While struggling with these distracting matters she met Father William Cameron, the founder and principal of St. Mary’s Boys College and also a diocesan priest on the staff of the cathedral in Calgary. He was a discerning, kindly man whose academic ability and personal qualities had earned him a Rhodes scholarship. He was also highly regarded in Calgary for his support and leadership in Catholic charitable endeavours, particularly Holy Cross Hospital. Catherine found him to be an attentive and sympathetic listener, an experienced administrator and a brilliant teacher, whom she could consult with confidence about the troubles at Sacred Heart School. Her reminiscences about the situation in Calgary did not give many more details, except to state that Father Cameron gave her sage and helpful advice, and that in his professional discussions with her, he always treated her as an equal and a colleague. His reassurance about the rightness of her stand gave her the courage to insist, against the superintendent’s wishes, that she would present the school’s problems to the school trustees at a board meeting. The result was that “for me it was a complete triumph which boosted my desire to dare and fight for the right under all opposing forces.”20 Improvements were made and “the school settled down to business.” She was particularly proud of the fact that “all my grade 8 pupils passed the dep’l exam and two of the prizes of the 3 always secured by St. Mary’s pupils taught by FCJ Sisters came to my pupils.”21
In the months following the school board incident, Catherine abandoned her idea of consulting the bishop about her concerns regarding her personal future: she found him haughty, uninterested and aloof.22 She turned instead to Father Cameron for advice “my wisest and best friend there.”23 She confided to him her deep distress over the Church’s indifference to the spiritual and educational needs of the people in the rural areas in the West. She was certain that this would result in irreparable harm to these abandoned souls, and also damage the Church’s reputation and the welfare of the nation. She had developed such a longing to be a part of the solution to this situation, that she was perplexed as to whether this restless dissatisfaction with her present life was really a call from God to devote her future life to His work in a rural apostolate. Did this mean that she had a vocation to become a teaching sister in this unserviced territory? Or on the other hand, was it her duty to give priority to her financial and moral obligations to her father? Could these conflicting obligations be worked out so that she could seriously consider making the necessary preparations to enter a religious community? During the many hours they spent discussing her mission to bring education and the Catholic faith to rural western Canada, her longing to serve never wavered. Her passionate eagerness to undertake what they both knew would be a difficult and arduous task convinced Father Cameron that she did indeed have a vocation. Their discussions then turned to an investigation of the steps she should take before applying to a religious order. But which order?
They both agreed that it should be a teaching order, but Father Cameron felt that none of the religious communities working in the West at that time would be suitable for her envisioned apostolate, as most of them were French in origin with motherhouses overseas. However, he had heard that Bishop McNally had invited the St. Joseph Sisters in Peterborough to come to teach in Calgary next year. He suggested she contact them as they were the community most likely to be willing to consider her plan. Catherine was not enthusiastic about the Community of St. Joseph. She thought their religious habit was severe, cumbersome and so elaborately fashioned as to be quite unsuited to the rural conditions she had recently encountered. However, she agreed that when the time was opportune, she would discuss her ideas with them.
As the school year was now over, she joined Mary O’Connor at a cottage for a six-day holiday before the two of them went to Edmonton to summer school. She was informed that in September she was to be transferred to the principalship of another Catholic school in Calgary; the Sisters of St. Joseph would be taking over Sacred Heart School in September. Father Cameron’s information had been correct. Catherine was not keen at the prospect of working again for the Separate School Board in Calgary. She was torn between her duty to return east so as to be near her father, and her desire to experience more of Alberta by continuing to teach in rural schools. She decided to accept a teaching position in the town of Coleman about 175 miles southwest of Calgary, in the Crow’s Nest Pass area, and arranged for Mary O’Connor to take over her new Calgary posting in September. Neither of them was ready yet to make an application to a specific religious order, but they admitted to each other that they had made a private, spiritual commitment to enter religious life when the time was right. Catherine justified her decision to stay in the West for the time being because “I knew that I still needed plenty of salary for my expenses of different kinds. And I had matters to settle, problems to solve.”24
Her father was one of the problems. Was Wellington Mackenzie another? There is no answer to that question, for Catherine never again made any direct reference to him or to any commitment to him. Mr. Mackenzie had written to Archbishop McNeil while she was at Stettler stating that, “At present I’m calling at the Monastery at 141 McCaul St. where I take instructions from Rev. Father Coughlan, once a week.” In May of that year he had written again “hoping that the time will not be long now before I shall have the pleasure of being received by you into the first and only true Church.” His last letter was written on 22 January 1919, in which was enclosed “a little gift to you as a token of my gratitude” for the “kind and sympathetic letter which you sent to me while at my home at Hillview, Ont, with reference to the death of my Father.”25
In the meantime, Catherine had been writing to another old friend from her Penetanguishene staff, Adeline McConnell, urging her to join them in their western adventure. Adeline was intrigued and replied that only family duties were keeping her from accepting the enticing invitation. In late summer of 1919 she wrote saying she could come if she could get a position on staff at Coleman School. This Catherine managed to secure, and Adeline joined her in her cosy apartment in the town. Mary O’Connor came from Calgary one weekend for a joyous reunion celebration.
A week later, on a Saturday morning in early November, a telegram announcing that her father was seriously ill summoned Catherine back to Alliston. She asked the chairman of the school board to secure a substitute, and if possible, a permanent teacher, as she felt it would be impossible to give the board a definite date when she would be free to return. She caught the train that night and she arrived home three days later to find that her father was unconscious. A local practical nurse was doing her best to cope, and her aunt and cousin were also there. Sister Justina had arrived a few days earlier, having been granted special permission to leave her community for a few days. Now that Catherine had arrived, Mamie had to return to Toronto at once, as she was completing her novitiate and was preparing for her first profession on 5 January. Their sister Tess was not free to come home either, for she had been married in August, and was now living in the western United States.
As she had done so many times before, Catherine took charge in the family emergency. She hired two nurses from Toronto, and when her father had recovered sufficiently to travel, she took him to St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, to see if he could undergo a cataract operation. It was deemed to be too risky due to his heart condition. She managed to secure work as a supply teacher in Toronto, for her father’s medical expenses and the wages of the home help had depleted her savings. As Sister Justina was teaching and living at the House of Providence in Toronto, Catherine persuaded her father to go there for a while to recover further. But he became very homesick and begged to return to Alliston. On 18 December when the fall school term was completed, Catherine brought him back home. “Worry and weariness and a feeling of insecurity brought on another delirious attack that evening. Sister Justina came as quickly as she could. He died on 23 December and was buried two days after Christmas. Sister Justina left that day for Toronto and I was alone.”26 Only one line in the Alliston Herald reported “the death of Hugh Donnelly, aged 73 years.” Dr. Harper listed the cause