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A Woman Styled Bold
told, and ‘a furnace in the cellar warms the lower rooms very well indeed’,
There is never, then or later in extant letters, a note of appeal or complaint.
Nor did Carter’s surviving letters, although in one year he visited them four
or five times, convey anything to Cornelia of their personal plight. He told
her simply that the Towanda house was ‘unsuitable’ for their purpose and
the district not a place for a permanent establishment unless perhaps to
‘keep a parish school or for the middling classes’. It would not do ‘for the
higher classes of society’ which was what he wanted the sisters for in
Philadelphia. Not till January 1864, fifteen months after their arrival, did
she learn the harsh reality of their situation, and then it was Carter, not
they, who having suddenly realised it, forced it upon-her attention.
Until then Cornelia withstood any suggestion that Towanda should be
given up. She did not know what Carter told her much later, that he and
the bishop had agreed to the sisters remaining there only until something
better could be found. When she heard he was hoping to establish them in
Philadelphia, she replied that if the dishop wanted this she would not oppose
it but that she herself thought it premature. When, with the bishop’s author-
ity, he asked for more sisters for a second community at Spring Garden
Street she agreed and six, plus two who hoped to become novices, sailed in
July 1863. When by the end of August he raised the possibility of a boarding
school and novitiate, she again agreed in principle but again opposed giving
up Towanda. It had been begun, she believed, with the bishop’s ‘full consent
and approbation’ and therefore ‘we can go on with spirit and untiring
determination’.
Her ignorance of the real conditions is apparent:
There is no doubt they can support themselves in the Schools, the living
being low . . . by their own industry they might support a chaplain which
would at once make them comfortable and happy in their position. We
shall pray very much for the prosperity of the first foundation in America
and hope never to part with it.
So for the time being a community continued to live and work in Towanda.
By the end of July 1863 there were twelve professed sisters from England
in the country. Most of the first group moved to the city and most of the
arrivals went to Towanda. The community at Spring Garden Street man-
aged well, better even than Carter expected, running both a parish school
and an academy, and though they were overworked, as at Towanda, poverty
was less harsh. Then in January 1864 tragedy struck. One of the recent
arrivals at Towanda died of consumption and her own sister who was in
charge of the parish school in Philadelphia had to go to Towanda to replace
her. Roused by anger on behalf of the sisters and anxiety for his schools,
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