Thursday, November 24, 2016
Associated Press
BADEN, Pa.
Mid-morning sun streams through chapel windows at the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden.
Sister Ruth (Venard) Sattler, 90, maneuvers her motorized wheelchair to a piano and plays a lilting lullaby.
Other sisters gather around. It doesn’t take much coaxing to get them to sing a beloved, 100-year-old carol composed by two sisters of their congregation that still resonates today.
Listen closely. You can almost hear echoes of voices past filling this sacred space.
Go back 55 years to summer 1961.
It’s sweltering, especially so garbed in full habit – long-sleeved, floor-length gown of black serge; underskirt; apron; starched linen wimple framing cheeks and chin; veil.
One hundred postulants and novices gather in the chapel to record a Christmas album.
There’s no air conditioning. Stained-glass windows are closed to silence extraneous street noise.
Sister Ruth and Sister Donna Marie (Carolyn Marie) Beck, 84, remember well.
“It was so hot,” said Sister Donna Marie, who accompanied the sisters on pipe organ. Recording sessions lasted days, always in the afternoons “and that would be the hottest time,” she said. Despite conditions, Sister Donna Marie “enjoyed it while we were doing it, though.”
“There was a lot of noise outside,” remembered Sister Ruth, the album’s musical director.
But everything had to be perfect. After all, this wasn’t just another compilation of hymns and carols.
This recording not only featured “In a Manger Lowly,” a song that’s enjoyed wide and lasting appeal, but also honored the women who collaborated to compose it – Sister Victoria Martin and Sister Ambrose Padden.
“As novices and postulants, we felt so honored to be chosen to be singing on this,” said Sister Gerrie Grandpre.
Josephine Martin was born Aug. 6, 1869, in the Huntingdon County coal mining village of Robertsdale, Pa., situated on Broad Top Mountain, part of the Alleghenies.
At 23, she felt called to serve God and began the process of becoming a nun in nearby Ebensburg, where in 1869 the Sisters of St. Joseph established a convent and seminary for boys. There, in 1894, she received the congregation’s habit and was given the name Sister Victoria.
Elizabeth Padden was born Sept. 13, 1873, in Bristol, Ohio. At age 16, she entered the Sisters of St. Joseph in Ebensburg, professed her vows in 1892, and was given the name Sister Ambrose.
Eventually, both would come to Baden, where in 1901 the congregation acquired farmland and established a motherhouse and academy.
Sister Victoria taught education, music and needlework in various parochial schools. After developing her musical talent at Ursuline Convent in Tiffin, Ohio, she would teach music exclusively. She also visited the poor, sick and elderly and baked cookies to send to soldiers during World War II.
Sister Ambrose, described as “a beautiful, quiet, and loving person,” was remembered for her “patience and loving kindness.”
She taught English and Latin in diocesan high schools and extension college, including in Baden; some students said she was the “best teacher of English they ever had.”
It was good fortune that Sister Victoria and Sister Ambrose would become dear friends and musical collaborators. Sister Victoria composed songs; Sister Ambrose was a prolific writer of verse and prose.
“I’ve read that they actually did a lot of songs for the school (former Mount Gallitzin Academy) in honor of different occasions,” said Barbara Hecht, director of communications for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden.
But one stood out for its simplicity and poignancy – a reverent lullaby about Christ’s birth.
Most people, she said, came to know the carol by the first words of its lyrics – “In a Manger Lowly.”