The following article was originally posted on The Frederick News-Post website. View the story here.
Over There: New exhibit shows Sisters’ service as nurses in World War I
To say Sister Josephine Murphy was impressed by the new Daughters of Charity World War I exhibit would be putting it lightly.
“The whole thing has taken me by storm,” Murphy said. “And I’ve been in this community for 69 years.”
The exhibit, “Over There,” tells the story of 10 Daughters of Charity who were sent to Vicenza, Italy, to work in a hospital where wounded soldiers were treated. It will be on display on Wednesdays at Daughters of Charity Provincial Archives in Emmitsburg through October.
The order, which was founded in 1850, had provinces in both Emmitsburg and St. Louis during the First World War. The sisters traveled to Italy at the request of Dr. Joseph Danna, who knew of them through charity hospitals they operated, according to Sister Patricia Endres, who helped curate the exhibit.
It was requested that the sisters who served be nurses and in good health. If they spoke Italian, that was a bonus. The sisters who ultimately made the journey were selected by the community superiors. One officially took her vows on the ship traveling over, Endres said.
“For the rest of her life, that must have been a beautiful memory,” said Murphy, who was the voice of one of the sisters in a corresponding video.
The sisters were in Italy from September 1918 through March 1919, though the war ended in November 1918. The government initially wanted them to remove their habits and wear a uniform, according to Associate Archivist Carole Prietto, who said the sisters did not want to do this.
“And the government caved,” Prietto said.
She learned about this and many other stories in diaries that three of the sisters kept. These diaries are on display at the exhibit, along with 42 pictures, dog tags, newspaper clippings, nursing service cards and a schedule for who is on duty each day. Prietto said there is no record showing how many of the photos ended up in the archives.
One picture, she said, is especially rare in that it is a group picture of the sisters, who generally did not like to be photographed. Endres said they made the exception to be patriotic.
“That was a very special call to be able to help the servicemen,” she said.
The idea for the exhibit came from the fact that the sisters’ service in World War I was relatively unknown, Prietto said. It also corresponds with the 100th anniversary of the war, which started in 1914, although America did not enter until 1917.
“We didn’t want to wait that long,” Prietto said of opening the exhibit.
The sisters who made the journey were ages 33 through 56. Their birthplaces included Ireland, Michigan, New Jersey, Louisiana, England, Wisconsin and Illinois. One sister, Valeria Dorn, was a Baltimore native.
Their diaries told about their experiences, which included giving a funeral for a soldier at the base of a mountain. One sister pressed a flower from the mountain and sent it to the fallen soldier’s mother.
“In the midst of all this, they still had all this love and compassion and feeling,” Prietto said.
She estimated that they treated about 3,000 soldiers, not all of whom were American. They saw some prisoners of war who were hungry and sick.
“They’d see them at night and then come in the next morning and the men had already died,” Endres said.
The sisters had to deal with their own hardships as they had few sources of heat and one sister contracted the Spanish flu.
When the Armistice was signed ending the war, one sister wrote in her diary about God having the mercy to stop the war so soon after their arrival, Prietto said.
They ultimately stayed in Italy longer to treat those who were still hurt. They also traveled to Paris and Rome to visit their Motherhouse and have an audience with the Pope.
Portions of the diaries are read in a 20-minute video, which is on display at the exhibit. Murphy said doing the reading was a special experience.
“There were so many little things that were so heartbreaking and heartwarming to me,” she said.