Last May I received an unexpected email from Lauren Drury, registrar for the archives of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, U.S.-Ontario Province located in Oregon.  She had found something in her collections which she thought was more appropriate for our archives and was asking if I wished her to send it to me.  After some clarifying emails, I indicated that if she wished to send it, I’d be happy to see it.  One thing about archivists is that we’re always looking to find the appropriate home for things that don’t belong in our collections!

Sure enough, on June 11 I received a copy of “Il Poverello,”  a “Souvenir Program and Parish Guide” for a Franciscan Jubilee Pageant commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the coming of the “Padres” to Spokane.  The play was presented by a group known as “The Franciscan Players”  and was listed in English as “The Little Poor Man,” the “Romantic Life Drama of St. Francis of Assisi” by one Harry Lee.  Mr. Lee apparently was an American poet from Plainfield, NJ, and the drama won the first cash prize for poetic drama in the international contest of the Poetry Society of America.  This production was given at St. Francis Auditorium, Spokane, on October 5,6,7, 1930, and was the first presentation to be given on the west coast.

Judging from the program, this was quite the performance, having a large cast, production staff, and multiple musical pieces presented by the group of local musicians known as “The Assisians.”

The friars first came to Spokane in August 1915 at the request of the local bishop.  A number of the names of the men listed those first years would be familiar to some of us who have read earlier lives of Mother Magdalen or know the family names of some of our early sisters who came from the west coast; names such as W.J. Metz, secretary to the bishop, and Julius Gliebe, ofm, brother of one or two of our sisters.

By August 11, 1916, the first little group of our sisters arrived in Spokane to take charge of the parochial school.  The first community consisted of Mother Stanislaus Klaus and Sisters Teresita Beeler and Spes Paull who were to be in the school, and Sister Clotilde Weber who served as housekeeper and cook for the little community.  A picture of the convent appears to the right.

According to the summary in the program, the school opened for the first time on September 4, 1917.  If this were so, one wonders what the sisters did for a full year after their arrival!  Our records indicate things began in 1916.

The opening was marked by a High Mass and there was an initial enrollment of 91 children.  First Holy Communion was administered for the first time on November 19, 1916, and 212 boys and 16 girls received the sacrament.  After Mass breakfast was served to all the children in the parish hall and each child was gifted with a scapular of Mt. Carmel.

Our sisters remained at St. Francis until 1932.