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The caring nun At great personal sacrifice, my immigrant grandparents sent my mother to boarding school in Canada where she had been born. When she was about 14, my mother contracted a serious infection and was put in the isolation section of the infirmary. This was 1930. Her father was a factory worker, and there were many younger siblings, so her parents couldn’t go to her. She was very ill, possibly contagious, but a kind and caring young nun took a mattress and stayed with my mother night and day. My mother always credited her with saving her life and told the nun that she would name her first daughter after her. Sister Charlotte thought that this was a nice thought but the young teenager would surely forget all about this by the time she married. They corresponded for over 60 years, and my namesake and I got to see one another many times during the course of that friendship. During her retirement years she would take a yearly vacation to visit my parents and my family. I have several of her needlepoint pictures hanging in my house alongside my mother’s oil paintings. Charlotte Montillo |
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