PALLOTTINE COLLEGE: “Mater Admirabilis”
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN
On August 14, 1932, Srs. Germana (Germain) Kroetz, Lorenza Thum, Lidwina Leberle, and Edith Baeza arrived in Milwaukee. They found the convent ready for occupancy. Before beginning their work they took a ride to Lake Michigan. The lake was beautiful in August, and the sunset was breathtaking. In such beauty and peacefulness the sisters certainly couldn’t dream that before the year was over the temperature would drop from twenty-four to thirty degrees below zero! (F)
THE winter
The work of the sisters here was domestic work: cooking, laundry, and sewing. This was for the benefit of the Pallottine Fathers. The students were not included in the contract, which read as follows: “Each working sister will be paid an annual salary of $300. The sisters are to receive board from the Fathers. In return they will pay the fuel, electricity, and the ordinary small repairs of their home and premises.”
Milwaukee today
This arrangement proved to be satisfactory to both parties for thirteen years. Then in 1949, the Pallottine Fathers opened a new college in Madison, Wisconsin, and the sisters were no longer needed in Milwaukee. Those who labored in this apostolate spoke of their experiences in glowing terms.
