September 6, 1908
SISTERS ABANDON
ST. ANTHONY'S
AFTER EIGHT HARD YEARS
OF LABOR THERE.
HIRED NURSES NOW IN CHARGE
DISAGREEMENT SAID TO BE
BACK OF IT ALL.
Sisters Had No Interest in the Home,
Owned by Corporation, and
Worked There Contrary
to Precedent.
Bad news for the foundlings of Kansas City. The Sisters of St. Vincent, who for eight years have been in charge of St. Anthony's Home for Infants, have abandoned the work and left the home. Differences between the sisters and the women board of managers finally led to notice on the sisters' part that they would leave. Orders from the mother house of the sisterhood came to them a week ago, and now strange hands are ministering to the motherless babes. The trouble, it is said, has been brewing for a year.
The building occupied by St. Anthony's home is owned by a corporation consisting of Mrs. Richard Keith, its president, Miss Rose Altman and several other Catholic women of the city. The money for the purchase of the property has all been received in the way of charitable contributions, and as proceeds from church fairs and the like, but for some reason the property has always remained in the hands of the corporation, although it is an old established rule of the Catholic church that all church property be held in the name of the bishop, in trust for his successor. Many of the convents and educational institutions of the Catholic church are owned by the orders conducting them, but there are few cases, if any, on record where the property acquired by public donations, remains in the hands of the corporation's seculars, as in the case of St. Anthony's home. And thereby hangs the substance of the trouble which culminated last week in the Sisters of Charity withdrawing from the home.
TELL CONFLICTING STORIES.
Just what led to the present crisis is hard to determine, as those in a position to know refuse to talk, and conflicting stories are given out by both sides to the controversy. But it is said that some heated scenes occurred between Sister Ceclia, superioress of the home, and the women officers of the corporation.
The trouble resulted in a visit to this city last May of the mother superior of the black cap sisters of charity. With Mrs. Keith she visited Bishop Hogan, at which time matters were temporarily patched up, but no definite understanding was reached. Last Tuesday two of the sisters of charity left St. Anthony's home for Trinidad, Col., two for St. Vincent's hospital in Santa Fe, N. M., and the other left Saturday for the mother house, near Cincinnati.
There were five sisters in charge of the work at the home, whereas last night there were eighteen paid nurses, according to the statement of Miss Mary Workman, the matron.
BABY TURNED AWAY.
Miss Workman is a nurse who has been employed at the home for a long time, and was made matron and given charge of the home by Mrs. Keith, when the sisters left the institution. When a reporter visited the home last night, the piano in the reception room was open, a stylishly gowned young woman was fingering the keys, and St. Anthony's home no longer wore its convent air. Two women, one carrying a 6-months-old babe, left the home as the reporter entered. the child had been refused admittance at the home, an unheard of proceeding when the sisters were in charge.
"The woman wants to go home and leave her child here," said the matron. "She has been working and supporting it for six months, and now she wants to leave it here; hasn't she a cheek to think we should care for it for her?"
"The sisters were broken hearted at leaving here," said Miss Workman. "Their hearts were in the work, nad I could not bear to see them bid goodby to the infants they learned to love so well, and even to the building itself, the scene of many hardships to them."
Miss Rose Altman refused to make any statement regarding conditions at the home, referring the reporter again to Mrs. Keith, but she admitted that she had heard rumors of trouble between the sisters and the corporation controlling the home, but insisted that the rumors were not true.
