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'wanting to be a sister' draws six goeckner sister to the ascs

Story and photos by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

Calling this “a family affair,” six Goeckner sisters, originally from the Effingham, Ill., area, joined the Adorers of the Blood of Christ between 1928 and 1944.

Two of the sisters have passed away — Sister Mary William and Sister Martha — but the remaining four sisters range in age from 81 to 99 years old. And they all put in time at the quilting frame daily although they said they didn’t work on Sundays.

The family work ethic was instilled in the Goeckners at an early age since the family with nine children — six girls and three boys — all grew up on the farm. Chores were part of life, and they talked about feeding pigs and chickens, milking cows and plowing fields behind a horse.

They also did ordinary housework, gardening and working in the orchard.

Sister Laura remembered when the family acquired a milking machine.

It was a busy and active life. Sister Mary Jerome said the family was poor and “the Lord only knows what we would have done if we hadn’t come here.”

The Lord evidently knew what these women would do, beginning with Sister Mary Jerome.

Her formal schooling stopped before she graduated from eighth grade so that she could help out at home.
At 15, she said, “I was determined,” to pursue a religious vocation.

Elsie was the first one of the girls to leave home in 1928 to join the Adorers, taking the name Sister Mary Jerome.
She remembers the trip taking two days with part of it on the train and the last miles with horse and buggy.
It was the fall, late August, she said.

The idea of becoming a sister began to form in her mind in elementary school, she said. When she entered the convent at Ruma, she would not see her family for a year, but she liked convent life; she “wanted to help people.”

Rosa entered the Adorers in 1934 and became Sister Adella. Sister Adella said their father always encouraged them in their vocations. “He thought it was a wonderful life,” she said.

Olivia and Mildred entered together in 1944, taking the names Sister Laura and Sister Emma, respectively.
Although four years separated these two sisters in age, Sister Laura had stayed home to help care for her step-mother after her father remarried.

Sister Wilma Goeckner, a cousin to the four sisters, entered the Adorers at 16. “I wanted to come sooner,” she said.
Sister Wilma had been ill at the age of 2 with a fever, and because child mortality was high at that time, her family didn’t expect her to live.

Learning everything new after she survived the fever, her father told her she could always pray even if she couldn’t do all of the things she wanted to do. She prayed and eventually joined the ASCs.

While she said she always wanted to be a teacher, she spent her first 14 years at a children’s home taking care of them. Finally, in her 30s, she went back to school, first finishing high school and then taking college classes and eventually finishing her degree. “When I finally got into the classroom, I loved it,” she said.

Because the Goeckner sisters joined the convent at different times, they didn’t spend much time together except for Sister Laura and Sister Emma who joined together and were in the same class.

“We saw each other infrequently,” Sister Laura said.

Coming at different times, except for the last two who came together, put the sisters in different classes so they left for their various assignments at different times.

They each had one week off during the year for a retreat, they said.

Since growing up on the farm, they were used to daily work, and having one week off during a year seemed just fine with them.

Sister Emma, now 81, worked for almost 50 years in food service, and Sister Laura, now 85, also worked in food service as a dietary supervisor, kitchen manager and cook and in home care.
In the health care field, Sister Adella, now 93, served as a nurse and anesthetist and as a hospital administrator at St. Clement’s Hospital in Red Bud.

Even today, she continues part time nursing duties at the Ruma Center.

Sister Mary Jerome, the “senior” sister, spent her years in health care, first as a nurse, then as a hospital administrator, who oversaw the building of three Illinois hospitals: St. Vincent in Taylorville, Ill.; St. Joseph in Murphysboro; and St. Clement in Red Bud.

Later, she returned to nursing at St. Ann’s in Chester before becoming a “full-time” quilter in Ruma.
The sisters enjoy their time together now in Ruma, back at the place where their lives as Adorers began.
They reminisce; they quilt; they do other needlework as well.

“It’s fun now that we’re all here together,” Sister Laura said.

Sister Mary Jerome beamed as she said: “Just the idea of having everybody here,” gives her joy.
After she arrived in Ruma, Sister Mary Jerome said: “I prayed for them, whatever God wanted them to be; I prayed that God would take care of them.”

(Jean M. Schildz, ASC director of communications contributed information for this story.)