Small Wonder(s) -- The haunted house at Mariazell

You ought to be here.You would say with me, "Let us remain, for it is pleasant here and very appropriate for the erection of a little convent." Yes, God is good, and infinitely good to us, the most unworthy of his children who trustingly rest under the shadow of his wings.

Thus wrote Mother Gertrude on April 7, 1883, to Mother Johanna, explaining in no uncertain terms that the idea of moving their Benedictine convent from Maryville, MO, to Mariazell, an Austrian Catholic immigrant colony in South Dakota, a colony just then coming up in the prairie grass, was not simply a good idea, but a divine blessing. The Homestead Act made acquiring good land possible in the flourishing counties of a brand new state. And new residents meant real-wage jobs were there for the asking in brand new rural schools. Those jobs would bring money to build a community--a new convent for the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. It all seemed so great a blessing--"Yes, God is good."

Getting to the place required directions.

From Maryville take the train to  Council Bluffs. The same evening leave there from the Union Station on the Sioux City train for St. Paul, Union Station. The next morning with the Hastings and Dakota Train go to Aberdeen, where you arrive the following midnight. In Aberdeen take the omnibus to the Sherman House where Reverend Haire lodges and he will advise them as to the rest. But, if he should not be at home, they [the sisters] should go the next morning down to Redfield where they can get directions in the store of Mr. Sherfine how to reach Mariazell twelve miles to the west. 

Got it? 'T'would be easier, sure, to use the GPS, but, alas, no towers could be found in 1883. 

Do not be deceived--Mariazell was not "nowhere." When one of its citizens--a man part C of C and part real estate salesman--used to ride the train, he'd quiz passengers cold turkey: "You're German maybe?" he say, and "Are ya' Catholic too?" If the answer was yes on both counts, he'd put on a hard sell to get them to step off at the train at Mariazell. Occasionally, he'd win. 

Community by community, a new world was rising, a world Mother Gertrude felt in her very soul: "It is not for nothing that this is called this is called 'new world.' Everything proceeds here quickly and with vigor." Once upon a time,there was growing community "appropriate for the erection of a little convent."

Wasn't posh. For mass, those homesteading sisters used their bed linens for altar cloths spread over the kitchen table. For some time, in fact, Mother Gertrude's description--". . .for it is pleasant here"--seemed a siren song. Poverty was ever closer than wood for their stoves. For the sisters, all of whom had only recently immigrated from Switzerland, trudging though prairie grass collecting buffalo chips for fuel was, well, humbling, even to mission-minded sisters who claimed to glory in their spiritual humiliation.

However, in just two years, 1885, the convent at Zell, South Dakota, grew into a edifice unlike any anywhere around, a two-story dormitory-looking frame building, the "motherhouse," with gables and a bell tower and fine front porch. From the moment it was finished, it was clearly an institution. Dreams had come to life.

But as such, its lifetime was but a few years. Bishop Martin Marty wanted the sisters to consider moving their motherhouse to Yankton, where a fine building could be had. He needed teachers. The sisterhood departed. 

There's no reason to go see the old convent really, even though, surprisingly, it's still there. Today, the old convent still stands powerfully against the wide-open prairie all around. It's beaten and run-down, its downstairs windows long gone, it's front door boarded, masked as if to keep it from speaking. The lawn is long gone. Old trucks sit thoughtlessly in front and to the north side. A Big Wheel toys with the junk out front. 

Some consider the whole place haunted. Look it up on-line. There's good reason to think so: there's still nothing like it all around, but a dark old cemetery on what was once undoubtedly the property, a life-size Jesus hanging from the cross. It's a wicked combo really--desertion, consecration, emptiness, death. Why people might think that on some late nights it moans is understandable. They may be right.

But the old convent is not scary because of who or what might haunt it, what ghoulish things may swoop down from its second story and walk among us. There were dreams here: "Let us remain, for it is pleasant." There was divine sanction: "God is good and infinitely good for us." 

Once it was blessed, but what's left today is nothing--and that's as humbling as picking buffalo chips off the prairie to keep warm. 

Humility is a virtue, the sisters would say. After all, it has its own beatitude. But it's hard, very hard, don't you think? 

On Saturday, I couldn't help thinking that the spirits that wander about beside the graveyard at Zell, that step out of boarded door in that massive old monastery is humility, the sense that we aren't what we dream to be, maybe the only religious principle the sisters left behind.