German immigrant Sister Monica of the Sisters of Charity faced and conquered the challenges of pioneer life and nursing in frontier Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Like any large city, Milwaukee, Wisconsin has an impressive list of founding fathers and mothers, including Solomon and Josette Juneau and famous captains of brewing and other industries like Joseph Schlitz and John Mitchell.
Sister Monica's name is not included in the list of the city's movers and shakers, but it should be, along with those of Bishop John Martin Henni and the Daughters of Charity who founded Milwaukee's first hospitals. German immigrants like Sister Monica tended to validate urban theorists like Kingsley Davis who argue that the culture and customs of its inhabitants shape a city more than the city shapes them.
Bishop Henni Wrote a Letter to the Sisters of Charity in Maryland
Sister Monica and Bishop John Martin Henni were city shapers. Bishop Henni, who had been Bishop of Milwaukee since 1843, saw an urgent need. He wrote a letter to Mother Mary Xavier, Superior of the Sisters of Charity, Emmitsburg, Maryland, and in his letter dated Milwaukee, January 1, 1845, the bishop leaded for two or three sisters to join his diocese in Milwaukee. He admitted that he and his diocese were very poor, but he Bishop Henni wrote another letter dated June 28, 1845. Again he asked for the Sisters, and again, the Mother Superior told him that she couldn't spare any Sisters.
Finally, on July 30, 1846, the Sisters Council at Emmitsburg decided to send three Sisters to Milwaukee. Sisters Mary Simeon Byrnes, Mary Ann Paul and Mary Agnes Frances Flanley were chosen to come to the frontier village of Milwaukee. Sister Flanley remarked, “Oh, I would like to go to such a place as that,” when she read the Bishop’s letter.
The Vicar General Escorted the Sisters of Charity to Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Bishop Henni sent his vicar general, the Reverend Martin Kundig, to escort the Sisters to their new home. Reverend Kundig and his charges took the stage from Emmitsburg to Baltimore on August 8, 1846 and then traveled, mostly by rail, to Buffalo. At Buffalo they boarded a sailboat and voyaged to Milwaukee. On the afternoon of August 20, 1846, they landed at Higby’s pier at the east end of Detroit Street. Archival records indicate that the weather smiled on them, because when Lake Michigan stormed, passenger arrivals matched the weather. In rough weather, ships had to stand by in the harbor or make a run for the mouth of the Milwaukee River that emptied into the lake at the foot of what is now Greenfield Avenue.
The founding Sisters of Charity arrived about halfway through Milwaukee’s first year of incorporation, which had taken place on January 31, 1846. This frontier Milwaukee was made of up of mostly small shopkeepers, traders, joiners, day laborers and a few real estate speculators and professional men. Its population hovered on the brink of 10,000 and its future mirror could be polished with promise. Immigrants were pouring into Milwaukee and Wisconsin, attracted to cheap land and liberal business opportunities in Milwaukee. Milwaukee developed public school and hospital systems slowly. Father Kundig and his Sisters of Charity rolled up their sleeves and began speed up health care in Milwaukee.
Father Kundig and the Sisters made their way to St. Peter’s Church, which stood on the northwest corner of Jackson and State Streets. They walked west and north to the house of Bishop Henni, which stood just around the corner of Jefferson and State Streets. The Bishop warmly welcomed them, gave them his blessing, and then led them across the street to the west side of Jefferson Street to a home, which he had rented and furnished for them. It was a small frame house, one and half stories high, standing on the fourth lot from the southwest corner of Jefferson and Juneau Avenues.
The Sisters of Charity Lived Simply in Pioneer Milwaukee
Miss Ellen Lynch, who boarded with the sisters from the start, described the cottage. It had bare and grimy floors and the furniture included about six wooden chairs, one small rocker and two tables, one for eating and for holding a small oil lamp in the parlor. A new cook stove stood in a shed or summer kitchen, complete with wood stacked beside it for the fire. On the second floor was one large room furnished with three hard beds, one for each sister. One morning when the sisters were at Mass, Miss Lynch inspected the beds. To her astonishment, the mattresses were filled with packed straw.
The Sister’s lived near a pond, which abounded in bullfrogs in the summer and ice skaters in the winter. The land lay very low and marshy off the banks of the Milwaukee River and cellars could not be dug. Cathedral Square, where the courthouse stood, was another froggy marsh. Streets in this early Milwaukee were not graded and placement of houses was mostly random and at the whim of the builder.
The houses were mainly wooden barracks built on posts standing two feet above the ground so that hogs could wallow at ease underneath them and marsh waters could lap harmlessly at their wooden posts. As late as 1860 at least six cows still grazed on Cathedral Square. The site of the Sisters first home on Jefferson Street was first considered outside of the city limits, and farms were an easy walk from their house.
Despite these primitive beginnings, Bishop Henni continued to write letters to the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Charity at Emmitsburg, Maryland. In a letter dated January 1, 1845, he told the Mother Superior that Milwaukee needed a hospital. He requested additional Sisters of Charity in order to operate it.
Sister Monica Arrived in Pioneer Milwaukee
Four sisters arrived in Milwaukee early in 1848, the year that Wisconsin became a state. These sisters were Sisters Mary Felicitas Delone, Mary Agnes O’Connor, Mary Sarah Ann Butlers, and Mary Bernard Gavin. They swelled the ranks of Sisters of Charity in Milwaukee to eight. In 1850 three more sisters arrived. In this last group were Sisters Mary Monica Ryder, Mary Zoe Shaw and Mary Uila Generosa Guerier.
Sister Mary Monica Ryder was born in Bavaria in Germany in 1827. When she was twelve she immigrated to the United States and lived with a married sister in Baltimore. After a few years, she went to work as a dressmaker and in 1849 when she was 22 years old, she applied and was accepted into Mother Seton’s Sisterhood at Emmitsburg, Maryland. At age 23, Sister Monica found herself working at St. John’s Infirmary in the frontier town of Milwaukee.
German immigrant Sister Monica of the Sisters of Charity faced and conquered the challenges of pioneer life and nursing in frontier Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Like any large city, Milwaukee, Wisconsin has an impressive list of founding fathers and mothers, including Solomon and Josette Juneau and famous captains of brewing and other industries like Joseph Schlitz and John Mitchell.
Sister Monica's name is not included in the list of the city's movers and shakers, but it should be, along with those of Bishop John Martin Henni and the Daughters of Charity who founded Milwaukee's first hospitals. German immigrants like Sister Monica tended to validate urban theorists like Kingsley Davis who argue that the culture and customs of its inhabitants shape a city more than the city shapes them.
Bishop Henni Wrote a Letter to the Sisters of Charity in Maryland
Sister Monica and Bishop John Martin Henni were city shapers. Bishop Henni, who had been Bishop of Milwaukee since 1843, saw an urgent need. He wrote a letter to Mother Mary Xavier, Superior of the Sisters of Charity, Emmitsburg, Maryland, and in his letter dated Milwaukee, January 1, 1845, the bishop leaded for two or three sisters to join his diocese in Milwaukee. He admitted that he and his diocese were very poor, but he wrote another letter dated June 28, 1845. Again, he asked for the Sisters, and again, the Mother Superior told him that she couldn't spare any Sisters.
Finally, on July 30, 1846, the Sisters Council at Emmitsburg decided to send three Sisters to Milwaukee. Sisters Mary Simeon Byrnes, Mary Ann Paul and Mary Agnes Frances Flanley were chosen to come to the frontier village of Milwaukee. Sister Flanley remarked, “Oh, I would like to go to such a place as that,” when she read the Bishop’s letter.
The Vicar General Escorted the Sisters of Charity to Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Bishop Henni sent his vicar general, the Reverend Martin Kundig, to escort the Sisters to their new home. Reverend Kundig and his charges took the stage from Emmitsburg to Baltimore on August 8, 1846 and then traveled, mostly by rail, to Buffalo. At Buffalo they boarded a sailboat and voyaged to Milwaukee. On the afternoon of August 20, 1846, they landed at Higby’s pier at the east end of Detroit Street. Archival records indicate that the weather smiled on them, because when Lake Michigan stormed, passenger arrivals matched the weather. In rough weather, ships had to stand by in the harbor or make a run for the mouth of the Milwaukee River that emptied into the lake at the foot of what is now Greenfield Avenue.
The founding Sisters of Charity arrived about halfway through Milwaukee’s first year of incorporation, which had taken place on January 31, 1846. This frontier Milwaukee was made of up of mostly small shopkeepers, traders, joiners, day laborers and a few real estate speculators and professional men. Its population hovered on the brink of 10,000 and its future mirror could be polished with promise. Immigrants were pouring into Milwaukee and Wisconsin, attracted to cheap land and liberal business opportunities in Milwaukee. Milwaukee developed public school and hospital systems slowly. Father Kundig and his Sisters of Charity rolled up their sleeves and began speed up health care in Milwaukee.
Father Kundig and the Sisters made their way to St. Peter’s Church, which stood on the northwest corner of Jackson and State Streets. They walked west and north to the house of Bishop Henni, which stood just around the corner of Jefferson and State Streets. The Bishop warmly welcomed them, gave them his blessing, and then led them across the street to the west side of Jefferson Street to a home, which he had rented and furnished for them. It was a small frame house, one and half stories high, standing on the fourth lot from the southwest corner of Jefferson and Juneau Avenues.
The Sisters of Charity Lived Simply in Pioneer Milwaukee
Miss Ellen Lynch, who boarded with the sisters from the start, described the cottage. It had bare and grimy floors and the furniture included about six wooden chairs, one small rocker and two tables, one for eating and for holding a small oil lamp in the parlor. A new cook stove stood in a shed or summer kitchen, complete with wood stacked beside it for the fire. On the second floor was one large room furnished with three hard beds, one for each sister. One morning when the sisters were at Mass, Miss Lynch inspected the beds. To her astonishment, the mattresses were filled with packed straw.
The Sister’s lived near a pond, which abounded in bullfrogs in the summer and ice skaters in the winter. The land lay very low and marshy off the banks of the Milwaukee River and cellars could not be dug. Cathedral Square, where the courthouse stood, was another froggy marsh. Streets in this early Milwaukee were not graded and placement of houses was mostly random and at the whim of the builder.
The houses were mainly wooden barracks built on posts standing two feet above the ground so that hogs could wallow at ease underneath them and marsh waters could lap harmlessly at their wooden posts. As late as 1860 at least six cows still grazed on Cathedral Square. The site of the Sisters first home on Jefferson Street was first considered outside of the city limits, and farms were an easy walk from their house.
Despite these primitive beginnings, Bishop Henni continued to write letters to the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Charity at Emmitsburg, Maryland. In a letter dated January 1, 1845, he told the Mother Superior that Milwaukee needed a hospital. He requested additional Sisters of Charity in order to operate it.
Sister Monica Arrived in Pioneer Milwaukee
Four sisters arrived in Milwaukee early in 1848, the year that Wisconsin became a state. These sisters were Sisters Mary Felicitas Delone, Mary Agnes O’Connor, Mary Sarah Ann Butlers, and Mary Bernard Gavin. They swelled the ranks of Sisters of Charity in Milwaukee to eight. In 1850 three more sisters arrived. In this last group were Sisters Mary Monica Ryder, Mary Zoe Shaw and Mary Uila Generosa Guerier.
Sister Mary Monica Ryder was born in Bavaria in Germany in 1827. When she was twelve, she immigrated to the United States and lived with a married sister in Baltimore. After a few years, she went to work as a dressmaker and in 1849 when she was 22 years old, she applied and was accepted into Mother Seton’s Sisterhood at Emmitsburg, Maryland. At age 23, Sister Monica found herself working at St. John’s Infirmary in the frontier town of Milwaukee.
February 2, 1848, the Sisters of Charity who had recently arrived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from Emmitsburg, Maryland, announced to their fellow Milwaukeans. The Sisters of Charity of Milwaukee being provided with a suitable building will open an infirmary for the reception of invalids. Lacking means to procure necessary outfit of furniture and so on, they a ppeal to your charity for aid. The institution will be open to all citizens or strangers without distinction of class or religion or nation. It will bear the name of St. John’s Infirmary of Milwaukee. Donations of furniture, household utensils and so on, will be thankfully received.
Solomon Juneau Collected Subscriptions to Open St. John’s Infirmary
Subscriptions for the new hospital were payable to Solomon Juneau, Milwaukee’s French founding father. Many citizens donated generously to help found the new hospital. Sister Felicitas and five of her fellow sisters opened the doors of St. John’s Infirmary on Monday, May 15, 1848.
The first official announcement about the new hospital said that it operated under the charge of the Sisters of Charity from St. Joseph’s Convent, On Emmitsburg, Maryland. The infirmary building was large and built in the healthiest part of the city. It was located on Jefferson Street, not far from where the Sister’s lived. The patients were generally assigned to three apartments but could be assigned to special rooms.
The Sisters of Charity Were the Nurses and Attendants in St. John’s Infirmary
The Sisters of Charity were the only nurses and attendants in the infirmary. The Sisters assured the public in their announcement: Any patient may call for any clergyman he may prefer, but no minister, whether Protestant or Catholic will be permitted to preach to, to pray aloud before, or interfere religiously with, such patients as do not ask for the exercise of his office. The rights of conscience must be held paramount to all others.”
Hospital fees would be quoted upon application. Visiting hours were controlled, “but no rule, save such as a sense of delicacy to the Sisters would dictate, will at any time bar the entrance of the immediate friends of the afflicted.
The Sisters requested the Milwaukee City Medical Association to cooperate in caring for the sick. The Medical Society appointed twelve of its members to respond to calls for charity cases. The appointments lasted a year, but after that doctors continued to serve needy patients for free.
Milwaukee’s Pioneers Doctors Practiced at St. John’s Infirmary
In 1849, several distinguished doctors offered their services to the hospital. They included Dr. Erastus B. Wolcott, who had helped found the Society in 1845. Dr. Wolcott had moved to Milwaukee in 1838 and immediately became involved in a dispute with the established physicians because he gave surgical and consultation aid to homeopathic physicians. Despite these skirmishes with his colleagues, Dr. Wolcott still had time to build and extensive practice, serve as Surgeon General to Wisconsin during the Civil War and earn a national reputation in surgery. On June 4, 1861 he removed a kidney from a patient with the assistance of Dr. Charles L. Stoddard, the first operation of this kind ever recorded.
The First Year at St. John’s Infirmary
A typical busy day at St. John's Infirmary in 1850 saw Sisters Felicitas, Sarah Ann, Eulalia Generosa, Agnes and Monica working in the kitchen, assisted by Ann Campbell. Sister Monica talked about her duties at the hospital. She said that Sister Felicitas put her in charge of the private rooms. The Sisters were so poor that they could employ only one woman for the kitchen and they had to do their own washing. On Monday morning after Chapel they went to the laundry to wash which they continued to do until it was time to go to Mass. For Mass they went to St. Peter’s Church on the northwest corner of Jackson and State Streets.
On our return we gave the patients their breakfast, and then went back to the washing. Sometimes we did the ironing the same day. In those days we did not have cornettes and collars to do up, but only narrow, little white collars. All the Sisters were generous and helped out wherever there was anything to do. When one had too much work, another would go to assist her, she continued.
During its first year, St. John’s Infirmary maintained twenty free patients through charitable donations received from community people. Revenues for the first year amounted to $1,142.50. The financial returns were small, but the Sisters contributed substantially to the labor pool. Besides nursing, they contributed many other services required in a pioneer hospital. The city of Milwaukee contracted to send stricken immigrants to St. John’s Infirmary for hospitalization and this is where the Sisters saved the diocese and the city hundreds of dollars because they nursed so many immigrants.
The Sisters Face a Cholera Epidemic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The potato famine in Ireland in 1847 and the revolutionary movement in Germany in 1848 added thousands to the numbers of people immigrating to the United States. Many of these immigrants fell ill with Asiatic cholera on their trip to Milwaukee. The first case of the 1849 cholera epidemic appeared on Huron Street in early July, which did not surprise the Sisters since many immigrants landed at the Huron Detroit and Erie Street piers.
Long before the Sisters identified the first case of cholera, fear of the disease swept through Milwaukee. Great Lakes ship captains brought word of cholera striking in other ports of call. “When will it attack us here in our homes?” Milwaukeans asked. People rushed to the Milwaukee Board of Health with stray cats and dogs, convinced that each one of them had cholera.
The Milwaukee Sentinel repeatedly printed stories about penalties against owners of stagnant pools until they got rid of them. When a case of cholera was discovered on Huron Street, a group of city ordinances to regulate it appeared in the Sentinel. But city ordinances could not stop cholera from attacking Milwaukee residents and immigrants. Men, women and children fell in the streets or died at home. Some sank down on the harbor wharves before setting one foot on land. Others succumbed to cholera on incoming ships.
During an epidemic, city officials did not feel they could even give the immigrants a decent burial. Their bodies were gathered and piled into rough, wooden wagons. They were hauled to the poor farm cemetery near the present St. Mary’s Hospital on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, and buried in hastily dug ditches. Early one morning in the middle of the cholera epidemic of 1850, eighteen bodies were piled at the gates of a local cemetery waiting to be buried.
Sister Monica Helps Milwaukee Immigrants From The Ship Alleghany
Sister Monica and the Sisters of Charity cared for many patients at St. John's Infirmary in Milwaukee, 1850, during a cholera epidemic. The City of Milwaukee also tried to prevent the epidemic from spreading. Part of the cholera prevention program in Milwaukee in 1850 involved carrying off a thousand loads of dirt. The Milwaukee Common Council built a bathhouse on the lakeshore to cleanse and disinfect immigrants. The cholera epidemic reached its peak in August and at the end of the month the Board of Health recorded 104 fatalities out of 209 cases.
Immigrants Arrive in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Despite the Cholera Epidemic
Despite the cholera epidemics, immigrants continued to arrive in Milwaukee daily. In 1854, about 25,000 people immigrated to Wisconsin, with 5,000 of them settling in Milwaukee. They came from different countries and different walks of life inspired by the same phosphorescent dream – building a better life than in the old country. For many of these immigrants, their journey to Milwaukee started in New York City, extended to Albany and Buffalo and finished by crossing Lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan by steamer.
The lake steamer business became a lucrative one and owners, blinded by the glare of profit, often did not take proper measures for passenger safety. A lake steamer could carry as many as 1,500 people and overcrowding, especially on the propellers, was common. The propellers had the advantage of using either sail or steam, creating cheaper rates. They were very popular with the immigrants.
The John Kerler family came to Milwaukee from New York and before that from Germany in 1849 on a lake steamer. In a letter to his friend August Frank, who immigrated to Milwaukee a few years later, John Kerler Jr. described traveling conditions:
One has wooden berths and the food consists of a few zwiebacks and cake taken before boarding the ship. I became half bent and half lame from lying on boards, and leaner than I already was. I merely mention this to show you the differences in travel. After 1 ½ to 3 days, you will arrive in Milwaukee
Cholera Strikes Immigrants on the Propeller Alleghany
The Norwegian and Swedish immigrants on the propeller Alleghany did not enjoy a healthy voyage. Their ship was overcrowded because of cheaper rates and the summer of 1850 turned out to be a particularly hot one. In 1849, cholera had stalked nearly all of the lake ports, but the steamer officials did not advertise that fact for fear of scaring away the profits.
Many cholera deaths occurred on shipboard or the victim fell ill on the lake and died in port. Veteran sailor Captain Chesley Blake had long worked for Oliver Newberry of Detroit. Piloting the lakes since 1818, he was a well-known and able commander. He fell ill with cholera on board the St. Louis while she steamed up Lake Michigan to Chicago and died at the American House in Milwaukee on October 3, 1849.
In the fall of 1850, many of the immigrants aboard the Alleghany joined the Captain in death. A group of Swedish immigrants had boarded the Alleghany, probably at Buffalo, and had swelled the manifest to over 300 passengers. The people were packed together in unsanitary conditions and the weather was hot for October. Cholera quickly broke out and between Buffalo and Milwaukee, passengers began to die.
By the time the Alleghany had docked at Milwaukee on October 11, 1850, about 25 people had died and many others were ill. Doctors said that cholera had appeared because of a change in climate, a diet consisting partially of contaminated fish, and the hot weather.
As the Alleghany eased into a berth between the piers off the mouth of the Milwaukee River, the moans of the sick and dying echoed across the narrow stretch of water separating Milwaukee city from the mouth of the Milwaukee River. In those days the Milwaukee River emptied into Lake Michigan at the foot of Greenfield Avenue. Passenger and freight from the steamers were carried to and from the river outlet on a big flat boat, which was pushed along by poles. Politics and commercial rivalry continued to delay the straight cut into the lake until 1855, when the government finally completed it.
The City of Milwaukee Moves the Stricken Immigrants to Jones Island
The stricken immigrants were moved to the government buildings standing on Jones Island, also at the mouth of the Milwaukee River. These buildings served as a temporary quarantine hospital and by October 13, 1850, eight more people had died and forty-three were seriously ill in its makeshift beds. As more immigrants were transferred to the quarantine hospital or ferried across the river at night to be buried in the sand along the Lake Michigan shore, Milwaukee city fathers decided to seek help. Mayor Don A.J. Upham asked the Sisters of Charity to take charge of the government buildings where the sick immigrants tossed and burned with fever and to care for some of them in St. John’s Infirmary.
The resources of the Sisters were stretched as tautly as some of the lives they were working so hard to save. Eleven sisters were in charge of two schools and an orphanage housing 33 girls, as well as working at St. John’s Infirmary and now they cared for the immigrants on the Alleghany. Every morning the Sisters traveled to the riverfront to try to save lives at the quarantine hospital. Every day the language barrier frustrated them. Dying Norwegian and Swedish immigrants called for their dear ones in their native tongues. The Sisters spoke words of infinite compassion and love in English. The immigrants may not have understood the words, but they understood the soothing hands and voices.
Sister Monica and the Sisters of Charity Answer the Cry for Help
Sister Monica explained how the sisters became involved:
The mayor asked our Sister Servant (Felicitas, superior of St. John’s Infirmary) if she would send some sisters to take care of them. So Sister sent me, and Sister Zoe from St. Rose’s Orphanage and Sister Lincoln sent one of her Sisters from St. Joseph’s Girls School. We went down to the Milwaukee River early each morning and remained until evening, when two other Sisters relieved us. This continued for three weeks, but towards the end of that time, Sister thought some of us had better stay altogether, which we did.
There were 260 patients, of when sixty recovered, and all the others died…
The work of the Sisters in nursing the immigrants produced other results. In June 1854, the City of Milwaukee appointed two doctors –E.B. Wolcott and Edward Wunsch – to act as city physicians. Part of their duties involved visiting incoming steamers to prevent passengers with contagious diseases from landing. The work and caring of the courageous Sisters also built lasting good will for them in the city of Milwaukee.
A Milwaukee Sentinel article about the sisters summed up how Milwaukeans felt about them:
The citizens learned of the arrival of some two hundred Norwegian immigrants in their midst, stricken down by ships fever and cholera. With no place where they could with safety be removed, with no nurses for the poor dying emigrants in a land of strangers, the community felt rejoiced that there were some unknown and unnoticed, for whom contamination and pestilence had no terrors. By their sick beds, amidst scenes often most trying did the Sisters of Charity continue their work, when Death’s daily victims were counted by tens and twenties, the community grateful and thankful for the noble spirit that knew no color or creed, offered through James H. Rogers, Esq., some compensation for services thus gracefully rendered. The compensation was respectfully declined.
References and Further Reading
Buck, James S., Milwaukee Under the Charter, Milwaukee, 1884
Frank, Dr. Louis Frederick, The Medical History of Milwaukee, 1834-1914, Milwaukee, 1915
Frank, Dr. Louis F., German American Pioneers in Michigan and Wisconsin: The Frank-Kerler Letters, 1849-1864. Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1971
Gregory, John G., History of Milwaukee, 4 vols. Chicago-Milwaukee, 1931
Johnson, Reverend Peter Leo, Daughters of Charity in Milwaukee, Milwaukee: St. Mary’s Hospital, 1899
O’Hearn, Reverend David J., Fifty Years at St. John’s Cathedral, 1847-1897, Milwaukee, 1900
McCann, Sister Mary Agnes, History of Mother Seaton’s Daughters: The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, Ohio, 1809-1917. 2 vols. New York, 1917
Milwaukee News, January 24, 1868
Milwaukee Sentinel, December 24, 1868