BVM’s experience of Butte ‘even better’ than imagined

Ed.: The BVM Congregation is celebrating its 100th anniversary of service and presence in Montana. A series of articles will be published throughout the year in recognition of this celebration.

By Jean M. Byrne, BVM
As a Chicagoan and newly minted BVM about to be assigned a teaching mission, I was most impressed when one of our number, Sister Grace Ann Callen, was assigned to teach at Immaculate Conception School in Butte, Montana. I had never heard of Butte but badly wanted to go there, a feeling that stayed until, finally, in 1964, I was sent to St. Joseph’s for a seventh grade homeroom and classes in seventh and eighth grades.
Because of the climate and distances, many Sisters in Butte were younger than the Community average and always ready for adventure. Some Saturdays, when we could spare the time, found us exploring abandoned cabins or deserted homes in ghost towns like Elkhorn. Waist deep snow didn’t matter; it just caked on our long black wool and fell off when ready; who cared? In December we went out to Fannie Kelly’s “ranch,” a homestead, to find and cut an early Christmas tree that we would bring back in our station wagon. To fit the tree in, two fully-habited Sisters, tree between them, sat on the deck, tailgate down, facing the following traffic. Those drivers must have been startled.
It wasn’t all play; we were serious about our job as educators and hope that those we taught profited as much from the experience as did we who taught them. I found the kids were more venturesome than the Chicagoans I had left; some would come in on Monday morning and tell that they had bagged a deer, or panned for gold in some stream, or on occasion had gone down into the shaft of an abandoned mine and retrieved treasures like newspaper printing matrices from World War II. Reading them, the kids were fascinated about a can of soup being eight cents; I was absorbed in the U-boat attacks described. I “tut tutted” about the danger of mine shafts, although I knew they’d go back there as soon as they could, as I would have.
We didn’t close school when it went below -50 degrees because our kids didn’t stay home; they were out playing and descending on uptown stores interfering with merchants, who in turn contacted the school system saying if our students could be out playing perhaps they could withstand the rigors of weather and go to school; from then on they did. My coldest (and oddest) day there or anywhere began at -46 degrees and by noon (thanks, Chinook) it was +38.
I mentioned that we were in full habit; that changed while I was in Butte, so December 7, 1964, I told the kids that when we went to Mass the next day, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I would not be wearing a headdress, but a small veil, and street length suit. While I rejoiced at the change, it had been almost two decades since I dressed that way and I felt self-conscious. So I told the class, “When I come into church, turn around and look, but do it just once.” I can still see them, the big grins and the total acceptance; my self-conscious discomfort was permanently gone. If anyone reading this was in that class, I am still grateful to you for that, as I am to all the students with whom I shared a wonderful and too short three years.
And to the parents who supported us so well, you did a great job demonstrating hospitality, warmth and loyalty, all words that say “Butte” to me.
Being in Butte was even better than I thought it would be.
Then: Sister Mary Jean Francis, BVM
Now: Jean M Byrne, BVM
jbyrne@bvmcong.org
1198 Rush, St. Apt 2
Dubuque, IA 52003-7578
563-583-4528 home
563-588-2351 work

Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 23, No. 3, March 23, 2007.