Mysterious (Sister Maria)

Sr Maria remains something of a mystery to me. I can find nothing of her background, so the only information I have is of her time in Community. Even that is not as complete as it could be; for some reason, we do not have the year of her Profession recorded. All I know is that it was on the feast of the Annunciation (March 25th), at some point between 1872 and 1876. But this in itself is interesting, given her age at the time.

Born in 1811, Maria Jones would have been the oldest Sister in the Community by some years; the next oldest, Sr Marianna, was born in 1820, and then came M. Lavinia and the first Sr Elizabeth, both born in 1822. All the other early Sisters, those whose dates of birth I know, were born in the 1830s or 1840s. So, some ten years older than any other Sister, Maria Jones joined the Community as a lay Novice, probably in 1869. She would have been some 25 years older than the lay Novice nearest to her in age. Sr Martha, the first lay Sister to be Professed, died in 1869, but Sr Maria may well have shared some time in the Novitiate with the next two: Sr Matilda (professed 1871, in her 30s) and Sr Rosanna (professed 1872, in her 20s). Clothed aged around 58, if my calculations are correct, Sr Maria would have been in her early 60s by the time of her Profession. She was only the fourth lay Sister to be professed, and only the third to spend any time in the Community, Sr Martha having died only a few months after her Profession.

What else do we know? She was unmarried; the only other Sister to make her Profession in her 60s was a widow, so I did check this in the Census. She was born in Lambeth, but that does not necessarily mean she lived there for any length of time. I have not yet found her census details for any year prior to 1871. But, as a lay Sister, I can make an educated guess that she came from a working class background. (Although the simple classification of Sisters to lay/working class and choir/upper classes is by no means that simple!). I do know where she was in each of the Census years during her time in Community, but even that does not tell us anything exact. In 1871, as a lay Novice, she was working at the Orphanage. At that time, there were still relatively few Sisters, and the Community House had not yet been built. Most Sisters are based at either the House of Mercy or the Orphanage. At the latter with Sr Maria were two (professed) choir Sisters, Sr Catherine and Sr Alice; another lay novice, Sr Rosanna; and two further Sisters, who were Novices but did not go onto Profession. We have no records, that I am aware of, for Novices going back that far, so I do not know whether they were choir or lay Novices. Sr Catherine was Sister in Charge; this was nearly always a choir Sister. Lay Sisters had no voice on Chapter, and said fewer Offices than choir Sisters.

What exactly kind of work did Sr Maria do? Well, she would have no part in educating the Orphans, who were from the middle/upper classes; but that does not necessarily mean she only did housework. Present as part of the Orphanage, alongside it, were several working class girls, who were educated and trained as domestic servants. These girls may well have come from a vulnerable background, and this training gave them a better start in life. Whether Sr Maria played any part in their education, I do not know, but it seems likely that the lay Sisters may well have had more to do with them. But would lay Sisters have done any teaching? Well, yes. The third Community house to be found in 1871 is labelled ‘Ditchingham School’; there is one Sister present, another lay Novice Sr Matilda, present as head of Household. The other teacher, a woman called Jane Buck, also later joined the Community as a lay Sister. But what exact work Sr Maria did at the Orphanage is sheer conjecture.

Neither do we know how long she spent there. In 1881, she is at the House of Mercy Lodge, where she is the head of household. It is a very small household, the only other member being a lay woman, Amelia Sutton, who worked as Portress. This is the only Census in which I have found a Sister working in the Lodge, so this is of interest itself. The Lodge, which still exists and is now called the gatehouse, would, as the name suggests, have operated as a first port of call for visitors. There are no physical gates present now, but the word ‘portress’ implies there might have been some in the nineteenth century. Indeed, the delicate nature of the work at the House of Mercy probably called for some sort of protection for the girls, as well as those who worked there.

By 1891, Sr Maria is one of seven Sisters at the Community House; head of Household is M. Adele, by then Reverend Mother of the Community. Two other choir Sisters, both in their 50s, are also present: Sr Lucy (who became Reverend Mother on M. Adele’s death, and may well have held a position of some responsibility) and Sr Caroline, who died later that year. Also there are three other lay Sisters: Sr Matilda, Sr Rosanna and Sr Jane. While I assume that both Sr Caroline and Sr Maria were there for health reasons, that does not seem to have been the case for the others, and presumably the other lay Sisters took on a fair share of the ‘lay’ work. Sr Maria died less than a year later, on January 20th 1892; she was buried on the 30th in Ditchingham Cemetery, alongside those of her Sisters who had predeceased her; her funeral was taken by our Warden, H. Frere.

Knowing more about her background may well have told us what kind of work she did in the Community, and what she may have brought to it. It was unusual to join the Community so late in life, but by no means unheard of. Although only Sr Maria and Sr Francisca were professed in their 60s, another five were professed in their 50s, and twelve in their 40s. [These numbers only go up to the second world war]. But, while interesting, it is not vital. Neither is the value of her life limited by the work she may have done, nor how long she spent in the Community (23 years to be exact). Sr Maria may remain a mystery to me, but she is not a mystery to God, and it is in God’s hands that her true value will be seen.