**Farewell home: five Benedictine nuns travelled to the United States to establish a convent. Illustration by Marco Heer.**

“Farewell, dear homeland!”

On 17 August 1874, five nuns left Maria-Rickenbach Benedictine Convent in the canton of Nidwalden and emigrated to the American Midwest. Sister Maria Beatrix Renggli (1848–1942) recorded her journey in a detailed travel journal.

Jasmin Gauch

Jasmin Gauch is a master's student of history and social anthropology at the University of Bern.

Maria-Rickenbach Convent is located at an altitude of around 1,200 metres in the heart of the Engelberg Valley, at the pilgrimage site of Niederrickenbach. This is where the first nuns settled and founded the convent in 1857.

**A postcard from 1911 showing Maria-Rickenbach Convent.** e-pics

The convent was founded in a period of upheaval, when the world views of the Catholic church clashed with those of the emerging liberal Swiss nation state. As secularisation spread, the Catholic church began to lose its influence on society and public life. During the 19th century, the Church therefore tried to recapture its former power and restore its authority. These conflicts, described as ‘culture wars’ were part of the long-term modernisation processes that slowly levelled off after the Sonderbund War in 1847. The power struggles came to a head one last time over the adoption of the complete revision of the Federal Constitution in 1874. This was due to extended anti-Catholic exemption clauses, which included a ban on the construction and restoration of monasteries.

Swiss Benedictines in the United States

Fearing monastery closures due to the culture wars, Swiss monks and nuns emigrated to the United States to set up new monasteries as potential refuges to escape to. This is how monks Frowin Conrad (1833–1923) and Adelhelm Odermatt (1844–1920) travelled from the monastery in Engelberg to the United States, where they set up Benedictine abbeys in Maryville and Conception in north-eastern Missouri. They soon asked for assistance from the nuns at Maria-Rickenbach to help with charitable causes, support young women and girls, and teach German to children. Maria-Rickenbach Convent was happy to oblige Conrad and Odermatt’s request, particularly as it gave them the opportunity to open sister convents on the other side of the Atlantic. By deploying the nuns, Maria-Rickenbach became the first Catholic Swiss convent to be active on another continent. In the period from 1874 to 1891, a total of 27 nuns and some 50 candidates from Maria-Rickenbach Convent emigrated to the United States. The women worked in schools, carried out social and charitable duties for the Catholic Church, and acted as missionaries for indigenous peoples.

Candidacy in the Benedictine community

Candidacy is the period when a prospective nun (candidate) lives in the Benedictine community for a year. After this, candidates transition to the novitiate and wear the habit. At the end of the one-year novitiate, prospective nuns take their vows.

The Benedictine nuns sought to spread and strengthen the Christian faith in America, and help the Catholic Church achieve renewed growth. The Catholic Church’s hope for greater influence led to Catholic missions becoming a mass phenomenon in the 19th century. Many missionaries considered their role not only to spread the Christian faith, but also felt a calling to help ‘civilise’ indigenous peoples based on evolutionary ideas and the European claim to superiority. But their attempts to assimilate indigenous populations into European and Christian culture often ended up destroying the latter’s identity, culture and spirituality.

From Niederrickenbach to Maryville

On 17 August 1874, the nuns Beatrix Renggli (1848-1942), Anselma Felber (1843-1883), Agnes Dalie (1839-1915), Adela Eugster (1848-1929) and Augustina Kündig (1851-1879) set off from Maria-Rickenbach Convent. In her travel journal, Renggli impressively captured leaving her homeland and her new start in the US – a country that was completely alien to her. The journal was released as a separate publication the year after they emigrated, and serialised in the newspaper Nidwaldner Volksblatt.

**The title page of Beatrix Renggli’s travelogue.** Staatsarchiv Nidwalden

After leaving Niederrickenbach, the nuns travelled to Lucerne in a horse-drawn vehicle. But the party – who by then had been joined by other emigrants – missed their train and had to travel to Paris via Basel, and then on to Le Havre. In her account Renggli described the group dynamic in this first leg of the journey, as well as various sights, such as the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and a number of sacred buildings which they were able to visit during their brief stop in Paris.

Emigrants on a train operated by the company Generale Transatlantique, which took them to the port at Le Havre. Engraving from 1883. — **Emigrants on a train operated by the company *Generale Transatlantique*, which took them to the port at Le Havre. Engraving from 1883.** Britannica Imagequest, Lebrecht Music & Arts

Just a few days later, on 21 August 1874, the group boarded Norddeutsche Lloyd’s steamer Oder in Le Havre. Renggli deftly captured the hustle and bustle on deck, as well as the many farewell scenes imbued with nostalgia and sadness but also exhilaration and gaiety. For Renggli herself, the pain of leaving was only minimal, as she had said goodbye to her home and confidants several days beforehand.

In Basel […] we then bade farewell to our dear homeland – the land of the Alps, the land so rich in sacred sites, from which inexhaustible holy streams of grace flow! Farewell, dear country! Fare-well, dear homeland! Farewell, mother and sisters! May God protect this country that we will probably never see again, and all our loved ones from whom we may forever be parted!

Renggli on her travel journal

The majority of Beatrix Renggli’s account covers the Atlantic crossing. It provides an insight into life at sea and in particular emphasises the amenities and comforts enjoyed by passengers travelling in 2nd class. She also referred jokingly to the extremely bad coffee, calling it “an assault on the stomach”. Besides the detailed description of the Oder, she also wrote about the challenges and dangers of the Atlantic crossing, with, for example, many passengers suffering from seasickness, including all the nuns. The stormy weather made things even worse – Renggli wrote about the huge wave crests and biting cold. The Swiss tour party were afraid the ship would sink and felt at the mercy of the ocean. As well as the seasickness, Renggli wrote about other extraordinary experiences at sea, such as a freight ship that had got into difficulty during a storm, and which the crew of the Oder rushed to help.

The Oder was in transatlantic service for two years, and later served as the first German imperial mail steamer. In 1887, on its way back from Shanghai, it collided with a reef. Four crew members lost their lives while investigating the damage. The remaining 111 crew members and 61 passengers were saved. — The *Oder* was in transatlantic service for two years, and later served as the first German imperial mail steamer. In 1887, on its way back from Shanghai, it collided with a reef. Four crew members lost their lives while investigating the damage. The remaining 111 crew members and 61 passengers were saved. Wikimedia

Renggli also provided a candid account of the death of a stoker who had died of a cold and had to be thrown overboard without a burial. As a devout and pious nun, she was clearly extremely shocked by this. Despite these challenges, which were a million miles from day-to-day convent life, Renggli painted a very positive picture of the Atlantic crossing in her travelogue. This is shown on the one hand by her description of the on-board amenities, and on the other by her accounts of how the passengers passed their time on board once the weather turned fine after 29 August. They flocked to the deck, passed the time playing light-hearted games and engaging in cheerful chatter, enjoyed the beauty and vastness of the deep blue ocean, and the diverse birds and wildlife. Renggli’s positive account was probably also an attempt to convince the nuns who had stayed behind at Maria-Rickenbach to follow in her footsteps. Her description of the cosmopolitan city of New York was somewhat less positive, however. On 31 August 1874, the Oder docked on the bank of the Hudson River and the nuns set foot on American soil for the first time. They were immediately confronted with the city’s vast dimensions. Renggli felt overwhelmed by the noisy and hectic city; she felt lost and missed the tranquillity and familiarity of Maria-Rickenbach.

About New York she wrote: “How often we would call to mind our beloved Maria-Rickenbach! What a contrast! There, sweet tranquil solitude, here, frenzied activity and noise; there, a chapel with pilgrims praying, here, no sign of godliness or quiet prayer; there, the good fortune of a life of sacrifice, here, the sinister and uneasy pursuit of pleasure and possession; there, everything so homely in our community of sisters, and here everything so unfamiliar – the people and the language!” Wikimedia

Renggli was therefore happy when the party left New York two days later to travel onward by train to Maryville via St. Louis, Missouri. Finally, after a 20-day trip, the nuns reached their destination on 5 September 1874. Renggli described Maryville as very basic, its church infrastructure as run down, and the children as unruly and badly behaved. However, she highlighted the friendliness, helpfulness and piety of the locals. She mentioned that the people “didn’t fear the religious habit, but loved and worshipped it”, alluding to the culture wars in Switzerland. The women faced many unfamiliar situations in their new home, and the travelogue drew in-depth contrasts between the culture in Switzerland and in America, and between home and this foreign place. Renggli kept referring to her mother convent and tried to relate her experiences back to her own region, probably because she was homesick, but also to make her experiences more tangible for a Swiss audience. A particular challenge for the new arrivals was communication as they didn’t understand English. They therefore had to abandon one of their main goals of opening a German school in Maryville. Having a good command of English was much more important in the United States than having proficiency in German. Some of the nuns struggled to adapt to the foreign culture and language. Not Beatrix Renggli though – she quickly learned English and started teaching. Due to conflicts within the group of emigrants, shortly after her arrival she moved to the nearby town of Conception with nuns Adela and Anselma and ran a school there.

**Photograph of the nuns at Mariastein Convent in Pocahontas, 1892** Google Books

After several years in the United States, in the summer of 1889, Renggli, by then Reverend Mother of Maria Stein Convent in Pocahontas, Arkansas (which was founded in 1887/88), briefly returned to Niederrickenbach to recruit other nuns to work in America and to accompany them on their journey. Sister Clara Haus (1841–1902) documented that journey in her own travel journal in November 1889, probably inspired by Renggli.

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