32
HISTORY
OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Sisters to their new home. When within hailing distance he
shouted joyfully that he was bringing the Sisters. This was on
the fifth of October, 1871.
The new orphanage, a fine building of stone,
had in the meantime been completed, and the Sisters moved in at once
with their charges. They also took over the Separate School,
Sister Kunigundis acting as teacher. She is still hale and active
in the orphanage (1916).
Gradually the girls that had taken so well care
of the orphans went to Milwaukee, where they entered the Sisters'
cominunity, while professed Sisters took their place in the orphanage.
Margaret Dietrich the first Superioress, had
died on Jan. 27, 1863. In the parish register you can read, after
the usual particulars: "Virgo revera sancta, i.e., a virgin holy
indeed." She was succeeded by Miss Maryann Ditner, who acted as
Superioress until Mother Joachim came to replace her. Then she
went to Milwaukee and entered the Community. She died there July
10, 1909. The writer had the pleasure of meeting her in the
Mother House a few
months before her death, still cheerful and happy as usual, though weak
and
sick.
Mother Joachim remained at the head of the
Orphanage to her death on Julv 6, 1901. A monuinent, erected by two of
her orphan wards, who became priests, marks her grave.
In 1875 the institution was enlarged by another
stone building containing the school and chapel on the ground floor and
dormitories on the top. Henceforth the school was kept in the
Orphanage and the old school is only used for meetings.
In 1890 another schoolroom of stone was added,
with sleeping rooms on the top. In 1902 a new brick building was
erected exclusively for the orphans. Soon after the erection of
the first building a well over 100 feet deep was dug. Mr. F. X.
Messner, of Formosa, later presented them with a windmill to pump the
water and $100.00 to pay the cost of piping the water into the
Orphanage. The lack of water was always one of the troubles, not
only of the Orphanage, but of the whole village.
Huge cisterns of concrete were built and did
not remedy the trouble. Another well was driven which supplies an
inexhaustible supply of the purest
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