Hidden Bricks: Providence Academy - is it really cursed by Mother Joseph? A deeper look at who she was.

I didn't plan on going down a very deep rabbit hole with Mother Joseph, the French Canadian nun who built most of downtown Vancouver, but I'm following where the leads go, and here we are. 

The entire reason the Hidden Brick Company was founded in 1871 was to build the Providence Academy. As mentioned before, it is known that Mother Joseph herself taught the Hiddens how to make bricks. It's pretty simple - no Mother Joseph, no Vancouver, or at least not the Vancouver we know. At the time Vancouver was rising, it was neck and neck with Seattle as to which area would rise to be the big trade area around the forts in the area. 

1890s Providence Academy, courtesy the Providence Archive

The above is just one of many, many old photos that Providence's Online Archive has able to view in high quality. The treasure trove can be found Here!. This old Cadestral Map in French from 1919 (remember, the sisters arrived here via Montreal, Canada) is also one of my favorites - here.

Another great source of High Quality B&W photos of the Academy area in the 1970s is the National Register of Historic Places Here.

The thing about Mother Joseph is that she did well, basically everything. The daughter of a noted Montreal architect, she carved sculpture and wood, spun thread, farmed, did embroidery and carpentry. As the eldest daughter of 10, she quickly took on mothering her younger siblings and learned traditionally female skills growing up after her mother's death as well.

She was known to walk around carrying tools on her habit belt on the regular and was a notable six feet tall. She basically feared nothing, believing God would protect her and faced down robbers, a cougar, and even a grizzly bear on her journey out west to Vancouver to build her Academy.  No one talked back to her, ever. 

Not only did she design and supervise the building plus personally approve the materials, turns out she slung bricks here right along side the Hiddens! This building was her grand vision and she truly felt it was God's will, she wasn't going to sacrifice anything she didn't feel like. By all verbal accounts on record she was a "nag", "bossy",  and "demanding". Maybe is where the possible bad blood between her and the Hiddens began? Bitches get shit done... I can confirm. 

Three other sources confirmed she was a solid 6 foot tall, but they minimized it to make her less masculine. She broke all the gender norms and managed to get away with it.

A skilled builder and craftsman, she was the first person to utilize native Douglas Fir trees in large scale construction, she inspected EVERY BRICK used in building the Providence Academy. She was ruthless in her perfectionism, as her building was for God's purpose.

Obsessive much? If she's truly haunting anywhere, this is the place. 

She named herself after the adopted Father of Jesus and her own father, Joseph. She was smart, and knew a woman wouldn't be able to homestead the wild west in what was part of an admission to go search for gold for God in California. She was interested in building, designing, growing, carving, painting, creating, riding horses... she never rested for a moment. I can understand this compulsion. The last thing I would want to have done in the 1860s or now would be stay at home and have babies. I work in a metal shop. 

Ready for another synchronicity?

The shop where I work and weird things happen all the time is literally smack in the middle of the farm parcel that Mother Joseph herself worked when the Academy was founded. 5 days a week I've been walking around with tools in my pockets on the same land... where 150 plus years ago Mother Joseph herself was walking around with farming tools. Pretty weird. 

I guess it explains why the road my work is on is called La Frambois, French for Raspberry.What do you want to bet Mother Joseph named this street? I mean...

Looks like this area was grand central station for fruit growing, you know, like the Hidden Brothers did:

"Fruit Valley was once known for its breathtaking views of vast prune, peach and filbert orchards. Early settlers came from the Dakotas in 1890 and 1891 and the area was nicknamed “New Dakota”. The fruit orchards supplied local dehydrating and packing companies. At the peak of prune production, nine dehydrators were located in Fruit Valley. In the lower elevation areas, dairy, wheat, and pasture farms flourished. The area was also settled by some of those employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company such as Joseph Petrain and Naukane (John Coxe)." Article here.

Additionally, my middle name is Jo, after my paternal grandfather Joseph. Two women named after Josephs in non-traditional fields that don't take anyone's shit. Dare I say Mother Joseph is even...kindred? Could SHE be the catalyst for my brick obsession? We seem to be the same kind of chick. 

Another interesting story about Mother Joseph in the early days is that she had the balls to use her free rail pass she was given to transport orphans to the orphanage to haul a cow back from Idaho for the Academy. Literally no one told this woman no, ever:

Her argument was that the cow was FOR the orphans. They backed down. Thug Life.

For the 100th anniversary of the Academy's founding in 1956, the Sisters came up with a musical drama based on the Academy's founding and Mother Joseph's life. Loo-et or Loowit comes from the Puyallup word "Loowitlatkl," their name for Mount St. Helen's.

Whoo boy, this celebrated play based on "facts" is a giant mess of romanticized colonialism and I felt gross the entire time I read it:

How romantic. Ugh 

Yeah, its the white man's pain that brought the great alluvial silt to the region. Whatever.

Gross, they did what to her exactly? That's right, NOTHING, literally.

Sometimes history is really disappointing. The more I read about the founding of the Academy and Mother Joseph I feel uncomfortable with the overall White Savior aspects of it all, and I hate that my beloved Hidden bricks are smack in the middle of it. I shouldn't be surprised as it involves my old stomping ground, the Catholic Church, but that's a rant for another day. 

The saddest part about this whole thing is the terrible play was based on fact. Back when Vancouver was a fur trading post, the white men paired off with native american women, resulting in many biracial children. These kids weren't accepted by their tribes when the white men left town and the babies were often left in the care of the Sisters of Providence (the French white females that were with the French men) and so the orphanage there was founded due to the pressing need. As flawed as she was, MJ had her bossy heart in the right place. It was their fault the babies were there. They changed the name of the first baby left on the doorstep, but the story while romanticized is essentially accurate. 

A local pastor tried to combat the abandoned baby problem by performing what they called "country marriages", as it was illegal to marry a native american woman in those days.  This is a big part of what led to the women and children being abandoned in the first place when the French Canadian fur traders had to move on from the area. 

Which brings me back to the supposed curse on the Hidden bricks that Mother Joseph is rumored to have placed. Is this just a continuation of the typical "cursed land" *eyeroll* narrative spread so frequently when natives were being mistreated by white settlers?

I began with the feeling that the "curse"on the bricks via MJ was just an unsubstantiated rumor to add credence to a ghost story in a creepy old building. The more I look into Mother Joseph herself and her non-traditional pushing of gender norms for a nun at the time the more I believe she could actually have the balls to do this if she was angered. She wasn't your typical meek nun. In fact, she openly admitted her struggle with her vow of Obedience to other Sisters. That would have been my problem too. In fact, the word "obey" appears nowhere in my wedding vows to my husband on purpose. At least she agreed to be obedient to God. 

Here's another anecdote about MJ's forceful personality, and why I think she would legitimately curse someone she thought was trying to mess with God's literal plan of Providence through her work:

10/10 this person would throw down a curse. Dare I say this even sounds a bit witchy for a nun?

I guarantee after researching her that she was both arrogant and petty enough to threaten a curse if she felt the Hiddens were in the wrong. Finding actual proof of it is a different matter entirely, as even listening to a two hour talk at the historical museum about her life acknowledged a lot of what we know about her via oral stories can even seem conflicting.

She wasn't shy about expressing her opinions, and her letters back home to the Mother Superior are a litany of complaints about issues she's encountering in her ministering. Oddly, the number one theme that repeats is her lamenting "This community needs music," meaning the Catholic community out west. This also later ties to the Hiddens, who were noted to be a very musical family. Is this part of the reason Mother Joseph trained the Hidden brothers to make bricks? She seemed very savvy and that she had many angles going at once to benefit the Academy - I doubt its an accident she took a musical family under her wing.

She actually funded her Academy entirely by aggressively begging. She'd go into mines and ask miners for money, sharing tales of orphans and sick soldiers. She came up with unique sponsorship schemes like "Buy a window or a door in the Academy". She literally believed in PROVIDENCE, that God would handle their needs, she essentially manifested it and willed it so. 

The Original Sisters of Providence, Mother Joseph in Center Front. Photo courtesy the Historic Trust.

The only time she was heard to speak English was using some colorful language she learned from local construction workers. To the shock and amusement of others present, in her 70s she was attempting a small repair in the chapel on a ladder. She got up and repaired the problem just fine, but couldn't get down with her tools and had a few choice words to say. What can I say, turns out I kind of like her. 

The Historic Trust along with WSU Vancouver is actually creating an app where you can explore Providence Academy in a virtual reality manner and follow in Mother Joseph's footsteps. More info here. It's only for iphone so no brick building for me at the moment.

Mother Joseph is buried in the Cemetery that now bears her name, Mother Joseph Catholic Cemetery (formerly St. James Acres). 1838 is the oldest pioneer grave in this yard. 

The cemetery is dedicated to the souls of the unborn and aborted infants. 

There's a bench dedicated in 1999 to Mother Joseph here as well. To find it, enter at 20th and N, the sisters are on the West side of the cemetery. Walk to the tall white cross. Prepare to feel emotional walking the path. I can't explain it.

"Whatever concerns the poor is always our affair."

Because I believe Mother Joseph is the catalyst for all of this, I now officially have let rain fall on my Oracle deck. I sat on  her bench and admitted I had no idea what was going on with the bricks anymore but wanted to see what she had to say.

Her grave is the second one from the end on the left as you walk up the angel path. In 1999, April 16th was officially named Mother Joseph Day in Washington state in her honor by then Governor Gary Locke. 

Her modest headstone is no different than those of any of her Sisters. The Providence website gives us a glimpse into her last moments, as the breast cancer ravaging her body was spreading to her brain: 

Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart died on January 19, 1902, at the age of 79. The chronicles record her last words to the sisters gathered around her bed: “My dear sisters, allow me to recommend to you the care of the poor in our houses, as well as those without. Take good care of them; have no fear of them; assist them and receive them. Then, you will have no regrets. Do not say: ah! this does not concern me, let others see to them. My sisters, whatever concerns the poor is always our affair.”

The final resting place of whom I now think of as the Mother of Vancouver.