Sister Pat Haley

Today is Thursday, August 17th and Pat Haley is going to share her story with us.

I was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1945. My mother was Blanche Miles Haley and my birth father was John Manual and I only have vague memories of him. My sisters were Joyce, Shelia, and Debra. Joyce studied to be an Air Force attorney but she died when she was 29 and she left two children. Shelia was a store clerk and a housewife. When she died she left two children. Debra, the youngest was a hairdresser and before illness and became a housewife. When she died she left three children. My mom met and married Mister Julius Haley who adopted us at a very early age. He was the father that I grew up with and the dad that I know. He had one son named Henry. They were both Louisiana Catholics. He always told us that he was baptized at home, so he called himself a five day old Catholic (laughter).

He was the oldest of sixteen children. He had one sister who was second from the youngest and her name was Lillian, who became a medical doctor. My dad was a chef and he taught us all how to cook. He worked after those two swanky restaurants he worked with but one of them closed. One of the sons went into a cafeteria business. He became part owner of the Morrison Cafeteria and so he asked dad to come there and be the head cook. That was while we were still in Georgia. Dad used to move around as Morrison’s would open different cafeterias. They opened one in Nashville and one in Memphis but we didn’t move. We stayed where we were. Then they opened one in Montgomery and so we moved there. Dad decided to take the whole family when we moved there. When we moved to Montgomery we went to school at St. Jude’s which was run by the Vincentian Sisters and they are now Sister of Charity of Nazareth. While I was living in Columbus, Georgia there were no catholic churches or catholic schools in Columbus for Blacks. So the Vincentian Sisters opened a Mission School in Phoenix City, Alabama. So that’s where we went there in the second grade. Then we moved to Montgomery for the third and fourth grade. I was at St. Jude City at the school there. Sister Julian Griffin, who was a Black sister in that Community, also went to the mission school. I remembered her as an older girl. She and my sister were about the same age. So they were pals. But I didn’t know her that well then but I got to know her much later but I’ll speak to that.

My Mom went to Tuskegee Institute, and she graduated from Alabama A&M. She became an insurance agent. She was a math wiz, she was very good. She was also a member of Dr. King’s brother’s church while we were in Birmingham. But she was a member in Dr. King’s church in Montgomery. She participated, she and dad, took a great part in the marches, and the bus boycott. She and he would walk to work rather than ride the buses. My mom had four brothers. She was the second child and only girl. My uncle George, who was next to the youngest, trained to be a Tuskegee airman. He didn’t fight in war. He was at the tail-end of those trainees. My grandmother who was known as Mother, she was my mom’s mother, Ms. Daisy Miles White. Her first husband Henry, died from some disease, they probably think it was tuberculosis, but they weren’t sure. I grew up with my grandpa Howard White that my

grandmother later married. I used to follow him around like a shadow. Grandmother and Grandpop were A&E Methodist, African American Episcopal, people. So we used to go to church with them sometimes. My great grandmother, my mother’s grandmother was Mary Boikins. We used to call her “Big Momma”. Her mom was Cherokee and her dad was black. I didn’t know either of those two. And nor did I know her husband. I did know “Big Momma” and her two girls and her five boys. I remember very well her younger children because she lived with four of them had a big house. She lived with the four youngest. My aunt who was the youngest girl, we called “Auntie”, she was a hairdresser. They used to call her “Skiboo”. So one day, I was just a little thing, you know how little kids repeat what they hear, so I decided I was going to call her “Skiboo”. Well that didn’t go over very well. They were all Baptist. From time to time we would go to church with them. And what they used to always say Baptist shouted and Methodist just kinda waved their hands. We my grandmother was a shouting Methodist and my greatgran was a wave hands Baptist. I had a whole lot of fun memories of my greatgran because she baby sat most of the time because my grandmother and mother worked. She was the babysitter. She and the older folks used to be the crossing guards, I guessed they were crossing guards because they had a cane and they could keep the kids in order with that cane. I remember the spankings I got. I got three good ones from her which I shall never forget. One of them, we had a little crew of girls and we were all supposed to be friends but we were bullying one. I don’t know what we were saying but she was watching us and she called us in and asked us what we were doing. We had to tell her exactly. So she said ”I’m going to give everybody a spanking”. She said “ for those of you who were taunting I’m going spank you for doing that because she was supposed to be your friend”. She said to the little girl that was crying “and I am going to spank you because all you had to do was come in and tell me that they were bothering you and you didn’t do it. So everybody’s going to get a spanking”. And when she gave a spanking she would always end with “ In the name of the Father God, (womp!) , in the name of the Mother God, Jesus’ mama (womp!), in the name of Jesus Christ (womp womp!!), in the name of the Holy Ghost” (womp womp!!). I would say Big Momma, but they had them too, them too. It didn’t work. The next time I got a spanking they were having a Church collection, a fund raiser, so some of us, the same little bunch of girls, we decided that we were going to collect some money but it wasn’t exactly for church though we told people that what it was for. So we got a few nickels and dimes. We went on her porch and spread out our little handkerchiefs. We had the money and laid it out and none of could count because we were just in the kindergarten. We were just sitting there, but knew we had some nickels and dimes and some pennies. And I remember her just coming out and patting us on our little heads. And telling us what a wonderful job we did collecting the money for the church. How lovely it was. She counted it and I forget how much it was. She said the pastor will be so pleased that these little children collected this money. Well of course we were not happy at all about that. The next Sunday we had to march in step, to the choir singing, with our money down to the collection plate and give it up. (Laughter) Ohh! That was the hardest thing. I was not a happy camper. We would go to Sunday school and the dues were five cents a Sunday. On the way there was a little grocery store. I didn’t know really how to count and what was left I stopped two times and bought a Johnny Cake. That was some pennies. They were kind of big graham cracker cakes made like a boy. So I would stop and got me two of those, different times. So they would always send a note home about the dues and what was still owed. So I owed some money. (Laughter) I got a spanking about that and the WOMP’s, WOMP’s (laughter) as a result of that. Those two spankings they are still etched in my behind today. I

never will forget them. They used to have these movies for kids on Saturday morning. You went according to your family’s last name. The grandparents had to take you because they would make us really behave where the parents would kind of let you slide sometimes but they didn’t. This one particular Saturday they had these monster movies and I was scared to death of these monster movies, HONG KONG (King Kong), something else. I remember I kept sitting on the floor and she kept telling me to get up (she tried not to say it loud so she would talk through her teeth) but I wouldn’t do it. So finally she took me outside and WOMPED my little behind and came back in I sat there but kept my eyes closed the rest of the time.(laughter) So those are the three spankings “Big Momma” gave me. My grandmother never spanked me once. Now she said a few things. She never raised her voice but you knew what she meant when she said it. I noticed with the older kids she gave them a couple of spankings and I thought I wasn’t going to get into that. She never gave me a spanking. So I listened well and learned.

Growing up I really wanted to take piano lessons. But mother thought I was too young to know about that. She put me in drama, public speaking and allocutions and really I’m glad. Now that she did, I wasn’t too happy then. But now it came in professionally it has worked well to my sted. I’m very happy about that. As I grew older she grew up with Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight and all of them. Mom and dad were excellent dancers, always dancing. We did too. That’s where we got it from. So I always said in my dreams I wanted to play the piano like Aretha Franklin and sing like Gladys Knight, and I can do neither. (laughter and interviewer says, “well you can sing”) but I can’t play the piano. So when I was in the tenth grade my mother decided that I was old enough to really learn how to play the piano. But being in the tenth grade I was too old to be seen with a first grade music book. So I did not want to take piano lessons. The piano teacher’s name was Mrs. Ethel Umble. It wasn’t Humble it was Umble, and she always let us know that. The lessons were a quarter for a half hour. So I went to four lessons and apparently I wasn’t doing, my placements, my finger placement wasn’t right. I don’t know why I couldn’t do it, but I really couldn’t. She thought I was just making it up. I really couldn’t do it. So after the fourth lesson, she took a dollar bill and folded it the long way and said “Child you take this bill back to your mother and don’t you come back here” (more laughter). So my sisters, the other three, continued. They weren’t any kind of artist but they were good. I was skipping down the road to take that dollar back. I was a happy camper. I remember my great grandmother was in a singing choir at a church and their signature song was Nearer My God to Thee. They would always start their practice, it would be their prayer, the first chorus. They would sing that for their prayer. There were about four or five of us little ones that would tag along. This one day the pianist said you little children know it? And we said “yes Mam”. So she gave us our little notes and we stood just as tall and she said kneel and when I do this you all give and you start and she gave us our note and we said “Nero My God to Thee Nero to Thee” (singing it). And she didn’t say anything she just kept playing. The she said that was lovely. She said she would asked the pastor if you could sing in church Sunday. We were so proud. He said yes. After the deacon’s prayer he told the congregation instead of the senior choir singing the song after the prayer we have the little children who have been going to practice with them. She started and we were just as proud with our little Sunday dresses “Nero My God to Thee” and the congregation said “Sing it children”. The harder they said sing it the louder we got singing “Nero My God to Thee”. Everytime I hear that song all I can think is “Nero My God to Thee”. Those were my days with Great

Gran. I really miss her. She died when I was in the tenth grade. I used to shadow her everywhere. One of my gran uncles was a carpenter and he made me a little rocking chair like her big rocker. She would rock forward and I would rock forward. She would rock back and I would rock back. She would really take a nap and I would sit there and close my eyes and peep out to see if she was awake and going to get up. When she would cook, I couldn’t go in the kitchen but I would stand in the kitchen door. I used to watch her and really I learned a lot just watching. She had a great big bowl not plastic. It wasn’t glass. It was a ceramic-like bowl that she would start with what would take the longest to cook. She would start with that. She would use that bowl, would prepare it, if it was like meatloaf for example and do what she needed to do with that and would then put it in the pan. She would then peel the vegetables put that all around. She would then clean her bowl. Then she would go to the next thing. When she finished there was nothing to wash up. That’s how I do now. That’s how I learned from just watching. My grandmother was the same way. I guess she learned it from her and my mother too. We picked it up from them. They didn’t teach us to do that we just looked and picked it up.

My dad is the one that really taught us how to cook. He taught us herbs and all of that. I still know, I don’t know all of them, but he had an herb garden and I knew a lot of them by sight. I couldn’t name everything but I knew what went with what vegetables and what went with what meats. I still pretty know pretty much of that now. He and mother didn’t have the patience to really teach us. We picked it up just observing a whole lot. As we grew he started us cooking in the second grade. He taught me how to make cornbread first and that was his first mistake. So I thought you made biscuits the same way. So I made them. And they were pretty brown, gorgeous but hard as bricks. (laughter) Water wouldn’t even soak through them. They were really hard. My brother carried on and he said “Oh dad if you had these in the war the war would have been over a whole lot sooner”.(laughter) I cried, and my dad said “don’t worry about it a least you tried”. Henry can’t do that. He had us doing it. He had us ironing our own clothes and everything at that age growing up and making our beds. First thing we had to do when we got up was hit our knees and whatever our prayer was then get up and make that bed. Cause when you’re little that hand print would be on it. She would come in and tried to show us to pull the spread and the sheets. As we got older we had to do it. So that was the first thing. We had those feather mattresses. It was hard to make them smooth. If you put a print in it the print would stay in it. As we kind of went along at the mission school, they had a children’s mass at 9:00. The whole family, my mom and dad, would go to the children’s mass. Then we would go home and have breakfast and then go to church with my mother. Their church was at 11:30 so we had plenty of time.

Interviewer: So your mother wasn’t Catholic?

Pat: Mother was a Baptist.

At her church they had all kinds of youth activities and programs. She let us choose whether we wanted to be in them or not. I chose the choir and drama. They had all those kinds of things. The two younger ones were too young yet to be a part of that. When we moved then to Montgomery and going to St. Jude’s it was the same way. They always had a 9:00 children’s mass and then we would go to church with her. That’s when she belonged to Dr. King’s church (the Avenue Baptist Church). I was in their

children’s choir there. My mother finished college there at Alabama A&M. She started at Tuskegee but because we moved she ended up at Alabama A&M.

I don’t remember the Vincentian Sisters, who taught me, but we were there two years, third and fourth grades. I remember they were very nice Sisters but I can’t recall any names. I remember them talking vocation talks even as little as we were. Maybe that is where the seed was planted, but I don’t know. I really wasn’t thinking about it. My mother participated in all the bus boy cots and all of those activities. Then when we moved to Birmingham, we moved first to Fairfield which is a suburb of Birmingham. We went to St. Mary’s School and it was staffed by the Passionate’s and the school Sisters were St. Francis. I was there in the fifth grade. Then dad was moved to Birmingham Proper. Ensley was only three miles away from where he worked. So he decided to move us over to Ensley and that is where I met the Charities. The Felician Sisters from Loudon New Jersey and from Pompa City Oklahoma taught the A&E elementary school. And we had the Passionate’s priest there as well. I was there sixth through eighth grade in the elementary school. I graduated and went to high school at Holy Family with the Charities. Because the family really didn’t have the money for full tuition, I was on the work study program and I was assigned to the senior homeroom with a broom and dust rag and to the library on Saturday which I was glad because I learned a whole lot from Sister Mary Timothy. Sister James Theresa was the principal. Sister Ruth Edwards was math and chemistry, and Sister Charles Benedict was the Latin teacher. We used to call her Sister Huck because her bonnet bows would flop down. And the cartoon character, Huckleberry Hound, he was a beagle with those floppy ears, so we called her Sister Huck. She knew we called her that too (laughter). But we always said “Sister” (more laughter). They then assigned four of us to the hospital on work study. They had a couple of candy-stripers who graduated. So they asked us if we wanted to go to the hospital, and we did. There was a TV character named Dr. Ben Casey, so you know the doctor’s jackets they had so that’s what we wanted to wear. We didn’t want the old candy-stripers outfits. So they let us wear those jackets. There was one doctor, the head doctor. His name was Dr. Hamilton, we called him “Sunshine” because he was always ginning. I don’t care what the situation was, raining or snowing he would always come in grinning from ear to ear. He was a surgeon, Dr. Hamilton. Anyway, we were the “Ben Casey Girls”. When we started, they told us if we went into a patient’s room and if the patient had expired, we were to just come out, close the door and alert a nurse quietly. We went into this one room one day (two of us) this Lily Thomas and myself. I had the tray and she was setting the little stand up, and she was going to fix some pillows so she could sit up, but she looked at her and said to me, “Tricia, (that is what they used to call me), this lady’s dead.” She screamed loud as anything and you could hear her all over the hospital because the door was still opened. Out the room she ran and left me there. Guess what she is today? A nurse. (laughter) She was the head nurse at the University of Alabama Hospital. So when I see her we talk about “that lady dead?” The other two also became nurses. I was the lone ranger. I had good bed side manners but chemistry and all that and I didn’t get along to well. So I knew I had to know a little about all that so I thought I would try something else. I was in the ROTC. I actually signed up to go to the Marines to be an attorney. I had been approved. But I had to graduate and had to get my parents signature. My oldest sister had joined the Air Force and she like I said was studying to be a JAG, but she died in the process. That was what I thought I was going to do.

Interviewer: Let me back up. The hospital you went is where our Sisters were?

Pat: Yes, Holy Family Hospital.

Sister Anne Jude was the head of Pediatrics. I didn’t know the other Sisters that well and I knew Sister Anne Jude more than the others because when we have the school dances, the gym was a tin barn really and we would have the dances and ball games and during the ball games when we would get two points, we beat on the wall. She would come over there and asked us to try to quiet down in that white habit. So after a while we all got to know Sister Anne Jude. And we got to know her too as the “Ben Casey Girls” because they would us move around to different areas of the hospital that way. She was as nice as she could be. She was stern but lots of fun.

The high school years were good. My mom and dad were the chief chaperons for the dances. They were good dancers. They would always lead off the dances. They would arrange with other parents to come. There would always be six sets of parents at every school chaperon. The Haley’s would be there all the time and would always take the first dance. The second dance my dad would always want to dance with me. Of course, I wasn’t too happy about that. I did it to humor him. (laughter) And he had a good time. My brother was a little older than we, and he would come and was a chaperon as well. He and his girlfriend were also chaperons. I remember my dad calling us in and telling us about taking care of the house. He said there are seven of us living here and seven of us are going to take care it. There will not be one person coming in after all of us had been out and that one person doing cooking, cleaning and all that. He said “You will not kill my wife”. And he meant it. She didn’t iron anything for him. She didn’t wash anything for him. He did every bit of it. It might have been his Navy training too. He took care of all of his clothes. He took turns making the beds and running the vacuum cleaner, and slopping baby diapers. Being from Louisiana he was supposed to be a chauvinist but he wasn’t. He was just the opposite. I loved him to death. He lived to be 97. My mother died at 54. She had a massive stroke. All of the heart issues run on the women side of the family. So all of the females, aunts, great aunts, grandmother, great gran, and my sisters all died of either heart attacks or strokes. So I have to watch it.

Interviewer: So are they all deceased?

Pat: Yes

Interviewer: So is your brother still living?

Pat: No he is deceased too.

All of the women had those issues. So we had to look out for it. Something my sisters once their jobs closed, they would have insurance for six months and then would have no insurance unless they found another job. The youngest one was so sick, she got disability, and couldn’t work anymore. If she couldn’t pay she wouldn’t go to the emergency room. If she had enough money for small things she would go. But if it was a large amount she would ask the cause and if she knew she couldn’t pay so she wouldn’t go. She just got sicker and sicker. By the time Obama Care came she got on it, but she was so

sick, it was just too late. If it had come earlier it might have but I don’t know. We couldn’t tell about that.

While in high school, I took part in the children Civil Right activities for students with the dogs and the fire hoses. The infamous march shown on TV, showing them … with the fire hoses with the kids, I was in that bunch. What they would do would put the boys in the front and the girls behind them. If those fire hoses got to you they could tear your skin and rip your clothes. It really did hurt. So we jumped on those cattle trucks that were all messed up with cattle dung. That‘s what they put us on. So we go on them. So they would take us on and threaten to take mug shots and finger prints and we grinned and turned (laughter). Then they take us back downtown and we would wait for another truck. We would jump on it and go back and they would ask what are you grinning at? We would say can we take one for our family? (laughter) When we got home I told my mother but she was so angry that we were carrying on like that. She said it was not fun, it was serious and if we were going to take part we had to know what we were doing. They were serious and you could have been hurt. Oh she was angry. I’ve seen her angry before but never seen her like that. It made an impression on me about taking it seriously.

Interviewer: She was probably worried about you.

Pat: She was. Even though she let us go. Because she had been it too and thought we had sense enough to act like we had some sense. But we were dumb enough to tell her what we did. She lectured us real good. I never will forget it.

She was really very bright. We would come in and ask her “Mom can you do such and such?” She’d say “Yes I can” and go right on about her business. She was trying to teach us correct grammar. She walked off and we would stand there looking at her back walk away. Couldn’t figure out, it took a while to figure out what she meant. Finally we said, “ Mom I don’t know how to spell such and such. Do you know how to spell it”? She said “yes I can”, and she said “there’s an unabridged dictionary in the corner”. She had a great big Oxford unabridged. I would say “but I don’t know how to spell it”. She’d say “I’ll give you the first two letters and you can find it”. She wouldn’t spell it for us either. Sometimes it would take 45 minutes to an hour before you would find that little word. But it taught us. You had to take your time and do it yourself. Gradually, some of us were hard learners, but we finally caught on with the grammar.

She used to do a ledger so we always knew what they made. We never had to ask whether they had any money of the like.

Interviewer: Sounded like she shared it with you.

Pat: Yes she did. She had these ledgers sheets she’d use for insurance. I remember her categories. She had school. That was the first thing, education, house, rent, food, health, clothing and then allowance. Most of the time we never got to allowance. Most of the time. All of us had a little job and we would have to bring our money home too and put it with theirs. That would stretch a penny a little further. We couldn’t spend it. She said “everybody’s working for the family, and everybody had to share”, so we put our little pennies there. We sang in the choir at church and would get $5.00 a week

for singing. It was a Latin Mass, (like I really knew Latin) (laughter). But we would be up there singing something at the 7:30 Mass and we’d be there and then stayed for school. It gave us time to study. So we would have to bring that $5.00 home on Friday’s and put it on the table. My dad would cash his check and bring the money home. My mother did the same thing and put it there. We used to have to count it out. We had to take turns doing it too, so we would know exactly what it was. Some days if one child needed something, clothing, that was what the one child got it. Like they do for my nieces because they buy for one, everybody, well everybody doesn’t need it. So you shouldn’t be buying a pair of shoes for everybody because the one is in need. That’s how we were raised. That’s what she did. When we would get our allowance, I saved mine, but the other four would eat theirs up. The minute they got it, because there was a little grocery store across the street, they would tear over there the minute they got a nickel and buy whatever. I would save mine, my mom would save hers, but dad was penniless too. My mother used to love black walnut ice cream. She would have to save up in order to get her a pint. She would get her a pint of black walnut and sit in her room with her door opened and eat her black walnut. We would stand outside looking longingly for a spoonful.(laughter) But she never would give it to us. She would say “you had your allowance and you can do with it what you choose”.

Interviewer: Good training.

Pat: Oh yeah. My dad would say “Your eyes may shine and your teeth may grin, but none of this is you going to get”. (laughter) But mom wouldn’t say anything, she’d just quietly eat her ice cream and sit in her easy chair.

I was in the Young Christian Leadership, YCS, they had a trip up here,when I was a Junior.

Interviewer: Here at Nazareth?

Pat: Yes the Holy Tour. They took us all over to Gethsemane, the Holyland Tour. That’s when I saw the Motherhouse. I guess it might have been then when I started thinking about it. You know, letting go of the Marines and coming here. People asked me a lot of times how did you know? Well, I really didn’t. I said, “at least there were no angels singing and no bells ringing. Maybe the seed was planted when I was younger and I kind of put it back here”. As I got older every Community would always do these vocation talks. I was asking questions, but I didn’t like their answers. They were all tied to Europe. They would talk about these strange things and I wasn’t into all that. The Felician, to me were the strangest bunch. You had to go to Poland when you were a first year Junior and be over there a year. I didn’t think so. They had the habit that had a little piece of material, that white piece folded under, on your forehead, so when they went out they had to take that down so it would be just over their eyes. They had to walk to where they lived from where we lived. They couldn’t live in the same neighborhood with blacks and whites. So they lived up the hill next to the Charities. They would have that thing folded down. The Charities had those black bonnets with the black veils over their bonnets. So I asked the principal of the elementary school one day, she had this belt with all these keys, so I said “excuse me”, why do you have all those keys?” She said “It’s the grace of office”. (laughter) And I thought OOOKay. And she said “When you get to be a Superior you get to carry all of the keys”. I said to myself, “well strike that one”.

But Sister Mary Lucia was the one that really kind of talked to me about considering and coming here. She and Father Gilbert Kroger, who was the Passionate Pastor and the other priest, I can’t think of his name now. But he wrote the letter for me. I should remember his name but I don’t. He was the only one in the whole bunch of priests that we had a nickname for. He would walk the neighborhood. He knew everybody within a radius of 17 to 18 blocks of Holy Family. He was a lovely man. Mother Lucille came down to introduce herself to me and to let me know that I may not be really received by some of the Sisters. I told her I knew that. When I told my Gran and Greatgran they said to me “Are you going to go to school?” I said “yes mam” and they said “You can go”. They were concerned about education. They said “well you have been in the Civil Rights movement enough and are going to be with all white folks”. I said “yes mam”. They said “but you can take care of yourself. So you’ll be alright”. They were very supportive. They didn’t try to stop me.

I became a Catholic when I was in the eighth grade. From the second grade on I was in instruction class but we moved so much. But that really wasn’t the reason. I questioned a whole lot of what they were telling me. So actually I was put out of the instruction classes. They told my parents she has too many questions. She just doesn’t accept what we are telling her. And I didn’t. So finally in the eighth grade, I guessed I was still questioning, but the pastor said “Baptize the child cause she’s not going to get any better.” (laughter) So I was baptized in the eighth grade, we were all baptized and received first communion at the same time. My dad was as proud as he could be. A little embarrass along the way because I kept getting put out. The others did alright. My mom would say “that mouth is going to get you in trouble. Mark my word. You don’t have to question everything do you?” I said “well Mom some of what they say don’t make no sense”. To me it didn’t. They’d say ask any questions, so I would ask. They weren’t pleased. I did the best I could trying to follow along. I remember, we had to get a name for baptism, and I kept saying Patricia because I didn’t want anything else. “That is not a Saint’s name”. They would say. (interviewer: it comes from Patrick) they didn’t deduce that at all. “That is not a Saint’s name”. “Well I don’t want another one” I say and kept insisting. I didn’t know they gave me one but I didn’t know what they had done until I was getting ready for Social Security. The Community called me because they were having trouble. So, Anne was on the Baptismal certificate and they wouldn’t accept it until they saw my birth certificate. On my birth certificate it was just plain Patricia. So I was able to get the Social Security without the Anne. It took almost six months with all the trouble. I finally got it. I have no idea what they stuck on me for Confirmation. They said it’s Patricia Anne, and I said that’s not my name. When we had to take a name here, they gave three choices; ones from a list who had come and left, deceased, and one of our own. Sister Mara Rose kept trying to tell me to take a name after my Mom and Dad. I said I love them to death but I was not going to tag myself with Blanche Julius or Julius Blanche. I said no thanks. Anne Barbara was on the deceased list so that was one I put. I put Patricia first and then Anne Barbara I only had two on my list. So they gave me Anne Barbara.

Interviewer: Did we already have Patricia?

Pat: We had a whole lot of Patricia’s.

Interviewer: You just wanted plain Patricia?

Pat: Yes. They said well we have a Patricia this, and a Patricia that. And I said but you don’t have a Patricia Haley. (laughter) So I couldn’t get Patricia so I went by Anne Barbara for a number of years.

Interviewer: I didn’t remember what your name was.

Pat: Yes it was Anne Barbara. When I taught in Louisville and Ohio it was Anne Barbara is what I went by. When I taught in Louisville, I taught at St. Mathias, St. Bridget’s and Immaculate Heart of Mary. When I went to Ohio, I taught at St. Latisaul(?) up there. That was the nicest mission. Sister Louise Smith was there and Sister Anne Gast, I don’t know what the other names were, Sister Ann Salma she was the oldest. They were some card playing ladies. I used to fly because I was doing preaching ministry too, so on the plane they would give you free card decks. So they depended on me to bring those cards. This one time I forgot and their cards were about faceless because they played so hard with them they came and said “we need the new deck” (I didn’t have it) and I said “I forgot”. Oh they talked about my soul. I had to fly next week but I didn’t forget that time. I brought several decks back. When I came to Louisville, I studied at the University of Louisville in Urban Development and Governmental Administration. Now I didn’t finish the degree because I got sick. I was lacking about six hours from finishing the Masters. At the time they had a Title 14, and nine came out equalizing things for girls, so they had meetings in D.C., they had a hard time finding people who wanted to go. So I said “I had nothing to lose”, so I was willing to go. I got a new pin stripe suit and a brand new briefcase, like I had something in it. They flew us all there and put us up and everything. I marched in there like everybody else did. Like I knew everything I was doing and what I was there for. But I’m glad I went. It was a lot to learn. I learned a lot in the process about the law and what they hadn’t been doing for girls. That was well worth going. I was able to apply in Ohio and when I came back I taught at Immaculate Heart of Mary School. There were all kinds of equipment they had available for students that weren’t being used. A lot of principals didn’t know how to apply for it or didn’t want to bother; like math equipment, science equipment, and computers all of that was available for schools. So I managed to get a lot of those things for Immaculate Heart. That helped. When I went the very first time to the islands, I went to the Bahamas, they were having difficulty with their schools, I told them about some of the advancements up here. But at that time they didn’t have it because they were on the English system. The British had taken over and it was the British Virgin Islands. They didn’t have a lot of advantages among the island at least in the island for the blacks there. I had the opportunity to go there in 1969, to stay at the Sidney Poitier’s Villa. He and Harry Belafonte were there and Paul Newman was there talking politics. They were trying to get the Bahamian sisters and priests interested in politics, because they were not interested. So we had started the National Black Sisters Conference and the Clergy Caucas in 1968 and thought we might be some help. And we were.

Interviewer: Today is August 24th and Sister Pat Haley is going to continue telling us her story.

Pat:

I was at the Holy Family High School in Insley, Alabama with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. We also had the hospital up there. On the work study program worked at the hospital and I think I mentioned we were “Ben Casey” girls rather than Candy Stripers. I graduated high school in 1963 and came to the

Sisters of Charity in September. I had to come up early because the Pastor and the principal drove me up. My dad came with me. My mother had two younger children, so she had to stay home. I came up on August 22nd, on my birthday. They put me in a room right next to what is the Community Meeting Room over there now. There were two bedrooms.

Interviewer: Oh those two guests rooms over top of the Colonial stairs.

Pat: That’s right. I was at the one if you’re looking at it, to the right. Sister Bridget Clifford, Sister Adrienne, whose has now left, her name is Marcia Leslie, and Sister Eva Kowolski were assigned to me as “big sisters”. They took care of me for that week before entrance date. The entrance date was September 8th. We were 45 in number. We were from all over the place. I guess I got closest to the five of us who are left now, and that is; Betty Blandford, Marie Becker, Rebecca Miles, and one more and myself. Sister Kaye Glump, celebrated with us. She joined when the congregations merged. But that’s all. The ones who were in the Community and left several of them, we still get together. They come out here and we go to one of the restaurants. We I could still drive we would have the meetings in the city. But they come out here now which is really nice. They come out a couple of times a year. As many as can get together, we said we would meet every five years, the Good Lord willing”.

Interviewer: So you all were a close class?

Pat: Yes we were. The class behind me, we didn’t like them. They were just pure tattle-tells. What they were telling was true, but they didn’t have to tell.(laughter). Sister Mary Madaline, theologian, had them. She would have us for class because we were second year novices and they were first year. They would have told her ahead of time whatever they were going to tell. So she would come in and fuss at us for the first 15 minutes, and we would roll our eyes at them and then she would get started. When we moved up to Russell Hall, we were the first two groups to live there. Sister Anne Patrick was in charge of the dining room. (Interviewer – Margaret Patrick) Sister Margaret Patrick, this one particular day she decided to do pizza. I’m not fond of pizza anyway, but she did pizza, and so that little group jumped in ahead of us and they piled their plates all higher and deeper. Come to find out the pizza was liver (laughter). So we were just grinning. She pulled some boloney and cheese out for us and did we grin when we passed them with our baloney and cheese. They had that liver pizza.

Interviewer: She was getting rid of the leftovers.

Pat: Yes she was. (lots of laughter ) Oh my, we could thank good enough for.

Interviewer: Who were your Directors?

Pat: My Postulate Director was Sister Mara Rose and we had Sister Constance Mueller. She was a dear. She was just wonderful. We used to call her the “Shoes” because her shoes were spit shined all the time. It was like she was in the service. She had those shiny shoes. So we called her the “shoes”. You know we weren’t supposed to be smoking and anything like that, and supposed to pass all that candy and all those earthly things. We were supposed to pass them in, well there were two or three who were smokers, and they would pass them back, so they were out in the cemetery one day when we had free

time which wasn’t that often. They were out there smoking and some of us still had some duties and we had to take the dish towels up to the attic. So we were up there hanging them and for some reason Sister Constance came up, I guess she came up to see if we were doing what we were supposed to do. You could look out over the cemetery and she looked out and you could see these smoke rings going up. So she said to two of us who ever was in there to go out and let the ones out there smoking know that she knew they were smoking and they had better put those cigarettes out and she would see them later. So we went out and told them and they almost swallowed the cigarettes. It scared them to death. What they had actually done, they were down to their two and they would break them so they would last awhile. So they were down to their last two. Let me see what else happened. We used to have a lot of fun. That old trolley with Mr. Tobins’ name on it, well we used to have to take it down to Sister Mary Henrietta, with the chickens. So we’d take it down but we would ride it down. We’d do like the bob-sledders do in the Olympics. We would get started and had one that would push it and then jump on and down there we would ride. One would stand at the top of the hill as a look-out and let us know that somebody was looking. Those are the kinds of things that they told on us. Once and awhile some of the (profess not sure) would catch us talking in places we weren’t supposed too. I remember Sister Constance said to us one day under (… not sure) we were smoking in quite places. And besides during sacred silence we weren’t even supposed to be talking. So one day I braved my hand up and asked her, “I don’t even know who told you but how would they know they weren’t even supposed to be in the places where the Novices were anyway”. She never corrected us again.

I think I mentioned about the lifeguards before? Over half of that class could swim. I think everybody in that class could swim but me. Over half were life guards. That really wanted to swim but only the profess could swim, not even the juniors were allowed in the pool. We had one life guard who taught phys-ed, Miss Lou, she would have to be in there with the Sisters. Otherwise she would be teaching. So they wanted somebody brave enough to go ask Sister Constance if we could swim. So they all looked at me. I said I’d do it. So I went to ask her, and she listened and didn’t say a word. I said they would lose their licenses if they can’t have it renewed. I said Miss Lou can do that. Some of them could take turns and even the profess could go more often if some life guards could be there. She listened dutifully, and about two weeks later this book appeared. A Fitzgerald, one of those Fitzgerald books and it was opened to these swimsuits. The page was opened to these coveralls, bloomer looking things (laughter). She never said a word, never ever said a word. Just this book would be opened to this page and different ones on recreation came by and looked and said nobody’s going to wear that(laughter). So they would turn a couple of pages. They had a whole bunch of bathing suits. So they would open it to another page and put that out there and they would come back and it would be back on the other page (laughter). So finally there was a compromise. Somebody brave enough circled two of them and they came down below the knee, and kind of full at the top. That was what she ordered for those who wanted to go swim. Most of them did but I didn’t know how, so I didn’t go near that pool. I said to herm “Sister Constance, I know you didn’t say anything but I don’t swim. I wasn’t asking for me but I just never learned how to swim because back in the segregation days there were no pools for black kids”. I never did learn and I wasn’t go down by no river were my brother went. So we didn’t learn how. My older sister when she went to the Air Force it didn’t bother them that she didn’t know how to swim, but told her by the time boot camp was over she would know how to swim. They just threw her in. She

said, “You had to do something.” So she learned how to paddle until she learned how it to swim. That’s how it was. And she said it only took one time (laughter). She and I used to trade letters and she would always talk about her boot camp at five in the morning and I would always talk about getting up racing the bells to get down to prayers at five in the morning. So we would line the habits up. I borrowed some more hangers and you put the pieces on different hangers. So all you had to do was kind of wash up because you took a bath the night before. All you had to do was wash in the water was so cold and that would wake you up. I would wait to the second to the last bell. They’d get and wash their face and I could dress in five minutes. Then I would be on my way before the last bell. I always made it. This one morning, there was a couple of us who did that, she’d just left. She was kind of in a hurry. You had to pour water in that sink next to Sister Constance’s room. But she opened the wrong door and threw that water on Sister Constance (laughter). And I acted like I didn’t see it. I was behind her but I just ran on down the steps. I didn’t see a thing. We learned how to sleep while doing meditation. We would fix the veils real tight behind our heads so if we went this way they would pull us back. I was second into the pew and one of the ones, I can see her now, when she went to sleep and fell into the aisle. People thought she fainted, and she just let them think that too (laughter). They brought her upstairs, brought smelling salts. So at lunch time we asked if she was alright and she said, “I went to sleep”. Ohhh I loved them. That was a good class (lots of laughter).

When we moved up to Russell Hall we took all these little bears, and rabbits and things we had, our stuffed animals. Instead of leaving them in our room where they were supposed to be we put them in the Chapel on the little benches (laughter). So I guess Sister Constance got tired of looking at them. So this one morning when we were in there just for prayers, she came with this big old box and went to each one of us but didn’t say a word, with that box. She was the big silent type. We knew we had to put our stuffed animals in the box. About a week later she put the box out in the recreation room and told us we may pick our friends up (laughter). She said, “There’s no room for them in the Chapel”. So we didn’t do that anymore. But what we could get into we got into.

There were a couple of them that I had a hard time with because they weren’t used to black folk. But gradually we got along. I was bound to make them speak. They tried not to speak to me. But I would “Good morning, Good afternoon”, I say “Oh you didn’t see me?” They would put their noses in the air. But one of them, she writes me every season I get a card. Before she left, she left community, she apologized. She wouldn’t speak to me when I first got here. She wouldn’t look my way. I said that’s alright I’m going to get her.

Interviewer: How about the profess sister the novices ahead of you did they give you any trouble?

Pat: The class ahead of me not one bit. Sister Eva Kolwaski’s class they were wonderful not a one of them. The other group we weren’t around that much. I didn’t have any real contact with them. But a lot of the profess would move if I came into Chapel and sat next to them they would get up. Several of them did that. In the summer time, that’s alright I’ll fix them. We had those huge fans and our little group would be washing dishes in the dish room and cleaning the kitchen with the pots, and we were kind of hot and wanted to be in front of the fans too, so I told them I would go in first. So I would go in and sit as close to the fans as I could and they would get up (laughter) and then we would sit in front of

the fans. There was one Sister that told Sister Constance that I didn’t have my beads, you know we had the 15 decade, so the little knob on the boxes and they would catch and would pull the rosary apart. And at recreation I got tired of mending those rosaries, so I had it on but put in my pocket. She was noticing all of that. Now a whole lot of us did it, but she told on me. So Sister Constance asked me at one of those chapter of faults about that. I said, “ I have it on.” And she smiled. I said,” I don’t know who said it to you but the next time some of those Sisters decide to spend their time talking about me, so would you please ask them to talk about me with you to my face and I will be happy to explain to them what they don’t know. I really mean that. Would you please ask. I don’t believe in talking about people behind their backs and I don’t like it”. She said she would and two of them she did. She really did.

When we first got here as Postulants they were signed as duties for the black workers and the white workers, and I assigned to the white man’s kitchen. I thought there ain’t no way I’m gonna do that. So Mother Lucille was coming down the hall, and I knew we weren’t supposed to be talking, but I stopped her. I told her I know this is irregular but I would like to have a meeting with you and your counsel. I’ve been assigned to a duty I simply will not do. The next day through Sister Constance, she said you have a meeting with Mother Lucille and the counsel and it was that afternoon. I told Sister Constance what it was. I met with them and told them that I don’t think it is right to be segregated in a place like this. I just spent my years in high school and years before that fighting segregation, and knew I was coming into a white world, but there is no excuse for this. Sister Mary Ransim, bless her heart, she said, “What would you suggest we do?” I looked at her and said, “It’s just a petition between the two dining rooms and if you have a ladder and screwdriver I can take it down. A bottom and a top and all you need is to unscrew them”. Mother Lucille said “we will have to have a conversation with the workers”. And I said, “ You didn’t have one before. It was decided by the counsel and I will not work in a segregated dining room. Obedience or no obedience I won’t do it. If you think you need to send me home that’s all right too.” They didn’t say anything else but about a week later it was down. A lot of the workers didn’t like it but they took it down. In the hallway there was a white fountain and a colored fountain and I said you need to do something about those two fountains too. So they did. So Sister Mary Ransim later said to me “Thank you”. And so did Mother Lucille.

Interviewer: Did they change your duty or did you still have to work in the dining room?

Pat: Oh once they took the wall down I did it. I just told them I wasn’t going to be in a segregated dining room. So I went ahead and told them I would do it then. I took my five weeks, and the next five weeks I was sweeping these stairs, from the top floor of those Colonial Hall stairs. And I would lead with my behind coming down sweeping with a little brush and dust pan and a rag with furniture polish. The next one after that one I was assigned to the Chapel with Sister John Ann. They gave us like five and six weeks but I was there a year. I like there with Sister Trinia Tom Maria. When they told me I was going to be assigned to the Chapel, I thought aw shucks I’m going to learn all this that and the other. And I got there polishing all those candles. You know those great big candles. So the men would set them down and there I was polishing those candles and I thought I was going to learn all this liturgical stuff (laughter). Both the Sisters said never have we had them shining like that. I said to myself, I guess not (laughter). I was with them a whole year and I did learn some other things. But I used to help lay the

vestments out. I knew a lot from school, Holy Family, because we used to sing in the choir, but before Mass the sodality used to take care of all of that. They had a junior sodality and my mother made sure we were in that. We used to have to iron the altar cloths and do all that. So I knew all about which cloth went on what. I couldn’t name them but I knew where they belonged. So that’s what I thought I was going to be doing. But she fixed me polishing those candlesticks. Then we were assigned to the big kitchen. That was quite a while. In the summer when the Profess came for Retreats they would take over. Boy, were we happy. We called some of them “Kitchen Beauties”.

Interviewer: Why did you call them that?

Pat: Some of them were really attractive. But they were real prissy (laughter). They would have their noses in the air. They knew they weren’t supposed to speak to us so we would try to make them speak but they wouldn’t do it. We would say Oh “Kitchen Beauties” (laughter). We were just devils. That’s all it was. A few of them would smile and go on but some of would just (some type of jester) have their noses all in the air. We would just say they’re just old “Kitchen Beauties”. I think they knew we called them that.

In my ministry I worked in Louisville. I taught at three schools.

Interviewer: That’s after you made vows?

Pat: After I made vows. The vows were in ’66. I forget the year for finals. It was about eight or nine years because the maximum was ten. Needless to say we took the maximum. Poor Sister Ann Victoria was the Louisville Provincial, she and Sister Barbara were looking for us, but we were out partying, to sign some papers beforehand but we didn’t know they were looking for us and finally we showed up and Sister Ann Victoria said, “It’s about time.” I remember that “Well it’s about time”.

Interviewer: Now was Sister Barbara the Superior?

Pat: Yes, yes she was. So we were able to do what we supposed to do because the next week were the vows. I did mine at Immaculate Heart in Louisville, and different ones did theirs’ in different places.

Interviewer: Oh these were your final vows?

Pat: Yes these were the final vows.

Interviewer: You made first vows here?

Pat: We made our first vows here.

Interviewer: Did you make them at Russell Hall or St. Vincent’s?

Pat: No down here at St. Vincent’s. Father Bancroft was the presiding priest. There were a couple of other priests who knew some of the Postulants. They were on the altar. There was about six or seven altogether. It was nice. My parents were able to come, I mean the whole family was able to come which was nice. Then the teaching ministry was for five or six years I don’t remember. But it was St.

Mathias, St. Brigid, and Immaculate Heart of Mary in Louisville. Then I went to Columbus, Ohio. They were going to assign me to one of those suburban parishes, I can’t think of the name. It was a very wealthy swanky parish. I said to Sister Constance, “Is it integrated?” She said, “No.” Then I said, “Well I’m not going.” She said, “Well what do you want to do?” I said, “Do you have a school that is integrated?” Well we didn’t. Well the only one that came close was St. Latissale(?). There were 500 kids in the school and ten blacks. I had three of them in the second grade. I told her that was better than nothing. So I went ahead and went St. Laz. Sister Louise Smith was there. And Sister Ann Selma was Superior. Sister Ann Selma was the oldest. Sister Ann Gatz was Andrew Maria I think first and then she changed to Ann. Sister Wilma Rudolph, she’s still there. I forget the other ones, there were a few more. I lived with Sister Mary Jane .. (?) at St. Mathias, with Sister Mary Monica. The house was good but the priest was a strong racist. I didn’t care for him at all. Sister Mary Monica had to tell him about himself. She was the Superior. I was there when Dr. King was assassinated and he didn’t mention it. There were some five masses and he didn’t even mention it. She told him. She went to all the masses just to see and told him about it, Father Greesebaum.

Interviewer: You think that was Margaret Rose’s brother?

Pat: I’m not sure of the relationship, but I’m sure it was Father Greesebaum. He didn’t speak to me the whole time I was there. I know that but I thought, that’s all on him.

Interviewer: How long were you there?

Pat: A year. Just a year in teaching ministry. I came back to Louisville and was going to finish up at the University Louisville with a Masters in governmental administration. I was living at St. Thomas but got real sick.

Interviewer: St. Thomas Moore?

Pat: St. Thomas Orphanage.

Interviewer: Oh OK. St. Thomas/St.Vicent.

Pat: Yes. What’s her name? Alice Casper was in charge there. That was a good group. Eva Kowalski, Sister Anna Jean was there. The oldest one, little tiny thing, we called her Peaches. I don’t know remember what her name was but she used to look after Father Landers, and she was always trying to turn his mattress. So Eva and I would catch her and say we will do it just let us know. And she would say “I can do it”. The mattress was 12 times her size. It was one of those doubles. So Eva and I would go in and turn the mattress for her. There were two others but can’t remember who they were. But Eva talked me into going out one day to help her put some tomato plants out. A lot of the kids were doing it. She showed me what to do and I was busy doing it and the kids would to six to my one putting them in the ground. I didn’t do more than five. I looked up and saw this snake. Well that was the end of that. I just remember running and screaming SNAKE. I never went back. I am not a farm girl at all. They closed it and I was there a year. I would have been longer but I got really sick. I had to leave. I didn’t finish my degree. I still had about eight more hours. From there off and on I had been doing some

speaking engagements about Black History. I put together some programs in Black History. I had been doing several of those at schools and places like that. I remember I did two at Lasolet in Ohio. Now I did one at the other school they were going to send me that wasn’t desegregated. I did go for Black History month and did a program there. So I asked Sister Barbara Thomas, if I could just do that as my ministry, preaching, revivals and speaking? She said if that was what I thought I wanted to do. And I said I would really like to do it and be in the Black Community. There weren’t a lot of sisters who wanted to live in a Black Community and I wasn’t about to live in an all white neighborhood with the attitudes during that time. So the one group, Kathleen Flarety, Kathleen Shia, Janet Daughtery, Kateri Kenyon (?), I don’t know what her given name was, because she didn’t change. Barbara Houston, she was a transfer, but she left a Black Sister and she was a nurse and Peggy Corbett. We lived first on Chestnut Street and then when the old Sacred Heart rectory became available, they were going to tear down the school building but the rectory was there and it had boo coos of room. Father Tony Heitzman and Father Charles Mackin asked us if we wanted to move in and so we did. That was at 18 th and Broadway. We were there for I know five years at least. From there that’s where they were tearing down old abandoned houses, and all of that so we made the news. I didn’t get arrested because I was in Indianapolis marching with another group. They were supposed to not do it until I got back. But they went ahead. The Tenant Union decided they were going to move it up. So they did and blocked one lane on Dixie Highway. They had two lawyers on our side and they told us exactly what to do but they arrested them anyway. They were arrested for throwing missiles in the street. It was debris. So they all got arrested. They wanted to set the trial and they wanted to do it all at once. They all said we want individual trials. Ohh the judge was not a happy camper about that but you had to do it if you asked for it. Kathleen Flarety was the first. They were going to put it in this little courtroom, and this judge was a Catholic, and he knew all about the case. Well he really didn’t want to try it. So we said what we’ll do from Plymouth Settlement House where Mr. Morris Jeff was the Director. They had a program for older people and a program for young people. So we got two school buses, one for the older folks and one for the young ones and bring them down to the courthouse. I think they got a bus from here, Nazareth, to bring some of the Sisters here. Mother Lucille was on the bus. The seniors stayed, but we brought the children in with balloons, and the balloons said “SHAME, SHAME” (laughter). So we just marched through and I marched with them and sang We Shall Overcome that I taught them. We just marched through singing We Shall Overcome back to the bus. The chaperons went back but I stayed. Mother Lucille was asked as the first witness, she was called as a character witness, the attorney for us said he had his character witnesses and called Mother Lucille Russell to the stand. She was spit shine and everything. She came up holding that pocketbook. They said “Raise your right handwhat is your name, and she told them what her name was. And they said “Do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth” and she said, “ So help me God”(laughter). She sat down but I forget the series of questions, but our Sisters who were there when she said “So help me God” they would say Amen. They were shaking their heads and saying alright Mother Lucille that’s alright. A couple of them had their beads saying “Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with… (laughter) It was a show. The judge said the to the prosecution came and sent this jury out, there was six of them, but one of them didn’t come back because he knew they would have to dismiss the charge so he just disappeared. They waited for a while. So they said one of our jurors just left the courthouse, we can’t find him. A big old cheer went up (laughter). The judge said then the “Case Dismissed”. They release Kathleen and then the judge left

town. He didn’t want to go through any more. They had a hard time finding another judge. The judge begged the prosecutor you need to settle out of court. We don’t need to be parading these nuns through all of these. So they finally settled out of court. If you could have heard that cheer when he said, “Case Dismissed”. It was really something. We had news reporters and everybody was down with their cameras , we were all smiling. When they got arrested, they took them down and took the “mug shots” and finger prints, Janet said, “Could you take another picture for my parents? And I’ll keep a set of fingerprints for myself” (laughter). The police captain was just at his wits end. He was about to die because they were no more serious than anything. When they all came up they were smiling and he would say “Wipe that grin off you face”. But they would say “every time you take a picture you’re supposed to smile”. They told me about when I got home. I never laughed so hard in all my life. I said,” I know you gave them all fits down there”. That captain said, “I don’t want to see you all again for anything” (laughter). So that was that little thing.

Father Morgan, the Voice, had a radio station for Louisville, for the Diocese. So he’s the one who started a few homes that Kathleen Flarety helped him with. They started one home for abused women and children and I moved there with her. Sister Barbara Houston also moved there. It was the three of us. That was on Brook Street. He opened on the next block over another one for abused teens. Sister Ann Victoria and Sister Antoinette lived there. He opened one for first offender women down the block from where we lived called the “Blitz House”. His intentions was as patrons went through they would eventually run the place. I think the “Blitz House” is still going but the other two aren’t. There was one young lady who forged a check, she wanted to be a lawyer, but she didn’t have her tuition. She was from downtown somewhere. She had forged a check. Usually they don’t let you go forward because that’s a felony, Father Morgan and some attorney he got pleaded in her behalf and Father asked for her to be paroled in his custody and they let her do it. It was U of L School of Law. Their Board had to meet and they heard her case they decided to let her go on for school. Father Morgan was from a fairly well off family. He had these two aunts he was raised by and they were pretty rich so he paid her way. He told her she would pay him back by taking charge of that “Blitz House”, being their attorney. She got her degree and she did. And quite a few other women came through and a couple of the early ones really took charge of the place. Like I said I think it is still going on. In the mean time when I was living in those places I was traveling doing the workshops, and the revivals. I was graced to get to a lot of the islands. I got to Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Thomas, and the three island that cluster of islands. I did workshops on each one of those. I stayed with the Sisters of Charity Convent Station in St. Thomas. In St. Croix I stayed with a deacon and his wife. He was the deacon at the church there. I don’t remember the name but it was in Fredericksted which is where the predominate black folk lived. In Christiansted it’s just about lily white. That’s where all the visitors come for vacation. That’s where they go. They don’t go to Fredericksted. The Bishop lived in Christiansted. The Black Bishop lived in Christiansted. I went to the Bahamas, the Virgins, St. Lucia, Barbados, and one other, St. Vincents. I managed to go to those and all the US states but ten. I would get amused in the islands, I would start a song and they would pick it up but it would be in their rhythm which was quite different than up here. It was cool too. I thoroughly enjoyed that and their food too. St. Vincent and St. Lucia I went twice. The Bahamas I went twice but the Virgin Island I went several times. First time to the Virgin Islands was in 1969 and they were having the election primaries to elect a black Bahamian for Governor. Sidney Poitier, the actor, Paul Newman,

and Harry Belafonte were at Mr. Pointier’s villa, and they invited there. It was lovely. They wanted us to talk to the local black priests and sisters about being engaged in politics. The priests were but the sisters weren’t. They were Benedictine, priests and sisters. So he invited all of us over for several meetings. We talked about that. We had started the National Black Sister Conference in 1968 so in 1969 we were invited. So Patty Grey, Mercy Sister, I forget her Sister name then. But Carlo College in Pittsburgh is where we had the first meeting of the Black Sister Conference. I was one of the founding members and also on the first board. The next year the board met we met at our Sisters’ place now, the Vincentians and Sister June Griffin she invited us because she got elected to the board as well. It was at the time we caught up and realize at that time she knew my sister and they palled around and they didn’t want to be bothered with me because I was younger. They became pretty good friends. She died much too young. She died of cancer.

Interviewer: She was an African American Sister of the Vincentians?

Pat: Yes that’s right. She invited us for our first board meeting there. We’re celebrating 50 years in 2018 as the Foundation for the Sister’s Conference. They’re making plans now and I am going to try and go. The dialysis clinic has social workers and they will set up a place for another clinic. It’s going to be in New Orleans.

Interviewer: They’re going to get you hooked up to somebody there?

Pat: Right. In the meantime in 1968 we started the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans. Now I was kind of in the background, but I was at all the meetings but I wasn’t a founding member of that. I was one of the first teachers. I was in the background and gave suggestions. I taught there for 28 summers and was there until I got sick and had to leave. When I was in Philly, I worked with the police department. They had a family service unit with real social workers. They had truant kids and those who weren’t social workers were assigned to deal with kids truant. That’s what I did working there. I worked there for eight years until they closed it. I was at Our Lady of Holy Soul Parish as a so called choir director. I told them I wasn’t a choir director, but they said you can sing and put your hand up and down (laughter). Well I did know how to do that. I was still traveling back and forth. That’s it basically as far as ministry goes. Oh I went to Florida and was director of Black Catholics and there for eleven year, Tampa, the diocese of St. Petersburg. I lived in Tampa, the wife was from India and her husband was from Trinidad. They had one daughter named Miriam. Miriam is in the twelfth grade now. When I first met them she had just turned three. I kind of grew up with them. They called me last night to wish me a happy birthday. It was very nice to hear from them. Those are the ministries that I had. Until now I’m grateful that Sister Rose Ellenor asked me about singing. She asked me a long time ago, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t breath. Not the very last time I was in hospital, the time before that when I was a Baptist east, they had all kinds of doctors come in the room. This pulmonary specialist was listening to my voice and he asked if I was a speaker and I said, “Well I did”. And he said, “I think you need to get back to that”. And he said, “Do you sing?” and I said, “Well I did”. He said, “You really need to do that, and said that’s the best lung exercise I could give you. It will make you breath. You need to pitch your voice higher. I know you can do it”. I used to sing higher but the breathing is still kind of labored now but getting better. He told me, “Do it whether you feel like it or not. That’s the

only way you will get stronger”. I said, “I‘ll tell you I’m not a Metso”. He laughed and said I’m sure you’re not. He said you can get up there. When I was working at St. Benedict, as a parish minister, I was also at Immaculate Heart. I had the choir at both places. At St. Benedict we had a director and he would try you out. He would take each one of us and we would step up and he asked you what voice did you sing? I said, “Mr. Queen, do I know? I said I tell you what, if I’m standing next to an Alto, I sing Alto. If I’m standing next to a Second, I sing Second, beyond that I can’t tell you” (laughter). So he tried us out. He said ,”You’re a first second. You go over there”. I said, “Yes sir” and that’s what I did.

Interviewer: What city was this?

Pat: Louisville, St. Benedict and Immaculate Heart of Mary. St. Benedict is closed but Immaculate Heart of Mary is still active. They have a gospel choir now I started there and a little gospel choir at St. Benedict I started. I also help start the Office of Black Catholics in Louisville. I also helped in several cities their offices of Black Catholics and all of them are still going now. I was doing that all in between.

Interviewer: You’ve been a busy Sister and done a lot of good.

Pat: Well I tried.

The tape runs out but there was still more.