Lily and Sword and Crown by Katherine Burton (1958)

This is a history of the Sisters of St. Casimir, a Lithuanian congregation based in Chicago, that I visited as part of my research on places that might be useful to researchers of the Baltic countries and their people around the world. I also have a blog entry on my visit. Since there is only one reference to the library in this book, when someone is considering giving a book to the library as a gift, this hasn't really been helpful to the nuts and bolts of my research. But instead, it has given me a good glimpse into the Lithuanian community in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. I actually know very little about the Latvian communities that were formed in the United states before my parents emigrated, and the Lithuanians settled in the U.S. in much greater numbers. I only knew that from Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle and that there was a large Lithuanian community in Chicago, that predated WWII. In my visit, Sister Theresa Papsis gave me a brief history, and explained, that it had all started in Scranton, PA, where a Lithuanian pastor had a congregation and invited his sister to come to America and help him out. The sister and friends started the Sisters of St. Casimir in Pennsylvania, but then were convinced to move to Chicago instead. She graciously gifted me this book, so I could learn more about them.

From that brief overview from Sister Theresa, I kept asking myself - why Scranton? So when I spent spring break visiting a few libraries, archives and museums on the East coast, I visited the Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton, where I learned about the numerous immigrant coal miners and textile workers. Lithuanians were mentioned among the immigrant groups, and churches were mentioned as important institutions for the communities. I also looked up the most recent census data, and got approximate numbers of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians for each state. The tables are at work right now, but I was surprised at the number of Lithuanians in Pennsylvania - and Illinois. After reading this book, I understand why.

This book educated me on various levels. I learned a lot about the practical work of the Catholic Church and congregations of sisters in particular. I think in my mind I had thought of it more as a monastery or cloister, devoted to quiet contemplation, though the little I saw of Sister Theresa convinced me that at least one of them was a very busy sister. I was surprised that their main focus was education. Over the fifty years described in the book, they grew from three teachers and under a hundred students to 53 institutions in 13 states and Argentina, with about 500 sisters teaching over 12,000 students. They built and managed the Holy Cross Hospital from 1928, and were asked to manage another failing hospital in Chicago some years later. They prepared teachers for Lithuanian communities around the country - and even reinvigorated the Catholic Church in Lithuania, after it gained its independence in 1919. All incredibly hard workers with the larger communities as their focus.

I have always been a bit skeptical of renouncing relationships with men, but I found a model that I saw as quite functional. First of all, the church setting and extensive training offered a way for women to be out in the world away from their families, to get an education, and have a fulfilling career, while not being totally out on their own without protection. There were plenty of men in their lives - the fathers, bishops, etc., without whose help they could not have done all the things they did. I can see this as a very functional system, with set roles and boundaries. I will stick with my belief in the good and keep the skeptic out of this situation. I am sure it is much harder to get people who want to commit to these roles now, as is seen with the diminished number of sisters at St. Casimir.

It seemed that there was no angst about remaining "purely Lithuanian," a conversation often heard in the Latvian community today. As Catholics, they had a structure in which to belong, and their accomplishments were largely due to support from American bishops, archbishops, fathers and mothers. Since I am not totally familiar with Lithuanian names, often I could not tell if they were dealing with a Lithuanian or not. Mother Cyril played a major role in the development and ongoing support of the Sisters of St. Casimir, and my sense was that she was not Lithuanian. During celebrations it was often noted that things happened in Latin, Lithuanian and English. Something to think about.

My last comment on this book, is that it was meticulously crafted (maybe edited a bit differently if written today) and seemed to know what everyone was thinking at any given moment. I believe this detail was possible because the people of those times communicated frequently with letters - often weekly or even daily. The book will at time directly quote from a letter, but often just say things like "Sister Maria was greatly disappointed..." We tend to put it all out there in emails, but who can even begin to archive all of those. My friend Inta sent long letters to my cousin about her philosophy of life. When she died I asked my cousin about them and he said he had deleted them all. Poof! Gone! I understand the Sisters continue to maintain a detailed archive of their history, which is good. They have done an amazing job over the last 100+ years.