Sister Jane (Comfort)

Born in 1847 in North Shields, Northumberland, Sr Jane was the daughter of Francis and Margaret Buck, according to her baptism record. Francis was a master mariner, which may explain why he is not resident at home in any of the census records that I could find. These are fairly limited. In 1841 Margaret is at home with three daughters: Margaret (age 9), Isabella (age 7) and Dinah (age 4). Ten years later she is living in Howard Street, Tynemouth with 5 children: Isabella, Dinah, Frances, Jane and George, the last three all born during the 1840s. I could not find the oldest daughter, Margaret, neither did I note what the two oldest daughters at home were doing, which may have given us some sense of the family’s life-style. Margaret, the mother, is wife of the head of household, and her occupation is ‘master mariner’s wife’, so presumably she didn’t need to work to supplement their income. After this, the picture gets hazier.

In 1861, I have not yet found any of the family, except for Isabella, Jane and George. Isabella is working as a teacher in Woolley, Barnsley; with her is her youngest sister, Jane, aged 13, a scholar. George is at school in London, at the Greenwich Hospital School, for boys from a seafaring background. After this, I can find nothing specific about any member of the family, other than Sr Jane. I know that her mother was alive when Sr Jane joined the Community, as she was given permission to go home to nurse her; assuming the letters we have from M. Lavinia to Sr Jane are to this Sr Jane (which I am).

In 1871, we find Jane in Ditchingham, but not yet as a Sister. She is in a house in the village with Sr Matilda, and three others. Sr Matilda (see blog, May 20th 2024) was head of household, and the building is labelled ‘Ditchingham School’. Jane is the certification mistress, and Kate Cunningham is a pupil teacher. Two other pupils are present; these four are all registered as boarders. I would assume that local children also went to this school, which we do not appear to be involved with except around this time. Jane joined the Community a few years later, becoming a novice in late 1873 or 1874. As a lay Novice, she would have had about a long novitiate, and was professed in 1879.

In 1881, she was at the House of Mercy with several other Sisters. I think it is possible that it was during the 1880s that Sr Jane went to nurse her mother.  We have three letters from M. Lavinia to Sr Jane, the first of which refers to this, and possibly the second as well. So it was no later than 1890, when M. Lavinia died; but M. Lavinia seldom put a year on her letters, so dating them further needs internal evidence, which is usually lacking. It is clear that some spiritual support had been put in place, as one of these letters refers to Sr Jane failing to see Fr Frere, as her mother was sinking. The majority of the letter is one of support and comfort. The second, which we only have a part of, refers to Sr Jane’s ‘pain and tormenting thoughts’; whether these were related to the death of her mother is not clear. Nor whether the pain is emotional or physical. It may have been the latter, as the third letter talks of the possibility of Sr Jane moving to another Community, where the climate would suit her health better.

A Community in Oxfordshire rejects the possibility, due to Sr Jane’s ‘rheumatic tendencies’, which gives us some inkling of the problem. Sr Jane may have been upset by the proposal, which M. Lavinia makes quite clear is only on the grounds of her health, it being wrong to keep her in a Community where her health suffers so that she would be incapable of the necessary work. But it is only a suggestion, given that Sr Jane’s health may recover sufficiently for her to return. This does, in fact, seem to have been the case, as Sr Jane is registered with the Community in subsequent census returns. Whatever her health issue was, she seems to have recovered, at least as much as is necessary for her to stay. By 1891, she is back at Ditchingham, at the Community House. At some point over the next ten years, she goes to Norwich, where she is at the Mission House in Colegate. By 1911, she had returned to the Community House at Ditchingham (pictured), where she stayed until her death in 1924, aged 77. She had been in religion for 50 years (this dates from the time of her clothing).

That is all I know … except for one more letter. This time, I cannot even be sure that it is written to Sr Jane or not. It is written to ‘Miss Buck’ at a time of great sorrow, on November 21st – but, again, no year. M. Lavinia says in the first sentence that she had not known that Sr Matilda had been made aware of Miss Buck’s great sorrow, or she would have written sooner. Almost the last sentence is ‘we have decided to close the school for a week’. Linking that to what we already know about Sr Jane working in ‘Ditchingham School’ with Sr Matilda leads me to believe that it is possible M. Lavinia was writing to Sr Jane before she joined the Community. In between is more comfort and spiritual advice about living with suffering. We can assume, I think, that these letters were of help to the recipient, as they were kept, and made part of the bundle of letters that we now have by M. Lavinia. They do give some sense of Sr Jane’s life and imply it was not always an easy one. If she did indeed have ‘rheumatic tendencies’, she may well have had health struggles throughout her life. The letters from M. Lavinia make clear that Sr Jane had spiritual struggles as well.  Whatever the exact nature of these struggles, it must have been some comfort to know that M. Lavinia was there for her, supporting, advising and loving her.