked many loaves at a time.
Another job assigned to me was to set the tables for each meal. All the boarders, boys and girls, ate together. With us, was one nun, seated at the head of the tables to see that we ate all our food and that we observed all the rules of etiquette.
The boarders were numerous so it took a lot of my time seeing that all the condiments were ready for each meal. There were huge jars of peanut butter, tubs of creamy yellow butter made right in Sister Martina’s pantry, jars of Martina-made jams and jellies, metal pitchers filled with rich whole milk, and salt and pepper shakers to be properly filled and placed on each table.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to wash the dishes. The resourceful nuns had divised a unique method that proved that adage: "Many hands make light work." After each meal, a large plate and a small brush were passed around to each person at the table. They were expected to brush the crumbs off the tablecloth onto the plate. Then, two large basins of hot, soapy water, another with hot rinse water, and snow-white towels were passed around and each person washed, rinsed and dried the plate and silverware they had used during the meal. Then, they wrapped their silverware in a large white napkin and stored the roll in their own well-marked, over-sized napkin rings atop their dishes. Everything was set for the next meal. (My mom could have used that trick with our large family. It would have saved a lot of argument about who would wash the dishes.)
Sister Agnes Maria was in charge of our dormitory but she also taught the elementary grades during the day. She was the supervisor during our study halls in the evening and during some of our recreation periods. She was a very neat, gentle nun. Accidentally, I once saw her without her bonnet or coif, as they called it. She had beautiful long, blonde hair. I was awestruck because she was the first nun I ever saw to appear so human. Because of their strange habits (attire, dress, robes), nuns seemed to be from another world. The only flesh we saw was that of their hands and face.
I quickly acquired new friends. Among them was a lively classmate and co-worker, Delores Gregory. From her, I soon learned the ropes about how to outwit the ever-watchful nuns and to have a little fun during and after our work shifts.
Each Wednesday was bake day with Sister Martina. We slyly watched our chance to pilfer several loaves of freshly baked bread. We smuggled them and a supply of peanut butter and jelly up to our dorm to be eaten later while Sister Agnes went to the chapel to join the other nuns for night prayer. We had found and saved some discarded newspapers to spread out on the floor so there would be no telltale crumbs left to incriminate us. Amid giggles and shushing reminders to be quiet, we would spread hunks of bread with generous amounts of peanut butter and jelly. Oh! That bread tasted extra good because we thought we were so clever getting away with this thievery each week.
Later on, I learned that Sister Agnes and Sister Martina knew exactly what we were doing. Sister Agnes purposely prolonged her evening prayers on Wednesday evenings. As she came up the stairs, she would rattle the enormous Rosary that hung from her belt, kindly giving us time to clean up our act. She did not like to scold us. She knew that girls away from their home and family needed a little harmless fun to ward off the bouts of homesickness that hit all of us at one time or another. As I said before, Sister Agnes was one very neat nun.
There were prayers said before and after each meal, each class, each chore, each study session and before just about every activity. This was new to me, but I thought it was wonderful to be so close to God throughout the day.
In addition to the prayers, the work, and studies, we had time for fun. We danced after study hall in the evening or played basketball or softball outside or in the gym depending on the weather. In the winter we skated on a pond located beyond the fence and down the road near Berneir’s Store.
On Saturday, after we had finished our chores, our studies and our prayers, we had free time. The boys were often allowed to skate on the frozen Wild Rice River that would take them into the little village of Horace, ND. Here they were free from the close supervision of the nuns. We girls were totally envious of this privilege.
One afternoon Delores and I decided that we would just follow the boys without asking permission. We let the boys get a head start and then we ducked out from under the watchful eye of Sister Leona, the Saturday free-time supervisor.
The boys were much better skaters than either of us. We skated as fast as we could. The river branched off in several places. We were not sure which route to take. After a long time, we came to a part of the river that just seemed to be clogged with branches and debris. I guess it was a kind of portage. By this time, we were thoroughly chilled. We could not see any tracks that the boys’ skates had left. We were lost and it was getting very late. What seemed, at first to be fun and daring, was turning out to be a trial and tribulation. Both of us were due back in the kitchen and dining room to help prepare for the evening meal. We began to retrace our way. We arrived very late, too late for supper.
Mother Marie met us as we were sneaking up to the dormitory where we had hoped to get out of our cold skating clothes and back down to the dining area to do our work without being detected. She could see that we were scared, hungry, cold, wet and very humble. She told us to go up to the dorm, get into our nightgowns, climb into bed and get warm. That night we got no supper, no scolding, and no peace of mind. We both woke the next morning with terrible colds and trembling hearts. We felt sure that Mother Marie would expel us both and send us home in shame. We waited and waited for the ax to fall. It never did. Not one of the nuns ever asked us about our terrible misdeed. That was the worst punishment I ever got from any of the nuns. I wondered at the time if nuns had to take courses to learn how to really punish miscreants without laying a finger on them. These nuns would have passed that course, magnum cum laude.
Next: More misdeeds and misadventures at boarding school