Grand Tour

It was a crisp, bright fall afternoon as the train pulled out of the Philadelphia station and headed west. Soon, the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania, a colorful rhapsody of red, yellow and brown, gave way to the greens of the Ohio Valley.

For the four nuns on board, it would be years before they would again view the fall colors of their familiar Pennsylvania. It was October 15, 1902, and the Mother Superior of the new school at St. Michael, Sr. Mary Evangelist, S.B.S., was accompanied by three sisters assigned to the mission school of St. Catherine, in Santa Fe, in the Territory of New Mexico.

Three days later the train arrived at Lamy Station, just south of Santa Fe, and the three sisters disembarked for the short buggy ride to St. Catherine's. Replacing them for the rest of the journey to Gallup were Mother Katharine Drexel, Sr. Mary Angela and Sr. Mary Agatha.

They arrived in Gallup early Sunday morning, October 19, and were met by Fr. Berard Haile who had just recently been assigned to the Franciscan Mission at St. Michaels. After Mass and breakfast, the four nuns squeezed aboard a two-seater spring wagon and began the 30-mile trip to the site of their new school, arriving about 6:00 PM.

Several rooms on the ground floor of the unfinished building had been prepared for the sisters, who then spent the next day (October 20, their first full day at St. Michael School) washing windows and hanging curtains.

On the evening of October 22, two more sisters arrived, along with Mother Katharine's 19-year-old niece, Josephine Drexel. Four additional sisters from the Motherhouse arrived on the 24th, making a group total of ten (plus one niece).

While Mother Katharine and most of the sisters continued to put the finishing touches on the completed rooms, Fr. Anselm offered to take Miss Josephine, accompanied by one of the sisters, on a tour of part of the Navajo Reservation.

Accordingly, Fr. Anselm, Frank Walker, the mission interpreter, Sr. Agatha, and Miss Josephine set out early on the morning of Saturday, October 25, with the plan to arrive at Don Lorenzo Hubbell's Trading Post in Ganado in time for lunch.

Somewhere just past the summit, on the narrow; rutted dirt road, one of the horses went lame, which slowed their progress considerably; It was after 6:00 PM, just in time for dinner, when the party finally arrived at the Hubbell home. That evening Frank Walker took the tired team of horses back to St. Michaels and, on Sunday afternoon, returned to Ganado with a fresh team. Meanwhile, Sr. Agatha and Miss Josephine visited several nearby Navajo hogans. Sr. Agatha recorded in her journal, "We watched the women making blankets, and pleased some of them very much by making some clumsy efforts to weave."

On Monday morning, with the fresh team of horses, the four of them left the Hubbell Trading Post for the 30-mile journey to Chinle and the Samuel Day Trading Post (the present-day Thunderbird Ranch). After a lunch stop near Nazlini, the party continued through Beautiful Valley, arriving at the Day store and home around 4:30 P.M.

During the next several days, while Fr. Anselm met with local Navajo leaders regarding the establishment of a mission at Chinle, the Days escorted Sr. Agatha and Miss Josephine throughout Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto, where they even climbed up into Mummy Cave.

On Friday, October 31, the party returned to the Hubbell Trading Post, but again, one of the horses became very sick with the colic.

The following morning, after breakfast and Mass (it was the Feast of All Saints) the group began the final leg of their return journey. The sick horse had been left behind, and Hubbell had loaned them one of his favorite riding horses, "Prince" with the admonition, "He's a saddle horse, and doesn't work too well in a harness." Late that afternoon, when the party was about 16 miles out of Ganado (and 14 miles yet to St. Michaels) Prince showed signs of balkiness. Frank Walker tried to walk alongside of him, but that didn't help either. Finally, Prince came to a decided standstill, and no amount of urging or coaxing would change his mind.

Fr. Anselm then decided to ride the other horse to St. Michaels and fetch a new team. Now, as dusk settled on this early November evening, Walker decided to ride Prince (bareback) around the area to see if a local Navajo might be willing to loan them a team of horses. So, somewhere half-way between Ganado and St. Michaels, on a cool, but dark November evening, a nun and a teen-age girl from Philadelphia sat on a blanket, next to a fire and a wagon, all alone! After finding, and sharing a box of chocolates, the two of them spent the evening writing letters, and Sr. Agatha brought her journal up-to-date.

Eventually, Walker returned with a Navajo and his horses, which were in very poor looking shape, and managed to pull the wagon only a mile or two up the mountain. An hour later, John Osborne, from the mission, arrived with a team of horses. The Navajo was not only paid for his efforts, but was also paid to return Prince to Mr. Hubbell.

After a wild, bouncy ride, the party arrived at St. Michael shortly before midnight. Mother Katharine had a good, warm supper ready for them. The next morning, the Feast of All Souls, Mother Katharine and her niece Josephine Drexel departed St. Michael, and were taken to the train station in Gallup for the long trip back to Cornwells Heights, Pennsylvania. Mother Katharine had a number of other half-completed projects that now demanded her attention, but Miss Josephine had some really great tales to tell her family about her experiences "out west."