Sister Ernestine.. A dear friend to many

Biography

Sister M. Ernestine (Josephine) Jeck, FDC Holy Family Province

Born: Born: Oct. 16, 1916 New York City
Entered: Sept. 5, 1930 St. Joseph Hill Staten Island, NY
Received: Aug. 28, 1934 St. Joseph Hill Staten Island, NY
First Profession: Aug 5, 1936 St. Joseph Hill Staten Island, NY
Perpetual Profession: Aug. 25, 1942 St. Joseph Hill Staten Island, NY
Died: May 20, 2012 Carmel Richmond Home, Staten Isl.

Josephine Jeck was born in New York City in the early years of the twentieth century. She was baptized in St. Joseph’s Church in Yorkville and lived on East 78th Street with her parents, Peter and Magdalena Wagner and her older brother and sister.

When she was only one year old, their tranquil family life was shattered by the death of their father in a tragic accident.

In order to support her children, Mrs. Jeck went to work and so took little Josephine to day nursery. But, God already had his plan for her future in motion. When she was five, a friend told her mother that the Sisters who operated St. Mary’s Residence for Women on East 72nd Street were opening a boarding school on what was then a rural Staten Island.

Little Josephine was enrolled and eventually became a member of the first graduating class of St. Joseph Hill Academy. In 1934, drawn by the example of the Sisters who had raised and educated her, she became a novice in the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Charity with the name Sister Mary Ernestine.

Her first teaching assignment after religious profession was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Subsequently she taught in several schools in the East and Midwest. In 1952 she returned to St. Joseph Hill and there are women today who have happy memories of Sister Ernestine as their third or fourth grade teacher. Those who experienced her kindness in their early years were happy when Sister was assigned to the high school faculty in 1958.

During her entire career, her primary objective was to teach her students about God’s love for them and to foster a personal relationship with Jesus.

Sister Ernestine’s family was always very important to her and she delighted in attending family gatherings and receiving visits, phone calls and letters from them.

After receiving a degree in Library Science, her “station” became the library in the newly built high school. Besides the ordinary service of a librarian, we can compare her God-given “mission” there to an anchorite in 4th Century England. In a room attached to the church in Norwich lived Dame Julian who shared the wisdom, fruit of her prayer and contemplation with all who came to her window. Her chief message from the Lord for those dark medieval days was, “All will be well, all manner of things will be well!” So, the faculty and students who had occasion to enter the library and stop by Sister Ernestine’s desk received a smile and kind words that assured them that God’s love would be the solution to all that was troubling them. All this happened quietly and unassumingly, appreciated only in the accumulation of hundreds of friends sharing memories over the years.

We hope that Sister Ernestine’s smile is now glowing with the sight of the Lord who loved her throughout her long life and that she will be present to us with her prayers as we try to be, like her, messengers of God’s abiding love and care. All of us, sisters, family and friends, thank God for the gift of the life of this lovely sister!

R.I.P.

Sister M. Caroline Bachmann FDC

Compiled from various sources

The world needs your light

It is so easy to be overwhelmed by the depressing news of the the world.  That would be a terrible mistake.... God gave each of us many gifts to bring the good, the true, the beautiful and the loving to our world.   It is good to start with a smile.  How we get up in the morning is one of the most important acts in our day.  If the first thoughts are tense worries, about money, tasks, tests, commitments... we will be carrying a heavy load all day long and wonder why we are tired and lacking in enthusiasm.   A better way is to realize what a gift this new day is... to thank God for this gift that no one else can give and which is a sign of the love of the Creator of the Universe for one of his precious children.  The second task is to smile at the face in the mirror.  If you cannot smile at yourself, the world will be deprived of the wonderful gift you have to give....

Go now and be today's sunshine... no one else in the world can do that

Hurray for Hill Girls

These last few days I have had the pleasure of meeting almost all the high school girls of St. Joseph Hill which was founded by the Daughters of Divine Charity.  What a wonderful group of young women.  They reminded me of the older women who, after forty years of Communist tyranny joined together to have a plaque installed in their high school in Budapest which the Communists took away from the Congregation, dispersing the sisters without any warning or provision for their support.    The girls remembered the joy and enthusiasm for God and His people that their teachers had conveyed and they made sure they expressed this gratitude at the first opportunity.  All over Staten Island are successful women in many helping professions and strong mothers raising good citizens for our church and country. 

The girls showed their interest the promotion of women and children in Uganda by health care and education so that happy citizens can help their country join the group of responsible nations making a better world for us all.  God bless them.

Memories of Africa

Trying to live an environmentally supportive lifestyle I was rinsing out my glass water bottle. It required a great deal of tap water to get the last bubbles of dish soap out of the narrow neck…. As I ran more and more of the precious liquid my mind turned again to the experience of over a decade ago.

I was privileged to accompany our General Superior to the blessing of the newly built convent in the little village of Rushooka in south west Uganda. Google can find the nearest town called Kabale.

We left from Rome, Italy and had a midnight stopover in London. Having slept on the plane I was awakened as by a welcome mat, of the sun glistening on Lake Victoria as we circled to land in the airport at Entebbe near the capital, Kampala.

The sisters greeted us and took us on a dusty red road to the city of Mbarara where their diocesan bishop resides. We stayed at a Catholic hostel built for missioners and others travelling in the country and then continued on the same road to Rushooka. Since the convent was not ready we slept as the sisters had for a year, in a hut very much like the best house in the village. The walls were made of sticks and mud and the room sister had lent me was filled with the low bed. She said not to be disturbed if things were crawling on the cross beams over my head. I hoped she didn’t mean a leapard and fell into an exhausted sleep. The next day I tried to wash in a basin as I poured water from a very heavy jerry can to rinse my tooth brush. We had breakfast and prayers in another mud walled room and then explored the village. Happy children followed me everywhere, especially when they could see the picture I had just taken on the tiny digital screen at the back of my camera.

We were all busy preparing the new convent and the entire village for the wonderful celebration to bless the new convent, constructed of local brick. On the big day the Bishop, Msgr. Bakjenga of Mbarara arrived. Mass was celebrated outdoors under a blue United Nations tarp. It rained briefly during the celebration and water had to be poked out from the recesses in our covering. Singing was joyful, in English, children danced and women gestured. Many new friends of the sisters attended and afterward the entire village had a great feast. In the convent the bishop and guests from far had a chicken dinner and all around the villagers sat with bowls of the banana preparation called matoke, enriched with meat and sauce.
We moved into the convent that night and had accommodations which were more familiar to us northeners, but water was still in jerry cans hauled by truck from a spring five kilometers distant. In the mud hut which served as an infirmary people gathered in the waiting room under a tree as the sisters treated various ailments.
The faith came to Uganda through the ministry of the so-called White Fathers and was nourished by the blood of the Uganda Martyrs, page boys who resisted the sinful commands of the king.

Since the sisters have come to the village, health care has become officially certified and is in a new building. Except in times of seasonal drought the people have food but they need cash for living improvements and for education. The sisters began a program of giving widows pregnant goats which began a herd for sale and for protein. There is a cooperative for raising pigs. A Sister taught sewing and nutritious cooking and another watched over the orphans cared for by the village. They now have a mill also run as a coop which grinds the grain they grow eliminating the expensive middle man. The success of ornamental sunflowers brought the idea of growing a variety that produced oil for sale and this is now another profitable enterprise.

As more women wanted to follow our charism and join our congregation we began a formation house in Mbarara where they could live and work while they completed their education. Now there are plans for a house in the capital which can some day give service and training to women who might otherwise be at the mercy of international sex traffickers.
The people of Rushooka were good Catholics thanks to the ministry of Franciscan priests who also inspired our General Superior to send sisters. All people need health care and education to live in freedom and human dignity. In our world this necessitates money. Water has been brought into the village. There are still jerry cans but they must be carried a much shorter distance. More and more boys and girls are able to go to school and receive even higher education. The health center is receiving the necessary requisites to fight the scourges of AIDS and malaria. Jesus healed body and souls and in this tradition the work goes on with missioners and local vocations.
For those of us who only visited for a time, every run of water and every hot shower is appreciated for the privilege it is and occasions a prayer of gratitude and intercession for the millions in the world who do not enjoy these, to us, simple pleasures.

Franziska Notes May 2012