Mamie wrote three religious poems which were published in 1913 in St. Joseph’s Lilies, the St. Joseph’s alumnae magazine which had been started by Gertrude Lawler. The poems indicated a religious sensitivity and fervour which was exceptional for a young woman of nineteen. She had wanted to join the St. Joseph’s Order the previous year when she had finished high school, but Catherine insisted that she was to attend Normal School and teach for two years before making her final decision to become a nun.32
Catherine meanwhile taught at Manley from August 1912 to December 1913. Her sister had just started teaching at S.S. No. 2 Nottawasaga, near Creemore, and was then offered the opportunity to teach at St. Peter’s Separate School in Toronto, starting January 1914. But to do so she had to find a replacement teacher at Nottawasaga, so Catherine resigned from Manley at Christmas in order to complete the teaching year for her. The salary was the same, and she would be nearer home and able to keep an eye on her father, who was feeling lonely with all his daughters away. But by September 1914 she was off to northern Ontario, to Hudson Consolidated School, near New Liskeard. Her only comment about that post, which paid her a salary of $600, was that the pupils came in a horse-drawn van. To attend Mass in Cobalt, Catherine walked eight miles (and in Northern Ontario winters too) to New Liskeard, and took a train to Cobalt. Later, the secretary provided a horse and buggy to New Liskeard.
From August to December 1915 Catherine held forth in the separate school in Merriton, near St. Catharines. Her salary was only $550, which was considerably below her former levels, but by January the following year, she was back in her own home district as principal of Caledon East Village School. Yet this brief posting to St. Catharines became one which she later felt was providential for her future career, for here she met Adeline McConnell, who took the junior grades in the school. They became close friends.
That summer Catherine made a great professional breakthrough, when she was offered the principalship of the public school in Penetanguishene at a salary of $850. It was a fine brick school of nine rooms with three hundred and sixty students. Adeline McConnell was hired too, and Catherine was also able to add to her staff three other friends who were good, experienced teachers: Marion Tyrell, and Helen and Mary O’Connor. She shared many interests with Mary, including a sense of adventure. The school was controlled by a Roman Catholic board because the great majority of the town’s students and the ratepayers were of that faith. Penetanguishene was one of the few instances in Ontario at that time where the “separate school” was that attended by non-Catholic children.
The town was attractively situated on hills which bordered Georgian Bay, and had been largely settled by French and Irish Catholic immigrants. It was famous for having played a historic role as a naval station, provisioning and repairing the British ships which fought in the War of 1812. On a hill overlooking Georgian Bay was one of the town’s finest buildings, St. Anne’s Catholic Church. It had been built in 1902 as a memorial to the Jesuit Canadian martyrs, in Italian Romanesque style, of Credit Valley limestone and Nottawasaga sandstone. In contrast to the more modest brick or wood Catholic churches of Adjala township, it was indeed splendid, with its very large interior walls faced with pastel marble and made brilliant by striking frescoes and large stained-glass windows. In 1911 the town population was only 1,134 people, but in the next ten years it had nearly quadrupled to 4,037. The Dominion census also recorded that the Catholic population was 2,466, and the rest of the townsfolk were divided among many small Protestant groups.
Catherine was very happy teaching the highest grade here, as well as being school principal. She had a reliable staff, and by 1918 her salary had been raised to $925, which was well above the average of $580 paid to female teachers in rural Ontario at that time. However, the school was not without its problems, for it had a high truancy rate. The social unrest caused by the First World War had produced profound distresses which struck deep into Canadian society, even in the smaller more cohesive communities, and many families became what would now be termed dysfunctional. Years later Catherine mused that “it was a social worker, well-trained, whom we needed instead of a truant officer whom the boys defied. I ought to have made time to visit the families myself. The Pastor, Father Brunet came to the school now and then. His load was very heavy, so was mine.”33
Life for the teaching staff at the school changed very suddenly when the school board investigated the possibility of bringing in a religious teaching order to take over the school. Unknown to Catherine, plans were being made in the early spring to replace the lay teachers with Sisters of the Community of St. Joseph, Toronto.
On May 20th [1918], His Grace the Archbishop [Neil McNeil] called to make the request that four Sisters take charge of the Penetanguishene Public (Catholic) School in the coming September. Reverend Mother’s consent to the opening of the Mission was obtained by wire from B.C. Reverend Mother raised one objection, — the School was a public School. His Grace stated that it was an objection to have the School a Public School, but that at the present such an objection had to be borne with. The Council decided on the following conditions being agreed to by the authorities in the Mission before the Community take charge of the School.
1. Each Sister to receive $500.00 per annum.
2. The Community to be provided with a furnished home free of charge.
3. That the house be put in a state of good repair, the heating made satisfactory, and two additional rooms built at the rear to do service as Kitchen and laundry. The house is to be only an arrangement for a year or so until a suitable residence can be built.34
It is not surprising that the local board agreed to the terms imposed by the Sisters of St. Joseph, as they were well known for their teaching vocation. Like other religious orders, they had worked in Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Toronto for many years, and always received salaries well below the average paid by Catholic school boards for their qualified lay female teachers. In many places in Ontario their salaries were half those paid in the public system. The new principal was to receive only $500 per annum, the same as her staff. Moreover, their single status was a certain guarantee of staff stability, for lay female teachers were expected to stop teaching when they married.
On hearing this news about the impending arrival of the St. Joseph Sisters, Catherine and her four colleagues resigned. Her work in Penetanguishene was acknowledged with a cursory note from L.F. LeMay, the board secretary: “Your letter of resignation as Principal of our school was read at the regular meeting of the School Board held last evening and accepted with regret. The School Board instructed me to convey their thanks to you for the excellent manner you have conducted the school during your stay here and wishing you every success for the future.”35
Catherine immediately thought of applying to a public school board; but her school inspector, Joseph Garvin, told her that she was not likely to get as good a school position anywhere in Ontario. This was disheartening news from a man who had certified that “I consider Miss Catherine Donnelly is one of the best teachers in North Simcoe.”36 But it was not a propitious time for a Catholic lay teacher to be seeking employment with a public school board. Protestant-Roman Catholic tensions had increased in Ontario during the war. Quarrels had erupted in the Toronto press over whether Catholics (particularly Irish immigrants) were contributing their fair share to the war effort by answering the call to arms. In spite of a proportionate enlistment in the armed forces by Catholic men, Catholic loyalty to the Allied cause was suspect in some circles.37 It was an opportune time for suppressed anti-Catholic prejudice to surface, and it was manifested in unreasonable public utterances and actions. Public school board hiring committees were not immune to these pressures, and were beginning to be cautious about hiring a Roman Catholic. Catherine decided to investigate opportunities elsewhere.
CHAPTER 3
ADVENTURES IN ALBERTA: AM I CALLED TO BE A RELIGIOUS?
