You are certainly unselfish in your efforts for me, Father Coughlan and you have already given much of your time for me, with no apparent results even. May God bless all your labours.11
The preoccupation of her clergy advisers with contacting a religious order so far from Toronto was trying for Catherine. Privately she felt it was a fruitless quest to attempt to persuade a religious order on the other side of the world to embark on a venture in western Canada. But she did not openly object because she knew that they were trying to solve the first difficulty which must be overcome when establishing the new Canadian order. To be approved by the Vatican, a prospective order had to have arranged that its first applicants would complete their regular training through a postulancy and novitiate, for Church canon law stipulated this was a requisite for all women religious. Of necessity, this training would have to be given to the first candidates in a new order by an experienced sister in an already accredited women’s religious order. Any order which could be persuaded to undertake this task would have to be willing and able to make some adjustments to its own staffing arrangements, and to its interpretation of its own Holy Rule, so that the fledgling sisters would be trained in a way which was compatible with the proposed mission of their own new order. This would be especially important, since Catherine intended that their Rule would break radically with Church tradition. The Church’s supervision of the female religious orders was structured so that the overtures to begin this process would have to be conducted by the bishop of the diocese or his designate.
Catherine wrote to Father Cameron about these developments and his reply indicated his own misgivings. „ New Zealand Sisters! Are these Maori? Why go so far afield to find a nest… My advice just now is pursue your pious endeavors along the lines suggested by Rev. Fr. Coughlan because it means ultimately Canadian labours.”12
When Catherine started her summer holiday no word had been received from the Josephite Sisters. But in early July, shortly after she had arrived in Calgary to visit Helen O’Connor, a telegram from the Chief Inspector of Schools informed her that a school in a Ukrainian settlement five miles from Stornoway, near Yorkton, Saskatchewan, would be available for her on 15 August. She accepted and prepared to go to Yorkton, trusting that somehow a way would be found to establish an apostolate to the immigrants that she knew were living in many little isolated communities.
On her arrival she found that there was a teacherage on the school site, but it was in a very lonely location. She preferred to live in the village five miles away and was able to arrange her meals at the home of Mrs. Beam who, she had discovered, was a very good cook. Catherine was able to persuade her to allow her to sleep there too. A minor flaw in the arrangement was that the Beams’ house was so small that she had to share the room and the bed of their young daughter. But “they were nice friendly people, and I felt safer in the village.”13 At first she walked the five miles to school, counting herself fortunate if she got a lift from someone going her way. Then she was given the loan of a horse; and shortly after, the secretary of the board, a friendly bachelor, loaned her his team of horses and a buggy. The horses were thin and the buggy and the harness threatened to fall apart at any moment, but it was luxury compared to trudging to and from school across the dusty prairie. Accompanying her loaned chariot was the following note:
Just a word or two about the team. They are broke just about to suit my whims on some occasions, so you will find them tough bitted and they will not always stop just when you tell them too [sic], so you want to watch yourself over bad places as they might take you through at a pace that you would not care to travel. I would advise you not to put them through fast as they had two strenuous days of it rounding up horses and cattle. The one on the right is Kate and the other is Jane. You will have to keep an eye on them all the time as one cannot trust them. They do not seem to mind an auto. Always check them up when you drive and keep the buggy top up, as it has been in two runaways and somewhat sprung so that it does not fold back very easy.
Wish you would bring me 4 cans of Pork & beans
4 packages Corn Flakes
Frank J. Muzik14
There was a Ukrainian Catholic Church five miles out in the country in a different direction from the school. To the astonishment of the Beams, Catherine attended Mass there on Sundays. The congregation were farmers, and as was the custom they stood during the service. In spite of the differences in liturgy and language, Catherine felt that “it was my Church and I was glad to be there.”15
On 24 August Catherine received a long letter from Father Coughlan updating her on his recent discussions with Archbishop McNeil. Since no response had been received from the Australian order, they had concluded that
the only practicable plan was to establish a new Order for the work among the poorer children in the west. He [Archbishop McNeil] spoke principally of educational work but I would judge that medical work might also be added. How would you like to be the head of this new Order? I know you have a number of the qualities needed for that office, but I do not know whether you possess all.
Our plan would be to have the Order Diocesan (Toronto) for the present, so as to be under His Grace & also not to be obliged to have recourse to Rome for approval. Together with yourself as many others as could be gotten to go, would enter a Novitiate of some Existing Order and be trained there for a year, then make the vows & then start your own Community. His Grace thinks we should have at least half a dozen young ladies to make this beginning together. But where are we to get them? Do you know?16
There followed a summary of their discussion on which religious order should be asked to undertake the novitiate training. Archbishop McNeil felt that since Catherine had been “dropped” by the St. Joseph Sisters, it would be better if the Sisters of Loretto would set up a special novitiate for Catherine and the other applicants at their convent in Niagara Falls. Father Coughlan said he preferred that their novitiate be located in Toronto so that he and Archbishop McNeil, as their clerical advisers, could help directly and guide their formation. The archbishop had reconsidered the problem of their location, noting that probably neither of these orders would have room for the new novices in their novitiates. As well as agreeing to locate their own novitiate in Toronto, the archbishop had also promised to donate a building suitable for the purpose. This meant that either the Loretto or the St. Joseph Sisters could now be asked for the loan of a novice mistress for their initial training. After a time she could return to her own community and the new order could undertake that work themselves.
They had then discussed this with an experienced Passionist Father who approved of the whole scheme, and had given some helpful suggestions. All three had also agreed that the order should undertake medical and social welfare work as well as teaching, and that a traditional religious habit was not suitable for their particular apostolate. The style could be decided later, in consultation with Catherine and others. They were also trying to think of a suitable name for the order.
Then Father Coughlan discussed the two principal obstacles to be faced in forming the new order: lack of candidates and lack of money. Neither he nor the archbishop had any available funds, but they hoped that a circular letter to priests might net some donations for their new venture in missions. They would also try to recruit suitable young women candidates seeking entry to an innovative religious order. His concluding words, although assuring Catherine that he thought of her as “our mainstay in this bold enterprise,” cautioned her:
Of course you must leave yourself in the hands of His Grace and myself to do what is best, even to make a sacrifice of your own wishes — for example if we see fit to place someone else at the head of the Order. I don’t think you are ambitious for any position, rather to do whatever good you can for God’s poor. We have determined not to restrict the work to the Ruthenians, though it would be principally among them, but to extend it to all poor children of Canada.
His Grace told me he spoke of the Order to Archbishop Soptensky, head of the Ruthenian Catholics, who is now in Canada and the latter said it was “A magnificent idea” …
Though I