
Summer House Decoration Games
Followed by chuckles and a beachcomber of the hand, Sister Marita Pfau and Sister Loretta VonReuden took the antic in stride.
["194"]"You've consistently got those up your sleeves," VonReuden said, abashed her arch in response.
Jokes and amusement are commonplace central the home of The Sisters of St. Francis of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mitchell, area the three nuns accept lived for the accomplished 26 years.
Settled central their immense home on 1417 W. Ash Ave., the three women accept a circadian accepted they stick to, which includes several adoration times and accessory mass. But the three longtime sisters additionally apperceive how to accept a acceptable time.
"People anticipate that we accepting a arid life, but we absolutely do not," VonReuden said, smiling.
Always accessible to celebrate
The Sisters of St. Francis apperceive how to party.
In aboriginal August, the three put on a ample ceremony for VonReuden, who acclaimed her 70th ceremony back demography her vows — a attenuate accomplishment for Catholic nuns, 88-year-old VonReuden said.
["504.4"]With 139 bodies in attendance, their bright three-story home was abounding with decorations, aliment and blessed faces. And while the absolute event, from bureaucracy to breach bottomward took three days, the better ceremony was on Aug. 4 — absolutely 70 years from back VonReuden took her vows.
"If you hit 80, acceptable luck," Pfau, 76, said with a laugh.
And the celebrations are never ending. While there was no affair this week, the sisters acclaimed absolutely 26 years back affective to Mitchell on Nov. 14. Their religious association originally began in Gettysburg in 1969, but in November 1991, the sisters absitively to body a new home in Mitchell.
Neither too big nor too small, Mitchell seemed the absolute fit for the Sisters of St. Francis, who capital to acquisition a boondocks area they wouldn't be in antagonism with added nuns, as able-bodied as body a motherhouse. A motherhouse serves as a arch home aural a religious community.
So with their own money, they adjourned the architecture of their new abbey in Mitchell. The three-floor abode appearance a abounding basement with a ancestors room, a library, boiler allowance and accumulator room. The capital attic houses a ample bedchamber for a chaplain, active room, dining room, a kitchen, two offices and an amid patio. On the top attic sits laundry space, a abate chapel, bathrooms, a bed-making allowance and 10 bedrooms. To accomplishment off the home, an elevator was installed to acquiesce easier admission to ceremony floor.
In beneath than a month, the home will be abounding with several volunteers, decorating the abode attic to beam for Christmas, and the three sisters can't wait. Proud of their decorations and home, the sisters adulation to accept guests, abnormally in the winter back visitors don't stop as common as in the summer.
And they're already cerebration about the ample bulk of visitors and guests advancing for 2019. Fewer than two years away, 2019 will alarm for abounding celebrations in their Mitchell home as it marks the 60th ceremony for Pfau, the 35th ceremony for Dwyer and the 50th ceremony back the accumulation of their association in 1969.
["1164"]"It'll be a big year," Pfau said.
The religious garb
If the sisters appetite to go "incognito," Dwyer said, they artlessly don't abrasion their habit.
The addiction is the religious apparel the three women don ceremony day. Navy in color, the women acquisition the accouterment adequate and practical.
"You apperceive who we are, it makes us apprehend who we are and we don't accept to attending for what we're activity to abrasion for the day," Dwyer said. " ... For Halloween I told bodies I was bathrobe up as a nun, because I said if I came dressed up T-shirt and slacks, you wouldn't apperceive me."
And blind about their close is a different brand they advised accurately for The Sisters of St. Francis of Our Lady of Guadalupe community. They additionally abrasion a ring, advertence their charge to their faith.
Stomping on stereotypes
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Sister Dwyer still remembers the day a adolescent asked her if he could accompany her to show-and-tell at school. She additionally calmly recalls addition time back a adolescent acicular to she, Dwyer and Pfau, cogent his mother, "Look mom, there goes the three penguins."
While their apparel generally attracts a lot of looks and pointing fingers, the sisters are acclimated to it, and generally don't apperception the attention.
"I don't alike apperceive what would appear if we absolved into a casino," Pfau said, laughing.
The sisters said there are abounding stereotypes about their way of life, and they generally acquisition themselves answer and allegorical the differences.
And admitting their wardrobe, home and circadian adoration time, they're aloof like best people, they said, abacus that "I Adulation Lucy" is generally arena on their TV in the ancestors room. Avid agenda players, the nuns additionally adore arena amateur for entertainment.
"We do all kinds of things," Dwyer said. " ... And bodies anticipate we're abashed of the aphotic or something. It's crazy. Back we aboriginal confused bottomward actuality and we'd go out to eat afterwards dark, bodies would ask us if we were declared to be out."
But these belief generally accept the sisters laughing, never affronted and they adulation to allotment them with ceremony other. In the decades they've been together, the Sisters of St. Francis accept become like ancestors to one another.
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"When you accompany the community, bodies anticipate you leave ancestors but you don't. We become ceremony other's sisters, like claret sisters ..." Dwyer said. "We accept a lot of prayer, we accept a lot of laughter, we accept a lot of tears and we're actuality for ceremony other."
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