Alicia's Place
In The
News
Sisters Have Faith Old Home
Will Be Blessing For
the Needy
Duluth News-Tribune (MN)
February 12, 2006
Chuck Frederick on Duluth
The swing of a handbell, ring-a-ling, announced morning prayers
and the start of each day for 36 years at Duluth's Sacred Heart
Convent.
Dozens of Benedictine Sisters lived in simple rooms inside the
three-story brick structure on Second Avenue West near downtown
Duluth. They taught at the neighboring Catholic schools, including
Cathedral High School.
In 1978, though, the last of the nuns moved
out, and the building went bad. Converted into cheap-rent apartments,
the place was notorious for break-ins, fires, fights and muggings.
One night, a resident beat another to death. In 2001, the building
was condemned and forgotten.
The swing of a handbell, ring-a-ling,
announced a new beginning this year for the structure built in
1907.
More than 20 Benedictine Sisters returned to help rededicate
and bless the building. They lined the railing leading up the building's
grand staircase and led a prayer service. Their old bell started
the ceremony. Like something out of ``Sound of Music,'' the nuns
sang hymns and offered prayers.
 They prayed for the building's
new owners, the Duluth nonprofit Women's Community Development
Organization. It bought the building in December 2003 for $110,000
and then invested an estimated $756,000 over 11 months to renovate
it into 11 efficiency apartments for homeless women. The women
will learn job skills, battle demons and, hopefully, turn their
lives around with the stability of a permanent home and services
from Duluth's Human Development Center, which will have an office
in the basement.
The sisters prayed for Women in Construction,
the contractors -- some of them homeless women themselves at one
time -- who took a crumbling interior surrounded by solid bricks
and turned it into something livable and beautiful again. Several
of the workers took a break and attended the prayer service, paint
and plaster staining their folded hands.
The sisters prayed for
the new tenants. And for future tenants. At least 30 homeless women
wait on a list to get in, according to the Women's Community Development
Organization.
 And the sisters prayed for ``those who committed
any outrage against the human family in this building.
``May the
spirit of love that has filled these rooms continue to triumph
over the wounded and bring them peace,'' they prayed before extending
their hands in blessing over the rest of us at the bottom of the
stairs.
The sisters, who live at the monastery at the College of
St. Scholastica, then wandered the halls one last time.
The third-floor
chapel, where they gathered at 6:30 each morning for prayers. The
dining room on the first floor where they broke their bread. The
kitchen, where sandwiches, coffee and whatever leftovers could
be reheated were shared with down-and-out ``St. Josephs'' who knocked
at the door. Even the Waters of Siloam, which is what they called
their many-sinked washroom, the name a reference to the pool in
Jerusalem where Jesus healed the blind man.
 All of it is now carved
into sunny and surprisingly spacious efficiency apartments, each
home with private baths and kitchenettes. The fireplace that used
to dominate the nuns' community room now fills one apartment. The
nearly 100-year-old stained-glass portrait of St. John Baptiste
dominates another. He was the patron saint of the Christian Brothers,
the teaching order that first occupied the convent. The brothers
moved out in 1942 because for the first time, girls were being
allowed to attend Cathedral High School Church, and rules forbade
the brothers from teaching girls. The Benedictine Sisters moved
in.
``I'd like to move back in now. Look, you get a private bathroom,''
Sister Mary Christa Kroening teased, checking out an apartment
where her old room used to be. She lived longest in the convent,
from 1960 to 1978, and was the last to move out.
``This building
will again be helping the same people we helped: the poor and the
vulnerable, the ones who get cheated out in life,'' she said. ``It's
marvelous. It's new life.''
``As women who gave our lives to God
we want to see other women find their place in life. That's what'll
happen here,'' said Sister Mary Catherine Shambour, who lived in
the convent from 1954 to 1963 while teaching English and serving
as librarian at Cathedral High School.
``I loved it here. We were
one big family,'' said Sister Ramona Ewen, who taught typing, office
machines and other classes at the high school and who lived in
the convent between 1946 and 1963. ``We have lots of good memories
of this building. I hope the women moving make good memories, too.''
The swing of a handbell, ring-a-ling, marked the end of the prayer
service and the rededication. The gesture also signaled a passing.
Sacred Heart Convent became Alicia's Place, named for a Benedictine
Sister who ministered every day to shut-ins and others in Duluth's
inner city.
Her work continues.
CHUCK FREDERICK is the News Tribune's deputy editorial page editor.
He wants to tell your stories. Contact him at (218) 723-5316 or
cfrederick@duluthnews.com.
Copyright (c) 2006 Duluth News-Tribune
Reprinted with permission.
Convent Conversion
BENEDICTINE SISTERS WORK WITH A NONPROFIT TO RESTORE THEIR ONCE-PROUD HOME
Duluth News-Tribune (MN)
January 9, 2005
Chuck Frederick/News Tribune Staff Writer
 Hosts of prayers
used to soar heavenward every time the nuns drove past their old
home. Now, a group of Benedictine Sisters are offering up advice
and history lessons as plans are made to renovate the once-proud
but abandoned Sacred Heart Convent on
Second Avenue West, near downtown Duluth.
Women's Transitional Housing purchased the condemned, 98-year-old
structure a little over a year ago and is lining up money to convert
the three stories of bricks and windows into 11 efficiency apartments
for women in need and their children.
``I used to drive by and
say a prayer that something good would happen with the building.
Now it is,'' said Sister Mary Christa Kroening, one of the nuns
who now lives at the College of St. Scholastica Monastery. She
lived at the Central Hillside convent between
1960 and 1978 while teaching at the neighboring Cathedral schools.
``We have so many good memories there and we're thrilled this
is happening,'' said Sister Ramona Ewen, a resident of the convent between
1946 and 1963. ``We're very excited the building is going to be
used again, especially with the way it's going to be used -- to
help women. It's going to be fun to come back when it's all done.''
The 11 new efficiency apartments will provide affordable, permanent
housing, said Zoe LeBeau, co-director of Women's Transitional Housing.
A commons area will be on the first floor of the former convent.
Meeting rooms and offices will be in the basement. The nonprofit
Housing Access Center will offer assistance and services to residents.
`TERRIFIC ADAPTIVE REUSE'
An estimated $756,000 worth of renovations
at the convent is
expected to begin in March. If the project stays on schedule, work
could be done by October, LeBeau said.
The project's launch hinges
on an application for $180,000 in historic tax credits. The federal
government sells the credits to corporations to encourage the restoration
of historic properties. Corporations receive federal tax breaks
in exchange for their investments. Women's Transitional Housing
expects to hear about its application in March.
 When construction
is completed, LeBeau's group will nominate the convent for
the National Register of Historic Places, she said. The nearby
Sacred Heart Cathedral, now the Sacred Heart Music Center, and
Cathedral School, now the Damiano Center, were placed on the National
Register in 1984.
``This is a terrific adaptive reuse of another
great old building. It's a great project,'' said Duluth preservationist
Carolyn Sundquist, a member of the board of advisers for the National
Trust for Historic Preservation.
`ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY'
Financing for the convent project
includes $20,000 from the Benedictine Sisters, who trace their
history with the building to 1942 and their history in Duluth to
1881.
They first arrived as teachers from St. Joseph, Minn. Their
order's influence in Duluth has included orphanages, homes for
the elderly, the College of St. Scholastica and the Benedictine
Health Care System.
For more than a decade, including during the
1930s, the nuns lived at Sacred Heart Institute, which was across
East Third Street from St. Mary's Hospital at the site of what
is now the parking ramp for the Duluth Clinic. The institute was
an eight-block walk for the sisters to the schools in which they
taught.
The women moved into what would become Sacred Heart Convent in
1942 when the Christian Brothers, a teaching order, moved out.
Girls were being allowed to attend Cathedral High School, and church
rules forbade the brothers from teaching girls.
The sisters lived
in small rooms on the top two floors of the convent,
which had been built by the parish for $22,600 in 1907. Many also
slept in small rooms at a neighboring stucco-sided apartment building.
Coming from their rooms in both buildings, the sisters gathered
each day at 6:30 a.m. in the convent's third-floor chapel
for morning prayers. Then it was down to the first-floor dining
room and kitchen for breakfast. School started at 8 a.m.
Also on
the third floor was a sewing room and a community room with a small
black-and-white television. The sisters recall watching ``Car 54
Where Are You?'' and other sanctioned programs.
On icy mornings,
they struggled up Duluth's steep hillside from the stucco building
to the convent or from the convent to
the schools. When it snowed, they gathered at the convent's
large first-floor picture window to watch cars sliding sideways
down the hill. The back yard was sometimes flooded for a skating
rink.
During the 1950s, the women restored the convent's
hardwood floors, using pieces of plate glass to scrape off layer
after layer of varnish put down by the Christian Brothers.
They
remember that pigeons were such a nuisance, police officers had
to come at least once to shoot them. One pigeon flew in through
the chimney and fireplace, raising a ruckus.
``We used to have
the men of the parish come and do any kind of repair work we needed.
They'd come over once a week and we'd give them our list,'' said
Sister Ewen. ``We were one big happy family. There were lots of
good times.''
Other men visited the convent, too. Homeless
men the sisters referred to as ``St. Josephs'' knocked often at
the back door and were given sandwiches, cups of coffee or whatever
leftovers could be warmed up from the refrigerator.
``The building
is coming full circle now. It's going to be a place where people
go for help again,'' LeBeau said.
`A LOT OF PROBLEMS'
 Sister Kroening was the last Benedictine Sister
to live in the convent.
She moved out in 1978 after 18 years. A new Cathedral School, now
the Marshall School, had opened. The new convent, at what
is now Sylvan Learning Center on the eastern end of Marshall, was
her new home.
Difficult years followed for the former convent.
It became notorious. Court records indicate police were called
frequently for fights, fires, burglaries, break-ins, public drunkenness,
probation violations, assaults and other problems.
In 2001, when
the convent was known as Swede's Apartments,
one resident beat another to death during a drunken fistfight.
``There were a lot of problems there,'' said Terri Roeber, executive
director of the Housing Access Center, a Duluth nonprofit that
attempted to intervene on behalf of tenants to improve conditions.
``It wasn't good.''
In May 2001, the building was condemned for
habitation when its owners refused to correct code violations.
According to the Duluth Building Safety Office, convictions followed
for illegally living in a condemned building.
`SO MUCH PROMISE'
LeBeau and Women's Transitional Housing Co-Director
Deyona Kirk were familiar with the building's rough past. But the
solidly built structure, with its many private rooms and common
areas, intrigued them. They were looking to expand services and
decided to take a look.
``We were really nervous,'' LeBeau said.
``We had a bad feeling, but as soon as we walked through the front
door we felt the best energy. It was warm and comfortable and dry.
We could just tell it was a great building.''
The nonprofit purchased
the former convent in December 2003,
using a $110,000, low-interest loan from a national nonprofit called
the Corporation for Supportive Housing. Additional investments
totaling about $125,000 have since resulted in architectural drawings
and other plans. Total project costs exceed $1 million.
``It's
going to be so beautiful,'' LeBeau said. ``Wait until you see it
when we're done. This project has so much promise.''
Women's Transitional
Housing owns and operates 75 housing units in Central Hillside,
East Hillside and Lincoln Park/West End. About 20 are temporary
residences. The other units are affordable, permanent homes, some
with counseling and other supportive services offered on site.
Created in 1988, the nonprofit has helped thousands of women at
a clip of about 250 to 300 per year, LeBeau said. Most are either
homeless or low-income, or escaping abusive relationships or completing
substance-abuse treatment. Many have children.
Women's Transitional
Housing also is building three condos this year intended as homes
for some of its 15 employees or for the 15 employees who work in
the nonprofit's Women in Construction program.
The Women in Construction
Co. LLC will be the general contractor for the convent renovation,
LeBeau said.
``That means it's going to be a building for homeless
women built by women who used to be homeless themselves,'' she
said. ``And in a building that really was one of the first places
for social services in the hillside and in Duluth.''
The building's
history will be preserved and celebrated in photos and stories
framed and displayed on walls inside the restored convent,
LeBeau and Kirk said. The Benedictine sisters have been e-mailing
remembrances, sitting through interviews and visiting the building.
``Just walking through again brought back a lot of memories, a
lot of the things that happened there,'' Sister Kroening said.
 She and the other nuns were saddened to see peeling wallpaper,
missing wood trim and cracked plaster inside their former home.
The hardwood floors they worked so hard to restore and were so
proud of were barely noticeable beneath the grime.
But the women
also noted that the building's decorative stonework was intact,
that the curious little room under the stairway was still there
with its oddly placed Gothic window, and that the stained-glass
image of St. John Baptist de la Salle, the founder of the Christian
Brothers, hadn't been broken.
They saw the same promise and potential
as the leaders of Women's Transitional Housing.
``They helped confirm
for us why we bought the building,'' LeBeau said.
``It was great
to find out from them what everything was,'' Kirk said. ``The chapel.
The sewing room. Where the cook slept. And what all the buildings
were around there. It was so great. It's such a fascinating history.
I love this project.''
CHUCK FREDERICK
can be reached weekdays at (218) 723-5316 or at
cfrederick@duluthnews.com.
Copyright (c) 2005 Duluth News-Tribune
Reprinted with permission.
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