The Sisters of the Holy Family were given the property and house at 40 Alta Vista, San Anselmo in 1942 and established a convent there. The Sisters, an order founded in San Francisco in 1872, at that time lived in San Francisco and had been commuting to Marin since 1914 to conduct after school catechism classes for the Catholic children who attended the local public schools. Sister Camilla was interviewed by the Historical Commission in conjunction with research on homes in Barber Tract. For more information on the history of the convent and Barber Tract, see Barber Tract: The History of a Neighborhood.

Villa
This interview is with Sister Camilla, Superior of the Sisters of the Holy Family in San Anselmo, conducted by Claire Villa for the San Anselmo Historical Commission.

Sister, your Order was founded, I understand, in 1873 in San Francisco. Is that correct?

Sister Camilla
In 1872, actually.

Villa
1872.

Sister Camilla
Yes.

Villa
Do you know very much about the Order back then, how many sisters or what their work entailed?

Sister Camilla
Well, originally there was the foundress, Delores Elizabeth Armer, who later became Mother Dolores. And she began the work at the inspiration of the Vicar General of the diocese who was then Father John Prendergast. She was looking for -- really wanted to give her life to God, and really wanted to become a Carmelite.

But Father Prendergast looked about the area of San Francisco and saw that there was a greater need at that time for her to do, and that she was able to do, and that was to take care of religious instruction of the children who were in the public schools. There were quite a few communities here in San Francisco by that time to take care of the parochial schools, but in the meantime the other children were being neglected.
And then also because of the financial situation in San Francisco, which was at that time was a depression, many mothers were out working and leaving small children at home alone, in their backyards, and just on their own -- little people.

And so gradually these children were gathered together and taken into her first home, her little convent. And then this became really our second work, the catechetical instruction of the public school children and the daycare of children whose mothers were not at home, or for one reason or another, there was only one parent, and that parent couldn't take care of the child during the day.

So those became our two principal works. And then she had a couple of young women come to help her, and they didn't stay with it. But finally Catherine O'Connor came, and she later became Mother Teresa. And so we consider these two, Miss Armer and Miss O'Connor as our foundresses.

Villa
The work was just in San Francisco when you began?

Sister Camilla
At that time, that's right.

Villa
When did you branch out into the Bay Area?

Sister Camilla
As far as I understand, I was just talking yesterday to one of the sisters, and I think she told me that the Sisters came over to Oakland in 1911. I can't tell you the exact years that they went to San Jose. Those were the two first houses outside of San Francisco: Oakland and San Jose.

Villa
When did they begin working Marin?

Sister Camilla
And I know that they were in San Jose before 1915, and they were down there before the epidemic flu, you know, in '15. The Sisters began to commute over here in 1914 from San Francisco.

Villa
Oh, they commuted?

Sister Camilla
And they came over in the old days on the ferry and the trains, and I believe Sausalito and Larkspur and Fairfax were the places they began their work. So they commuted from 1914 until 1942, when we came here to San Anselmo.

Villa
About how many sisters are there now in the Bay Area? There are four of you here; is that right?

Sister Camilla
We're four in this house. And I think in San Francisco there's about twenty.
And in Burlingame there's about maybe ten. And in Castro Valley, which was at one time our Oakland convent that we built out there, there's about another eighteen or twenty sisters. And, well, that would be what you would consider the Bay Area.

Villa
I think so. Yes.

Villa
That's not very many people --

Sister Camilla
Oh, and then we have four sisters down at our prayer house here in Mill Valley.

Villa
Oh, you have a prayer house.

Sister Camilla
We also have a prayer house at Mill Valley. It used to be our old vacation house. And that was given to the community somewhere along 1904.

So, through the years the sisters would come over for a few days at a time and then later it became a specific amount of weeks during the summer. And then, now, very few sisters go there for vacations anymore, so we have the prayer house all year. And then during the summer, for a couple of months we close down the prayer house, and then any sisters who still wish to go over there for vacation can. There's still a few of the sisters who enjoy going over there. It's kind of peaceful and quiet, and they don't have to be wanting to hop out here and there, and so, and they go there.

Villa
It's used mostly for retreats and that sort of thing?

Sister Camilla
Yes, retreats, and then people go down there just for days of prayer, or a weekend of prayer, lay people and others.

Villa
Oh, lay people can use it. I see.

Sister Camilla
Yes. We just opened it to the laity this year. Up to that time it was more specifically for our sisters. And other sisters, too, I guess, from other communities came.

Villa
Now, you work in seven parishes here --

Sister Camilla
That's right.

Villa
-- and also the Cedars.

Sister Camilla
Yes, that comes under Saint Anselm's Parish. That's part of Saint Anselm's Parish, so, Sister works at the Cedar School on one of the days that she works in San Anselm's Parish.

Villa
You also make calls to the sick and the aged.

Sister Camilla
We do.

Villa
Do you do that all over the county or --

Sister Camilla
No, Sister Florence does it -- she, the two days that she's at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Mill Valley, she spends one day, equivalent of one day with the catechetical work, and then the equivalent of the other day visiting the convalescent hospitals, and then also some of the elderly in their homes, and bringing them communion and --

Villa
Oh, I see. Is that the work you do?

Sister Camilla
That's what I do two days, at Blessed Sacrament, also, and then like the other two days I do catechetical work.

Villa
You were primarily just at Blessed Sacrament or in that area?

Sister Camilla
Yes, I worked four days there. The other sisters have shorter amounts of time in two parishes. See, Sister Florence is two days at Mill Valley, but then she's also two days at Saint Raphael’s which wasn't in that article at the paper. They put Saint Rita's by mistake. But it should have been Saint Raphael’s, San Rafael.

Villa
Oh, you don't work at Saint Rita's?

Sister Camilla
We don't work at Saint Rita's. No.

Villa
Oh, I see. I'm going to correct that.

Sister Camilla
Years ago we did, but we no longer do.

Villa
Who takes care of their CCD [Confraternity of Christian Doctrine] program.

Sister Camilla
I believe they have a lay coordinator.

Villa
That's a lot of children that you cover in seven parishes, and some of the, there's parochial schools that closed --

Sister Camilla
I wish I had those statistics and I don't, unfortunately. I have them, but I didn't want to -- yes, there are, although these numbers over here are much smaller than, for instance, in the Bay Area or in the Fremont area down southern Alameda County and some of these places, more suburbia areas.

These, I don't think any of us have more than two hundred children in any one parish here, in Marin. But then we probably have a few more parochial schools, and then of course we have a much smaller population. So our parish programs are much smaller than in other areas.

Villa
It's still quite a bit when there's no parochial school to take up the slack.

Sister Camilla
That's right. Yes, because there were -- you know, I mean even with the parochial schools there's always children.

Villa
Now, I understand the Sisters came to this house at 40 Alta Vista thirty years ago, but they had already been commuting for many, many years.

Sister Camilla
That's right.

Villa
Is it correct that the Gagan family built this house or owned this house?

Sister Camilla
Is that the name of the doctor who was -- is he the one -- see, I don't know that.

Villa
I don't know if he was a doctor or not.

Sister Camilla
I don't know. I know that there was a doctor who owned this house. This is the way the story was given to me:

The doctor owned this house, and he had an invalid sister and -- who lived with him. So there was a nurse who came here, and she worked and took care of this invalid sister. So the doctor told her if she would stay and take care of her, then he would see that she was provided for.

So, eventually the sister died, and the doctor died and willed this house to the nurse. And she lived here for a while with, I believe, her sister. But then it became too large for both of them. I think they had some other holdings somewhere else, so they wanted to give this house for the use somehow of the church. And so Monsignor McGarr, who was the pastor at Saint Anselm's, recommended that they give it to the Sisters of the Holy Family because we were working over here and had been over here for so many years commuting, and really should be living here. And so that was how we came by it.

Now, about a year ago, some relative of the nurse who, apparently as a child visited here, came, and Sister Collette happened to be home. And she visited with Sister and probably, you know, gave her a little bit more information on that. However, there was some talk here in the parish about a year ago that this house belonged to the parish, but never has it been connected with the parish. The only connection that the house had with the parish was that the then present, at-that-time pastor, recommended that they give it to us.

Villa
Well, I'm glad you straightened me out. I understood it was the housekeeper, but it was the nurse who was taking care of the sister.

Sister Camilla
Well, she was a nurse/housekeeper, I guess, kind of thing. You know, like that, and she took care of this.

Villa
This was about 1943 that the house was --

Sister Camilla
Well, we came in here in, I think, '42.

I was just looking here. See, we keep a kind of annal, and if you want to just wait, just one second. Now, see here, this starts with '61, but if you wanted to wait a couple minutes on there until I could go find the other book, I might be able to give you a little more dates if you want them.

Villa
All right. [Tape turned off and on.]

Sister Camilla
I just wanted to see. They told me '14, so I was just curious here. But here it says, “The groundbreaking for the new San Jose convent in 1916," and “in 1917, sisters begin catechetical work in Saint Anselm's Sunday school. In May, they began to work in the Fairfax Sunday school." And then in 1919, we began to work in Larkspur and Mill Valley. And then in 1921, we went to Los Angeles. Opened our convent there.

Villa
Are you all over the state now?

Sister Camilla
Yes. We have twenty-six houses. We're in California. We have two houses in Utah, two in Nevada, three in Hawaii, one in San Antonio, Texas, and then the rest of them in California.

Now, we have two sisters working all year round in Sitka, Alaska. And then in the summertime other sisters go up to do vacation schoolwork and adult education, and whatever the archbishop up there needs.

Villa
Do you do much work in the summer; you don't have the same CCD program, do you?

Sister Camilla
No, no, we don't go as much in the summer as we did. We used to do a lot of vacation schoolwork, go out to all these little country towns where there are no sisters during the year. But that -- we still do a few, but that's kind of phased out because so many of the sisters have to continue their own education during the summertime. There's still a few. I know, that they still go out to outlying districts, but for the most part --

Villa
Not here in Marin, though?

Sister Camilla
No. For the most part -- one time we went many places. But because now of the, you know, fewer sisters, and then also because of the ongoing education of the sisters, we don't do as much vacation schoolwork as we used to.

Villa
This is an interesting house. Now on our study of the Barber Tract, we were concentrating somewhat on architecture because there are so many very large and very interesting homes here, and some were designed by very prominent architects. Do you know anything much about this particular house?

Sister Camilla
I have no idea.

Villa
Do you have, you don't have any idea when it was built?

Sister Camilla
No, and I don't think on the deed itself it shows anything like that either.

Villa
I'll have to dig through county records. Maybe I can come up with something.

We know that the area here was subdivided in 1904, so presumably it was sometime after that.

Villa
It's a very interesting house.

Sister Camilla
Well, it must have been sometime before 1904, and 1914. Well, no, not necessarily --

Villa
No, it would only be before pre-'43, '42.

Sister Camilla
-- but the Sisters were only commuting, that's right. But I really don't know when this house was built.

Villa
There are a lot of grounds around here. How much acreage do you have here?

Sister Camilla
Does an acre and a quarter sound about right? I think that's what it is. I think that's what it is.

Villa
The article said you were going to sell off some of it.

Sister Camilla
Well, we have twelve thousand, five hundred feet right behind you on the turn of Prospect that we have divided off. That when we can get a water meter will be sold.

Sister Camilla
And a buyer.

Villa
(laughter) And a buyer. The water meter is the hardest thing to get.

Sister Camilla
When they both come together. Yes, we started to about getting it cut off and selling it, just about the time the drought started. So, we've really been held up for that reason. But, we don't need all this ground.

Villa
Who takes care of it?

Sister Camilla
We have a man that comes in, in fact from our parish. At one time, they were going to be able to make it into three lots, including this one that the house is on, and then two, but the minimum regulations for the size of lots has gone way up.

Villa
Yes.

Sister Camilla
And so, see, we have all that property behind the garage down to that point where you turn up, that's all ours, too.

Villa
Oh, that's yours.

Sister Camilla
So we hope sometime to be able to sell it back to the city or have them take it over. At least they -- nothing can be done with it, see --

Villa
It's an odd shape.

Sister Camilla
-- because of the drop, yes, and because of the drop of the hill they're not able to -- can't go in far enough to be able to do anything. So, it's just there.

Villa
Is it unusual for a convent to be in a former private home?

Sister Camilla
Not really, we have many, many. Our Burlingame convent was given to us by a woman down there whose home it was. Our Fresno convent was a private home. We had a house in San Diego that had been a private home. At one time the little convent up in Walnut Grove was a private home. The diocese has since built us a convent there.

The Castro Valley convent, when it started, originally it was a home in Piedmont, a private home, and then eventually -- and the little house in Castro Valley, and then eventually we merged the two and then built a convent ourselves.

But a good number of our places were private homes to begin with. Las Vegas and Reno both are private homes.

Villa
I was noticing as I came in there's a very large home across the street. Is that the home you were telling me you had a neighbor who might know something?

Sister Camilla
No, our little man up the street. But that lady -- those people cross the street are Mr. and Mrs. Joe Burton. And he's a surveyor. And he has his office up in Petaluma. Now she knows a great deal about this area in here because she was in and out of the Planning Commission and does a lot and through his work, knows a lot that's going on. Now, the man next door to us whose property adjoins us, which I guess at one time was part of this property also, Mr. McGrath, he would probably know a lot more about this area than the people around here. He's been here quite a long time.

Villa
I'll have to talk to him.

Sister Camilla
Yes, he'd be happy to talk to you. He's a nice gentleman. And he could -- actually a lot of the people that have been along here, now, the house next to him, those people haven't been here too long. But then, in the house beyond that, they have been here a long time, but, you see, the older grandmother, I guess is, I don't know, I think she's still alive. But there's younger people in and out of there. There never seem to be anybody there permanently.

And then there's a lady next to Burton's on that hill, the Tylers. Now, I'm sure the older Mrs. Tyler has been there a long time. There are people who've been here a long time that might know, more about it than I do. I've only been here two years and the history is just what I hear. You know, but I'm not that much into it.

But these, Barney McGrath would probably have a lot more information, and Pat Burton would because of the nature of her husband's business and because she's interested in that type of thing. (Inaudible) Now see, we had, one of our sisters who's very elderly, and has since had a stroke was one of the Butlers. Now, the Butlers owned what was, is the Borden's creamery downtown, and there were old, old people over in here. But see, she's had a stroke, and she can't talk now. She would know just all kinds of things about this property. And then also her sister who is in the same condition in a rest home downtown. But you see, the people who, the old-timers who would know a great deal about the town and the area and these different tracts and all, her family, the Butlers were very well-known here in San Anselmo.

Villa
Yes, that name is familiar.

Sister Camilla
They're old time people. But see, they're the end of that family, and -- she was the superior here at one time and, in fact, I guess she was the first superior here when they came over here.

Villa
She was a member of this Order?

Sister Camilla
Yes, the one sister. And I imagine it was through her that we began to come over here into this area to work to start with. So, as I say, I don't know, you know, have, have too much information about -- these are just little things about, you know, who went where and what they did. If I could have found the very first one, I could have given you a little more --

Villa
If that turns up, you could let me know.

Sister Camilla
I asked Sister Florence if she might know where the one before this is. If you want to wait a second I could phone her. She could tell me on the phone where to find it, the first book.

Villa
All right. That wouldn't --

Sister Camilla
No. It will only take a second. [Tape turned off.]

Villa
Thank you very much, Sister, for your time.

Sister Camilla
You're very welcome.

[End of interview.]




Return to Oral Histories