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Jan. 11,
2007 |
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| Retired sister strings together new ministry
Sr. Werth helps others pray by crafting unique rosaries |
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By Karen Girard
Special to your Catholic Herald |
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| Sr. Germaine Werth, a School Sister of St. Francis, has found a special ministry in retirement. She creates rosaries out of rose petals. (Catholic Herald photos by Sam Arendt) |
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CAMPBELLSPORT — Every day except Sunday, you can find 79-year-old Sr. Germaine Werth, a School Sister of St. Francis, busy at her bench in the Rosary Room of St. Joseph’s Convent.
She is joined by other retired members of her community who craft rosaries out of plastic beads, colorful cut glass, and pearls. But the rosaries Sr. Germaine creates are unique among these: she hand makes each of her beads individually out of rose petals, a skill brought to this country by some of the early sisters from her religious community, who emigrated from Germany to the Campbellsport area in the late 1800s.
The rose petals she uses to craft the beads often come from bridal bouquets or floral arrangements from funerals. The rosaries made from these flowers become special remembrances for the families.
“One woman requested a rosary be made from the bouquet of roses her son gave her before surgery,” said Sr. Germaine. The woman recovered and now prays with this rosary, she said, remembering the thoughtfulness of her son each time she prays.
The process for making the rose petal beads is lengthy, and depends on humidity levels, according to Sr. Germaine. First, the petals are crushed and mashed, and set aside to ferment into a thick paste. Sr. Germaine then molds the paste into small rounded beads of identical size, sliding them onto a thin wire to dry.
She carefully keeps track of the beads so that each client’s rosary is made from the petals of his or her specific roses. She said the number of roses needed to make a rosary depends upon the size and quality of the flowers.
“But whatever the color of the roses,” she said, “the beads all turn black.”
The rose petal rosaries retain their fragrance for years, said Sr. Germaine, provided they are stored in a closed container. She took a small box out of a nearby cabinet and opened it; the sweet aroma of the flowers was still present even though the rosary was made years earlier.
Before retiring to St. Joseph Convent in 1999, Sr. Germaine did most of her ministry at the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in the rolling plains of northern Montana, home to the Assiniboine Tribe. There, she served as a homemaker and a groundskeeper for their two-acre yard. She also sorted and organized all the clothing donated to the reservation. “So many clothes,” she remembered, “It came by the truckloads.”
During the long Montana winters, Sr. Germaine would stitch together quilts.
“In my first quilt, the squares were stuffed with nylons instead of cotton,” she said, saying that’s how they were made back then. She sold most of these quilts at local bazaars.
St. Paul Mission, the Catholic school served by the School Sisters of St. Francis, taught grades K–12 when Sr. Germaine arrived in 1970. Today, it serves children in grades K-6. It is located in Hays, a small community in the southwest portion of the reservation. “Some found it too isolating there at the bottom of the Rockies,” said Sr. Germaine, commenting on the remote location. “I didn’t mind; I came from a farm, and was used to it.”
Sr. Germaine was born in the German settlement of Schoenchen, Kan. Raised in a large Catholic family, she was the second oldest of 12 siblings. She said her mother’s encouragement and the “wonderful example” of two of her aunts who were School Sisters of St. Francis inspired her to follow Christ through a religious vocation.
Sr. Werth makes rose petal rosaries on a per order basis. Full-size rosaries, one-decade rosaries and rosary necklaces and bracelets are available for purchase, using your own petals or ones provided by the convent. For more information, call St. Joseph Convent at (920) 533-1100. |
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