Presentation Sisters Featured in National Exhibit

By Chris Doan, Archivist
 

The nationally traveling exhibit, Women and Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America, sponsored by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, presents the historic contributions made by Catholic sisters to this country.

In the section From Kindergarten to College, a projector continuously runs photographs of Sisters in the ministry of education from the 19^th century to the present.  Photographs of two Presentation schools are featured -- Saint Joseph School, Berkeley (1880s) and the Salesian’s Earthquake Refuge School (1906) in San Francisco, where Presentation Sisters taught.

In the Spirited Adventurers’ section of the exhibit, the scroll of the first San Francisco Presentation Sisters is encased in a window box with a handle for viewers to turn for viewing.

The original scroll is located at the Sisters of the Presentation's Sacred Heart Convent (Shalom Community) in Kilcock, Ireland.
The Kilcock convent was originally founded as a novitiate by Mother Mary Teresa Comerford in 1878 as a place to train women in religious life as Presentation Sisters and eventually become members of the San Francisco community. 

It can be surmised that Mother Mary Teresa drew the scroll to share with the novice sisters the adventure she and four other Presentation nuns experienced in establishing the American foundation.  The scroll format is conducive to storytelling in that the narrative can be told in sections and thus give the listener a sense of anticipation of what happens next.

The scroll was loaned to Presentation Archives, San Francisco to be digitized for accessibility and exhibiting purposes.

Their stories are conveyed through a wealth of archival treasures, much of which is being presented for the first time in public and to a national audience. 

Archival items from the San Francisco Presentation Archives featured in the exhibit, include a 19th century scroll narrative of the sisters’ journey from Ireland to San Francisco, photographs of the sisters’ ministry in education, and letters written by sisters about their experiences during the time of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.

The exhibit is currently on view at the Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future in Dallas, Texas until December, 2009, and will then tour the country for three years.  Upcoming locations include Ellis Island and the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C.

For more information, including the exhibit schedule, please visit Women and Spirit

For a look at Presentation ministries today, click on Leading the Way Around the Bay