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In exploring the lives of those of our early novices who did not remain in the Community, I have found it interesting that several also explored their vocations in other Communities. It seems that they felt a call to the Religious Life, but needed to find the specific Community in which to live that call. Now, it is important to say that we have no record of novices dating back to our earlier years. Therefore, I am dependent on information from the Census, and, while the Census does not distinguish between Professed Sisters and novices, I am assuming that those women who were not Professed, but are recorded as ‘Sister of Mercy’ in the Census were novices. [Pictured are identified novices in the 1870s]
Women such as Charlotte Ronalds, on whom I have very little information at all. But she is registered as a Sister of Mercy with us in the 1881 Census. In the early 1870s, she is on the electoral role for 108 Burlington Street, Manchester, which in 1871 was occupied by three Sisters of Charity, and I know there was a Sisterhood in that parish. Here I am filling in many gaps, possibly wrongly.
But there is more direct evidence with other women. Maria Ling was present in our Orphanage in the 1871 Census, again as a Sister of Mercy. Maria was a Norwich woman, growing up in the parish of St George’s, Tombland, where her father was a tailor. In 1891, she is registered at Alverton House in Truro as a ‘Sister of the Community of the Epiphany’. This Community was founded in 1883, by the second Bishop of Truro, who brought with him a group of women from his parish in London who shared a strong calling. Whether Maria was one of these women, I do not know, but she must have been one of the earlier Sisters. She would have been in her late 40s or early 50s when she joined, and she died in 1892, in Cornwall. Even this cannot be definite, as Maria’s age is different in the 1891 census; however, she was born in Norwich, so my thinking is that it was the same woman.
There is also Alice Barnby. Born in Windsor, where her parents taught music, she was registered with us in the 1891 Census, again as a Sister of Mercy, presumably a novice. In 1901, interestingly, she is a Sister in a school in London, for pauper education. She is working as a sick nurse. By 1911, she is at The Convent, Much Hadham, in Hertfordshire. Moving to Cornwall by 1911, to a house occupied by the same order as in Much Hadham, she is back in Hertfordshire by 1939 and died aged 76 in 1941. She is registered as a sick nurse, but I think that was her occupation in the Order within which she worked, and which I think she joined. I have not contacted that order, so cannot be certain. What is interesting is that it is a Roman Catholic Order, and it seems probable that she became a Roman Catholic in 1894; the records state that an Alice Barnby was confirmed as a Roman Catholic then, but there are not enough details for me to be certain that it was the same woman. However, it does seem certain that she did become a Roman Catholic. Alice had a call to the Religious Life, with her time in our Community being but a staging post on her journey to the Community to which she was called to spend her life.
There are other similarities. Both Maria and Alice seem to have come to us after the death of their parents – that is, of course, if I have correctly identified their parents’ death. Again, this may or may not mean anything. It might be that these deaths made Maria and Alice ponder their future; indeed, it may have been a necessity. It might be that both or either set of parents disapproved of their daughter’s possible vocation, and therefore it was not until after their deaths that they felt free to explore it. As to why they did not stay at Ditchingham: who knows? We simply do not have those records. It is true, though, that a vocation to the Religious Life does involve a vocation to a specific Community. It is not the fact that any will do. It can also be important to get the timing right. Maria may well have come to Ditchingham as it was the nearest to her home in Norwich. She could not have gone to the Community of the Epiphany at that point, as it was not founded then. Charlotte may or may not have gone on to join another Community: I can find no record of her after 1881 until her probable death in 1894, in Kent. Yet she does seem to have felt some kind of call towards God, and time spent in exploring that call would not have been wasted, even if it did not seem to lead anywhere in particular.
For, ultimately, we are all called to follow God; our primary vocation is as a disciple of Christ and it is as disciples that these woman joined Religious Communities, whether they stayed or not. No offering of a life to God is wasted, whatever its’ value in worldly terms. The offering is to God, and it is God who will use it. We cannot demand or recognise but only follow where Christ leads us, bearing in mind that Christ’s journey led to the Cross, and we may well be led in the same direction.
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