St. Hedwig of Silesia’s Church parish priest, appointed in 1903, was Prof. Jan Mueller, deputy rector of the Polish seminary in Orchard Lake. At the end of the same year began the construction of the first building, designed by Joseph Kessler, which was to house the church and the school. In December 1904 the building was completed and entrusted to the Felician Sisters. In 1905 there were misunderstandings between the parishioners and the parish priest, which led to the dismissal of Father Jan Mueller and the temporary closure of the church. Liturgy was preformed first by the Jesuits and then by the Franciscans, who subsequently took over the parish. In 1911 Harry J. Rill (born 1854) drew up plans for the current church and convent for the nuns. The construction was carried out by Józef Nowakowski. Due to the shortage of funds only the lower church was completed, as the extension of the school was more urgent. Only after the school was completed did the construction of the church begin again. The construction was completed in 1916. The interior decoration was purchased from the Daprato Statuary Company, and the same company made the stained-glass windows in 1918. It was not the end of the investments; in 1919-1920 a new school building was erected, extended in 1926 by the Polish architect Władysław Garsztecki. It was a visible sign of the slowly improving social situation of the Polish American community.

Although the histories of individual parishes are usually punctuated by the names of their priests, we should not forget about the significant role of the nuns. They were to a large extent responsible for the daily life of the parish and it was they who ran the schools, where they performed the roles of teachers but also educators in a broader sense. If it had not been for their activity, the cultivation of national traditions, language and connections with the country would not have been so successful among the Polish community. The nuns not only educated, but they also helped the weakest – they ran orphanages and took care of the sick. They were the ones who did the cleaning in churches and cooking in presbyteries. The commemorative pictures from 1978 from the jubilee book of St. Hedwig of Silesia’s parish show that at that time there were five Franciscan friars and almost twenty nuns working in the parish. And St. Hedwig of Silesia’s was no exception in this respect. At first it was the Felician Sisters who worked in the parish, but as it developed there was a need for a greater number of nuns, or at least that was the official explanation of the shift to the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph, which was decided on in 1923. Unfortunately, we still know too little about their daily activities and their actual role in the church. Usually, if at all, only their presence in the parish is acknowledged, and sometimes their achievements as a group, while specific sisters are rarely mentioned by name.

The Felician Sisters were one of those orders which played the most important role in the life of the Polish community in the USA. Others included the Bernardine Sisters, Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, Franciscan Sisters, Sisters of the Resurrection, School Sisters of Notre Dame and Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph. The Felician congregation was founded by Angela Maria Truszkowska in the mid-19th century in Warsaw. In the Kingdom of Poland the order was dissolved as part of the reprisals following the January Uprising, due to the congregation’s commitment to the moral and spiritual renewal of the Polish society. After various difficulties the sisters finally gathered again in Cracow. It was then decided that an important part of the order’s activities would be missionary work among the rapidly growing Polish emigration overseas. The first Felician Sisters arrived in the USA in 1874 and settled in Polonia, Wisconsin thanks to the involvement of the future founder of the Polish seminary, Fr. Józef Dąbrowski. They were not the first Polish nuns to come over, as the School Sisters of Notre Dame had already established themselves in the United States. Their history is also interesting because once again it shows that one cannot look at German-Polish relations in America by simply transferring the old antagonisms from Europe. Their congregation was founded in Bavaria and served mainly the German minority. And yet the order admitted Polish nuns and gave them unlimited possibility to teach Polish language and culture; what is more, the order made sure that they learnt Polish.

After arriving in the USA the Felician Sisters organized a Polish school and the first orphanage. They also undertook missionary work among Native American and African American communities. In 1877 they established the first province of the order in America. In 1882 the sisters moved to Detroit, establishing their headquarters there. They also worked in many other places. It was teaching in parish schools that became the most important part of their charism in America. Their professed members were sisters coming from Poland, but above all girls from Polish families settled in America. In an effort to maintain their relationship with Poland, some sisters were sent to Cracow to study. In the United States their largest convent is located in Livonia, Michigan; in its heyday it was inhabited by more than 500 nuns, currently there are a few dozen of them.

As schools were established at almost every parish, we may get the impression that for the Polish immigrants education of their children was one of the greatest priorities. In the first buildings there were rooms both for liturgy and teaching. So, was it a priority to educate children so that they could have a better life, and at the same time cherish the traditions they had learned from home, not forgetting their roots? This is an oversimplified picture, though indeed thanks to the hard work of the sisters this is what happened, at least in part. For many families, however, the main priority was for the children to go to work. Many families sent them to school primarily because it was an obligation. American schools were hardly ever chosen, due to logistic, language and religious reasons, as state education was dominated by Protestants. It should be remembered that at the turn of the century it was normal for children to go to work. It is estimated that in 1904 textile industry alone employed more than 50,000 children, almost half of whom were under the age of 12. The overall percentage of working children was high, probably one in five children had to work at that time; undoubtedly, this proportion was higher among the poor Polish immigrants. They started working about the age of 10, and sometimes even earlier. Not many children even finished elementary school, dropping out after just a few years. The relatively low importance attached to education is evidenced by the small number of secondary schools in which young people could continue education. Of course, this did not apply only to the Polish community. In 1900 the Catholic Church in the USA ran about 3500 parish schools and only about 100 high schools; they had more than 1,700,000 students and employed more than 40,000 teachers. In 1920 the Church had already established 1,500 high schools and more than 6,500 parish schools.

Chronology

1903 - establishing the parish

1904 - completion of the first church

1906 - the Felician sisters begin to run the school

1909 - construction of the presbytery

1911 - beginning of the construction of the new church, beginning of the construction of the convent

1916 - completion of the new church

1920 - completion of the new school

1923 - the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph take over the teaching in the school

1926 - extension to the school

1939 - opening the high school

1965 - closing the high school

Text originally published in a book issued by the POLONIKA Institute.
Anna Sylwia Czyż, Bartłomiej Gutowski, Paweł Sieradzki, Polish Parishes and Churches in Milwaukke, Winsconsin and Massachusetts, Warszawa 2021, pp. 141-155.