Wonderful Women of the World
by Sr. Beth Mc Glynn, S.S.N.D.World news headlines leave no doubt that women in many countries are singled out for unequal treatment. Particularly distressing is how young girls learn early in life that they will never have the opportunities for growth reserved for men in their culture. Reports that the Taliban of Western Pakistan recently conducted an organized program of arson against scores of schools dedicated to the education of young girls is just the latest example in this sad history.
Despite this bad news, I often think of some very wonderful and brave women in the nineteenth century who made a difference in the lives of many girls and women. Through their actions, they left a heritage which continually enriches new generations. Though I speak of the initiatives they took in the United States, their impact has been more far-reaching.
Caroline Gerhardinger
The first on my list is the Foundress of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Mary Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger (1797-1879), who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1985. She was born in Stadtamhof, a suburb of Regensburg, Bavaria (in Germany). Baptized with the name of Caroline, she was the only child of a father who was a well-to-do shipmaster on the Danube River. Caroline attended school under the direction of the Canonesses of Notre Dame, graduating in 1809. She grew up during a time of political and economic upheaval in Germany. Church possessions were seized and Catholic educational centers destroyed. Because of the Napoleonic Wars, her school was forced to close and the Sisters had to leave Germany.
Work of Regine Collins, SSND. The wood relief panel is of Mother Theresa writing a letter. The artist thought this appropriate because Mother Theresa spent so much time communicating by letter with her sisters. The relief hangs outside the Lady Chapel in the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Baltimore, Maryland. In 1847 the intended SSND mission at St. Mary, Pennsylvania met with insurmountable odds, Mother Theresa returned to Baltimore and there, in the same year, she established the first SSND mission in North America.
(Used with the permission of the School Sisters of Notre Dame)
The needs of the people and the godless spirit of the times greatly troubled local Bishop George Wittmann. He believed that the improvement of the country depended on educating strong Catholic women. He wrote, “It is women who determine the morality of cities and nations.” He reopened the girls’ school in Stadtamhof. Deeply impressed by Caroline’s spirituality and intelligence. He invited her to be part of the future of the school. This was the time she felt God’s call to found a religious community. With the support of Bishop Wittmann, she wanted her students to develop into good mothers who would accept the task of the Christian formation of their families. The students were attracted by her profound interior relationship with God. The mystery of her attractiveness was the transparency of love. Love attracts. Love motivates. Love disarms.
When King Ludwig I became ruler of Germany, things changed dramatically. He called religious congregations back into the country. Now Caroline could open up a convent school and start the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1833. She took the religious name of Theresa. Fourteen years later, she and five other Sisters sailed into New York harbor. Her main concern was to open up schools for the children of German immigrants and the poor. Even though her religious community was founded to teach girls, she was willing to change and include boys, which was necessary in the United States.
Bishop John Neumann helps
Father, later Bishop, John Neumann – canonized in 1977 – was a big help to Mother Theresa. He was a fellow German and Provincial leader of the Redemptorist Fathers. At his request, the archbishop of Baltimore, Maryland permitted the School Sisters to take over three German schools in Redemptorist parishes. Eleven more Sisters arrived from Germany. Father Neumann invited Mother Theresa to accompany him on a visitation trip through the northern states which lasted for 2,500 miles. Plans were subsequently made to open schools in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. This development meant that the School Sisters of Notre Dame were among the first women religious from Germany to establish schools in America.
Mother Theresa named Sister Caroline Friess as the leader of the American missions. At 26 years of age, she was one of the five who came over with Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa returned to Germany but sent 14 more Sisters to the States.
The School Sisters of Notre Dame celebrated 175 years as a religious congregation in 2008. Today, 3600 sisters serve in over 30 different countries. We are grateful for Mother Theresa’s spirit which is still very alive, and for her generosity for saying, “yes” to God. She certainly is a wonderful woman whose love and courage made her a great model for all of us. She also believed that education energized every person, enabling them to live with the dignity they have as created in God’s image. Her efforts for young women in the nineteenth century continue to foster the development of good self-esteem in young women wherever School Sisters of Notre Dame live and minister today.
Susan B. Anthony
Two other wonderful women of the 19th century world whose courage I admire are Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902). Their principal focus in the Women’s Rights Movement was the struggle for equal voting privileges for women, as well as African-Americans. A commitment to electoral equality before the law is certainly a priority of Catholic social teaching.
I am very interested in Susan B. Anthony not only because of what she did, but because she is from my hometown Rochester, New York. Susan’s father, who was a Quaker, wanted his daughter to go to school as well as his son. Susan eventually became head of a girls’ school in Rochester. When she found out that her pay was not equal to the pay of her male colleague, she felt it was unjust. Susan intended to do something about it.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
At this time in the 1840s Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) was starting the Women’s Rights Movement in nearby Seneca Falls, New York. Susan hoped Elizabeth’s group might take up her cause. “No,” Elizabeth said, “We have to work for the vote first.”
So Susan and Elizabeth hopped on stagecoaches heading to the west to give speeches on women’s rights and, primarily, the right to vote. I can’t help but think that Susan and Elizabeth did this at the same time that Mother Theresa Gerhardinger also hopped on stagecoaches going westward to open schools, especially for the poor. Right: albumen print of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, ca. 1870s (Library of Congress)
Even when Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a young girl, she had an experience with her father which significantly influenced her decision to work for women’s rights. Her brother died when he was in college. When Elizabeth climbed on her father’s lap to console him, her father said, “If only you were a boy.” This statement made her try to learn what boys did. So she learned Latin and how to ride a horse. When she completed these two tasks, Elizabeth went back to her father to report that she now had some “boy training.” But her father was stuck on the same old lyric. “If only you were a boy.”
These are just three nineteenth-century women who devoted their lives to justice and the rights of women. Many others since then have done the same. Perhaps you personally know some wonderful women like these. Let us take seriously what these women have done, so that this becomes a better world for all people. 
Sr. Beth McGlynn, SSND has served the church in the United States for over fifty years in elementary education, religious instruction, the Movement for a Better World, and as a pastoral associate.
