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A i * The Southern Cross DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER Vol.56 No. 29 Thursday, August 21,1975 Single Copy Price — 15 Cents 9 Bishops Learn Of Work And Land At Tidy Creek GA. BULLETIN PHOTO SAVANNAH’S BISHOP RAYMOND LESSARD chats with two participants at the day long program at Tidy Creek where bishops mingled informally with hundreds of people from all over the southeast. BY JERRY FILTEAU TIDY CREEK CAMPGROUNDS, Ga. (NC) -- “Y’all come,” shouted Glenmary Father John Barry, between guitar strums, to the. people milling around a huge revival tent set on a small hill by Tidy Creek in Chattahoochee National Forest. And they came. Textile workers. Coal miners. Farm Workers. Sugar Cane pickers. Labor organizers. Mountain farmers. Victims of strip mining. Craftsmen and women. Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the unchurched. And a passel of Catholic bishops. They came mostly from Georgia, but also from West Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia. They came for a crafts fair, a country barbecue, a little country music and gospel singing - but mostly to ask the bishops to help them find justice. Tidy Creek also drew media people from as far away as New York and Denver. It drew newspaper reporters, who had to go four miles to the nearest phone - hanging on a tree beside a forest service lookout tower -- to call in their stories. And it drew television crews, including a CBS-News crew that brought in its own electrical generator so that it could get adequate lighting and sound for a planned network documentary on the event. The event at Tidy Creek was the second of three day-long hearings Aug. 7-9 on “Liberty and Justice for All.” It was part of the U.S. Catholic observance of the nation’s bicentennial, sponsored by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). Led by Archbishop Peter L. Gerety of Newark, N. J., chairman of the justice subcommittee of the NCCB Committee for the Bicentennial, the bishops and their advisers listened throughout the day to pleas for justice. They heard Hubb Spires of South Carolina, president of the Carolina Brown Lung Association, explain between coughs how 35 years of breathing cotton dust in a textile mill had earned him “brown lung” disease and forced retirement at age 55 on eight dollars a month pension. Spires and two colleagues urged the bishops to support efforts for better health conditions in the mills and better wages for the workers, who are among the lowest-paid factory workers in the country. The bishops heard Diana Lyons, a former migrant farm worker and now full-time union organizer in Florida for the United Farm Workers of America, ask why it is that migrant workers “work 10 to 12 hours a day putting food on other people’s tables, then come home and can’t afford to put enough food on the table for their own families.” A black Baptist lay deacon, Bill Worthington, asked the bishops to support strong health and safety legislation for coal miners. Worthington, who began organizing mine workers in the 1930s in the legendary bastion of anti-unionism, “Bloody” Harlan County in Kentucky, told the bishops that health and safety issues, particularly the ' 'moling black lung disease, are the chief focus of mine worker unionizing efforts today. Gustav Rhodes, a sugar cane worker and member of the Southern Mutual Help Association, said that sugar workers - politically powerless, frozen into subsistence wages, forced into substandard housing, and locked into immobility by debt -- “have only one hope, one hope that can’t be taken away - and that’s the Church.” J. W. and Kate Bradley from Petros, *Tenn., told the bishops of their almost single-handed efforts to slow down or stop the strip-mining of coal in their area. They described the poverty of the people, the destruction of the land, the waste of coal in strip mining. Strip mining, they said, recovers only 30 percent of the coal in a vein, while other methods in comparable coal fields can result in 90 percent recovery, and Bishop Raymond Lessard of Savannah, Ga., intrigued by Ms. Lyons’ testimony that farmworkers and small farmers should be united in a struggle against large, corporate agribusiness, said that his father in North Dakota had been forced by economic factors to sell the family farm to corporate farming interests. Another panelist, Father J. Bryan Hehir, international affairs specialist for the U.S. Catholic Conference, in response to Spires’ testimony on textile mill conditions, noted a personal tie of sympathy with textile workers. Before Additional Stories On Page 2 employ many more people. “We should have been a wealthy people when you consider what has come out of our land,” Mrs. Bradley said. More than 20 of the 300 persons at the hearing testified before the panel of bishops and their advisers. Their concerns were different, but yet the same. Woven through the testimony was a powerful sense of closeness to the land, of familiarity with hard work, poverty, and hardships, of overwhelming powerlessness in the face of big corporations and pro-business politics - but above all of a closeness to people that comes from sharing in hardship. The earthiness of the testimony and the revival-tent setting also seemed to provoke an unusual sense of populism among the panelists. the textile mills moved to the South in search of cheap labor, he said, his own grandfather had died working in the mills in Massachusetts. “And my father retired (from the mills) after 50 years with a pension of eight dollars a month less than yours,” the priest added. Repeatedly, witnesses urged the bishops and their advisers to use the regional pastoral letter by the Appalachian bishops, “This Land Is Home To Me,” as a starting point for a new social action program in the U.S. Church. The pastoral letter, issued in February 1975, expresses in strong poetic and biblical terms the rape of the Appalachian land and its people in the name of industry, energy, the economy and progress. St. Mary’s Home To Mark Its Centennial On Sept. 14 By Sister M. Monica Hundertmark At this time when everyone is focusing attention on the past two hundred years of our nation, St. Mary’s Home - A Catholic Child Care Home - on East Victory Drive has a short memory of 100 years of its past. St. Mary’s Home will observe its 100th anniversary of service in the Diocese of Savannah on the 14 th of September 1975. The Sisters, staff, and children of St. Mary’s, extend a most cordial welcome to all to share their celebration of thanksgiving. Bishop Raymond W. Lessard, of Savannah, will be the principal celebrant at the Centennial Mass scheduled for 1:00 p.m. A reception will follow until 5:00 p.m. St. Mary’s Home had its beginning in October 1875 when the Sisters of Mercy and twenty-five parentless children took up residence in the country' home that once belonged to Mrs. J. Lama, the mother of Sister Mary Gonzaga Lama. This home was located at White Bluff, nine miles from Savannah. The caring of these young girls was no easy task as the years were very trying due to the yellow fever epidemic. Prior to this move, the Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent’s Convent and School, at the request of the Very Reverend J. F. O’Neill, accepted into their care twelve homeless young girls in 1845. For thirty years the Sisters taught school, cared for, and supported the orphans and themselves from a meager income. Because of the increase of the orphan children, it became necessary for a Child Caring Home to come into its own. So, it was that St. Mary’s Home opened wide its doors to homeless girls in 1875. There at White Bluff the Sisters assumed exclusively the financial burden involved in the care of the girls by making weekly collections from door to door. From 1876 until 1877 some leading Catholic laymen and laywomen organized a society which had as its purpose to relieve the Sisters from the strain of the financial burden connected with the maintenance of the young girls. This society, established in 1877, was given the title of the Female Orphan Benevolent Society. One great undertaking of the Benevolent Society was to provide a comfortable and convenient home for the children. This home was located within the city limits. It was through the generosity of Captain Henry Blun, then an officer of the Society, and subsequently its president, that the lots in the 1600 block on Habersham Street were donated. Plans were finalized under the leadership of the Right Reverend William H. Gross, then Bishop of Savannah, and Captain J.K. Reilly, the first president of the Society, and a modem building was erected. With the assistance of the officers of the Society and the generous citizens of the city, Catholic, Protestant, and Jew, St. Mary’s was paid for within two years. The children and Sisters moved from White Bluff to their new home on Habersham Street May 2, 1883. In 1885, application was made to the Right Reverend Thomas A. Becker, the new bishop, for permission to have the Society chartered. This was accomplished and placed on file and recorded January 20, 1887. Owing to the numerous applications, the Society appealed to Bishop Becker for permission to enlarge the home. Permission was granted and ground was broken for a new foundation on July 10, 1898. The annex was completed in December 1899. The money was raised by selling certain securities belonging to the Society. In 1903, the dining room was enlarged and two classrooms were built, and in 1906, the Spalding Annex was made possible by Dr. R.D. Spalding of Atlanta, Georgia. In the same year, 1906, the Right Reverend Benjamin J. Keiley, then Bishop of Savannah, elevated St. Mary’s Home into a diocesan institution thus making it possible to accept children from all parts of Georgia. During these years applications to St. Mary’s Home were made to the President of the Society. The number of applicants continued to increase and St. Mary’s went through many physical changes between the years of 1896 and 1936. One of the Right Reverend Gerald P. O’Hara’s first acts as bishop of Savannah was to plan a modern, fire-proof building and spacious enough to care for the children more comfortably. Ground was broken for the present location of St. Mary’s Home on Sunday, May 30, 1937. This lovely colonial type home has been classified as one of the finest in the city. It stands in the center of spacious grounds and faces the famous Victory Drive with its parkway of towering palms on Route 80 East to Savannah Beach. Mr. Cletus W. Bergen of Savannah, Georgia was the architect. It was hoped that the children and Sisters would spend Christmas of 1937 in the new home. It was not officially opened until July 14, 1938 when Bishop O’Hara offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and blessed the new chapel. The seating capacity of the chapel accomodated two hundred people. On July 16, 1938, Bishop O’Hara again celebrated Mass at the Home, breakfasted with the Sisters and Children and blessed the other parts of the building and grounds. Bishop O’Hara urged the entire Diocese to become interested in St. Mary’s Home. It has been and still is the custom within the diocese to give the Christmas collection from each parish to St. Mary’s Home. Bishop O’Hara had the happiness of clearing the debt on the building when Savannah Catholics, Protestants, and Jews presented him with a check to cover the entire debt. The bishops of Savannah have always understood and supported St. Mary’s Home. Thus ends the story of the development of the buildings for St. Mary’s Home, but it does not bring to an end the changes within St. Mary’s. Prior to 1886 there were no definite regulations in accepting girls other than that they were orphaned and between the ages of one and eighteen. They were “comfortably lodged, tenderly cared for by the Sisters and their temporal interests looked after by the officers of the Society, assisted by a few lady collectors.” The increasing population made it necessary to study the intake procedure. In 1886, the Benevolent Society, which controlled the policies of the Home, laid down some definite intake regulations. The girls had to be between the ages of three and twelve, orphaned, or with one parent who was unable to maintain a household; and the child being in danger, or abandoned. When the child reached the age of eighteen, she was turned over to the next of kin. In the early 1900’s the intake procedure took another change. At this time the admission of a child was to receive care as a last resort and her stay was only as long as parental inability persisted. As soon as the home was sufficiently rehabilitated to care for the child, the child was returned to her home. Each case was investigated by the Vice-President of the Board, and parents or relatives, who were able, were expected to pay in full or in part for the child’s care. Referrals were made by the pastor, parents, or the Juvenile Court. Those placed by parents or relatives usually remained one year or less. Those placed by pastors or the Juvenile Court remained until they were of an age to care for themselves. After the 1950’s St. Mary’s was no longer an orphanage but a home away from home. In 1967, the intake policy accepted Boys between the ages of six and twelve; and girls between six and seventeen. The admission procedures experienced a more refined change in 1969 and in accordance with the licensing standards of the State. The intake procedures at the present time are: 1) An agency sends to the home a social summary with all the information it has on the child or if no outside agency is involved the Administration takes care of the intake. A medical examination signed by a competent physician should accompany this material. 2) It is important to review academic records in order to insure proper placement in school. 3) A psychological evaluation is recommended - when possible. 4) The Administration with her Admissions’ Committee review the information, and, if necessary this Committee seeks the professional assistance of a psychiatrist or a psychologist - before making a final decision. 5) After a decision is made the agency is notified and a pre-placement visit is scheduled for the child. Education was always one of the basic principles of St. Mary’s to provide as much education for the girls as funds would permit. In the early years, the girls attended school at the Home to the fifth grade and then completed their elementary education at Sacred Heart School. The girls of high school age attended St. Vincent’s School. After 1952 the girls no longer attended classes in the Home, but attended school at Nativity, Blessed Sacrament, and St. Vincent’s. It was in 1968 that the houseparents no longer taught in the school but devoted full time to St. Mary’s and Social Work. After 1969 the children attended both public and private school. Some few were also enrolled in special education classes at (Continued on page 3) SAINT MARY’S AT WHITE BLUFF - Front Row: Sr. M. Ansley, Sr. M. DeSales Reilly and Sr. M. Felicitas. Back row: Mrs. Jennie Reilly O’Byrne, Col. Peter Reilly, Mrs. O’Byrne and M. A. O’Byrne. Saint Mary’s Home On Habersham Street Opened in 1883