THE city of Reading is one of the oldest cities in Pennsylvania, having been laid out by Richard and Thomas Penn, the two sons of the founder of the colony. It takes its name from the city of the same name in the county of Berkshire in England. Originally it covered 600 acres of Penn's woodland, but in time it continued to expand its boundaries which in 1950 were still not permanently fixed. In 1748 there was one dwelling house in Reading; in 1752 the population reached 378 and the settlement was listed among the more prosperous ones of the colony; in 1820 there were 4332 people here, and one hundred years later in 1920 the census figures showed the population to be 107,784. Its phenomenal growth may be due to the foresight and wise political views of William Penn, based on individual equality and freedom which drew many settlers to the region. More important for its growth in the past century and the present one is the geographical position of the city, with its enormous possibilities for physical expansion and its proximity to the chief communication lines. The railroads coming into the city facilitated the transport of coal from the anthracite section which was a natural feeder for the power consuming factories here. Immigrants came to the city in ever swelling numbers assured of finding work and settlement here. It is interesting to note that the greatest stimulus to the growth of the population was the discovery of minerals in the neighboring parts of the state.
For esthetical reasons Reading also holds a prominent place. According to the judgment of many artistic minds it is one of the most beautifully located cities in Pennsylvania. Nature was extremely generous in her gifts to the locality surrounding it. The scenery all around is very colorful and characteristically beautiful, and artists and poets often find inspiration for their work here. One author was so in love with the natural beauty of the surrounding countryside that she noted in one of her descriptions: “If at any time in the future the white man would be condemned to spend the rest of his days in reservations, grant God, that these would be here.” And Bayard Taylor one of Pennsylvania’s greatest novelists wrote: “For one familiar with the grandest aspects of nature must still confess that few towns on this side of the Atlantic are so nobly envisioned.”
The town nestles among the South Mountains which have their beginning in the State of New Jersey and continuing into the State of Pennsylvania gradually narrow their width to five miles near the Schuylkill. This river, compared by many of the German settlers to the river Rhine in their homeland, forms the western boundary of the city. The plain upon which the city is built gently falls from the majestic summit of Mt. Penn rising one thousand feet at the southern edge and rimming the southeastern. On the northern side there is a vast stretch of gently undulating land allowing for an interminable expansion in this direction. On the western side of the river bank conditions are also favorable for expansion. Beyond the city in the distance as far as the eye can reach, lies a veritable paradise of farm land presenting to the onlooker a never-to-be-forgotten sight. Here in the late summer lies a waving field dressed in the beauty of ripening wheat and clover, corn and rye, swaying in the breeze, one farm beating against the other for a distance of fifteen or twenty miles, with crests of silvery foam, until broken by the bounding peninsula of slightly elevated countryside.
When the Sisters came to Reading in 1895, it presented a picture vastly different from the one viewed today. It is true that the horsedrawn tramways were a thing of the past, having made their last rounds of the city the preceding year, after which the horses were given a farewell tour before they were harbored in their stables on Cotton Street. A humorously sad adieu was paid to the ashes of the carriages on June 30, 1894. But the streets were unpaved, with the exception of the main one in the center, and they were dimly lighted at night. During the day the ladies with their long sweeping skirts and their brightly colored parasols in the spring and summer added a picturesqueness lacking during later years.
St. Mary’s Church to which the Sisters came was one of the four Catholic churches in Reading in 1895. The other three were St. Peter’s on Fifth Street founded in 1791, St. Paul’s on Ninth dating from 1860, and St. Joseph’s established one year before St. Mary’s. This one was located where it now stands on Twelfth Street near Spruce and was founded by Polish pioneers in 1888. They were for the most part emigrants from the Prussian occupied section of Poland and had found labor in the steel and iron mills of the Reading Company.
The pastors whom the Sisters met had just been transferred to St. Mary’s from the parish of St. Lawrence in Philadelphia where he had been an assistant priest for a few years before. He was an energetic young priest and early saw the wisdom of establishing a school for the children of his parish. At first he had taught them in the rectory; later he extended the basement rooms of the church which he was planning to build and used these for classrooms. Here Sister Frances and Sister Catherine began classes in Polish; Miss Klaniecka, a lay teacher, taught the English classes.
The first residence of the Sisters was on the corner of Thirteenth Street opposite the St. Peter’s cemetery. It was small but since it was to be a temporary residence the Sisters were satisfied. But the distance to school and church caused them a great deal of discomfort. Mother Veronica found it extremely tiresome to make the steep grade up Thirteenth Street to daily Mass and to visit the Blessed Sacrament. The Sisters had to take their breakfast with them, heat their coffee at the rectory and then partake of their meal in the classroom. So when they learned that there was a vacant home on Spruce Street larger and more comfortable than the one they were living in, they planned to move there. They offered to pay the rental charges which exceeded the amount the parish had been paying, but the pastor promised to foot the monthly bill.
Mother Veronica was very much pleased with the new residence. She immediately began to arrange things in order to provide the atmosphere of a Sister’s dwelling place. Her first concern was the chapel which she planned in the largest room on the first floor. She covered the double windows with beautiful curtains with a lily design which she had gone herself to buy. She had the floor overlain with a colored covering. She had a small wooden altar built, which was done so well that it later served the chapel in Ridgewood and is still in use in the Chapter room in the present convent. Four priedieus built by a parishioner, Mr. Ratajczak, painted and varnished by Mother Veronica and used in the chapel, are also still seen in the convent. She wanted everything in the chapel to be the best that her poverty touched purse would allow. But the Sacred Heart was not to be outdone by her generosity. Evidently the Lord wanted to make known His pleasure with her willingness to provide him with a beautiful home, for within a comparatively short time she had all that was needed. Vestments, linens, ciborium, candelabra, altar-cards – all came from donors. The chalice was a gift from the parishioners of St. Mary’s and is still used in the St. Elizabeth infirmary. The monstrance was used for a long time at St. Francis Home; later it was given to St. Ann’s Hospital chapel in Watertown, South Dakota. The statue of St. Joseph, a gift of the late Father Marion Kopytkiewicz, went to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hazleton. Thus, the reminders of Mother Veronica and the early Sisters are shared with each new establishment to serve as sentimental ties with the beloved foundress and the original spirit of the Community.
When all was ready and arranged in harmony with Mother Veronica’s artistic taste, Father Malusecki offered Mass in the little chapel and the Blessed Sacrament was given a home with the Sisters. The house on Spruce Street in Reading was thus the first which Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament shared with the Sisters in America. This presence under the same roof made them feel that they now had a convent home. Spirits rose more readily now, worldly cares took wings of flight sooner, the burden of labor seemed lighter and trials were made easier to bear. No one more than Mother Veronica appreciated this blessed part of her home. When the Sisters were in school and the work in the little house taken care of, she spent most of her time here; and when they had gone to their repose for the night, her shadow against that thrown from the flickering sanctuary light on the wall, made known that she was still there keeping her tryst with her beloved Spouse.
It was to the house on the corner of Spruce Street that the Lord brought Mother Veronica the first orphan, thus giving rise to the well-known St. Francis Home at Mt. Alvernia today. She was always known for her kind and tender feelings for those in need; her contact with the Franciscan spirit having behind it centuries of traditional corporal works of mercy, strengthened further those sentiments of charitable love. Care of orphans, the maimed and the sick, giving refuge to the infirm and aged was not new in the Franciscan family. When little Mary Wojtalewicz, a nine year old motherless child, was presented to Mother Veronica, she could not refuse the charity which the child’s need prompted. Mary was given a home and another aspect of Franciscan charity was given concrete form. Little Mary was the first of the almost eight thousand children that have been given care and shelter in the Community’s charitable institutions during the next half century. St. Francis, St. Stanislaus, Little Flower, Holy Child, Our Lady of Fatima institutions – all are outgrowths of Mother Veronica’s love for Christ’s abandoned children.
But little Mary cherished the distinct privilege of being cared for by Mother Veronica alone. It was Mother Veronica who prepared her for her first holy Communion and dressed her for the occasion in immaculate white and made the wreath of rose buds that crowned her little veiled head. And Mother Veronica’s first little orphan remained ever grateful to the Sisters all the years after she left them from Ridgewood. Her last visit to the Sisters was planned from Camden after she had married, but an attack followed by an operation from which she never recovered, prevented her from carrying out her plan.
It was to the house on Spruce Street that the Lord brought the first vocations to the Bernardine Sisterhood in the United States. They were the daughters of the immigrants for whom Mother Veronica had made the heroic sacrifice to leave the country and convent which she had so deeply cherished. In August 1896, Anna Szulc came from Shenandoah; in September, Mary and Veronica Grzybowski from Glen Lyon. These were young girls of school age so Mother Veronica arranged for their admission to the academy of the Immaculate Heart on Fifth Street. In February 1897, Rosalie Wisniewska entered, and in November of the same year Frances Borrowska, Agnes Glinska and Melanie Bejgert. Of these three only Frances remained for Agnes was found ailing and Melanie left seeking admission elsewhere.
In the meantime, however, Mother Veronica lost a very helpful member when the tertiary, Barbara, left the Sisters in Reading. Mother Hedwig had selected Barbara for the pioneer group because she knew they would need a reliable person for the household tasks when the Sisters settled here in America. When Mother Veronica could not allow her to make her profession as a Bernardine because she did not have the necessary permission for the act from her superiors in Europe, Barbara left Reading and went to the Immigrant’s Home in New York from where she applied for admission to the Felician Sisters. She was received by that Community January 19, 1898, and remained there serving the Lord all her life. She died November 16, 1947, at the age of eighty-five.
All signs pointed to the fact that permanent establishment of the Bernardines in America was a possibility. Mother Veronica saw parishes arising all around in the neighboring towns of Pennsylvania, immigration continuing in a never ending flow, and consequently children deprived of the education which only a parochial school can give. Vocations were presenting themselves therefore the erection of a novitiate and a motherhouse for the new community would soon be one of her urgent needs. In 1897 she procured permission for the new foundation from her authorities in Europe; they left the rest to her judgment and ingenuity. Naturally her greatest need was necessary funds, if the possession of an adequate building was to be realized.
The Sisters had no known great benefactors in the early days of their history in America. Besides the few Polish priests who gave them encouragement to go on with the work, they only knew the laboring class of immigrants and it was to these that they appealed for help for the new convent that Mother Veronica was planning to build. They went among these common working people, all staunch Catholics from the Old Country, and solicited funds, going from town to town when the school term was over, Mother Veronica herself leading the way. She appreciated every coin or paper dollar that was handed to her knowing that it was gained from hard though honest toil. Later she often repeated that each brick in the convent building was paid for with the sweat of the miners’ brow. Her own fatigue seemed to vanish at the sight of the generosity and good will and faith of most of those of whom a request for funds was made. She would never admit that it was her kind and gentle way of pleading that often melted the most callous heart of many that she met and resulted in a heavier purse on her way home after a tiresome day.
If the funds for the contemplated building were important, so too was a site on which it was to be built. Sometimes, Mother Veronica’s eyes drifted towards the hill across the river which today bears the name of Mt. Alvernia, and then an indescribable longing for this spot took possession of her. She never could explain why this elevated spot seemed to her to be the ideal place for a Franciscan convent. But it was nevertheless true that whenever her gaze fell in the path of the mount, it held out to her a charm that no other place ever before or after did. But Mt. Alvernia in 1898 was to remain still an unfulfilled dream. Meanwhile she left to the Sacred Heart and Divine Providence her newest and latest concern.
She did not have long to wait. Within a short time she was informed that a building which had formerly been used as a rest home for convalescents and a hundred acres attached to it about three miles from Reading were for sale. Mother Veronica visited the place and satisfied with the location particularly, agreed to make the purchase. May 6, 1898 the deal was made. A down payment of $2,000, one third of the cost of the land and estate, was accepted by the owners. All legal transactions were made in Mother Veronica’s name.
