The Early Years

After a two-year battle with cancer and kidney failure, Fr. Anselm Weber, OFM, died at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, on March 8, 1921. He is buried in St. Mary's Cemetery, St. Bernard, Ohio. The last 23 years of his life had been devoted to his Navajo mission. Although land acquisitions and extensions to the Navajo Reservation occupied much of his time and energies during his final years, he also devoted much attention to the successful creation and development of the school on the banks of the Cienega Amarilla.

By 1921 the school was almost twenty years old, and its enrollment showed a little over 200 boys and girls. The older boys had formed a marching band that presented concerts in nearby communities such as Ft. Defiance, Ganado, Gallup and Chinle. The curriculum throughout the eight grades stressed the traditional three "Rs," plus a fourth - Religion.

The Industrial Arts program served two functions. Boys were taught agriculture and animal husbandry, carpentry; stone masonry; and blacksmithing, while the girls learned how to sew and weave, cook, and all other aspects of "home economics." Although a certain amount of training and instruction did take place, "Industrial Arts" was just a euphemism for "on-the-job training" and provided the much-needed labor necessary to keep the school operating.

While the girls spent time weaving (using the traditional Navajo method), sewing and mending clothing, sheets and pillow cases, doing the laundry, and assisting with the preparation of meals, the boys often worked in the nearby vegetable fields, took care of the live- stock, milked the cows and gathered the eggs, and helped the maintenance crew repair bedsteads, chairs, tables, window sashes, or even wagon wheels. A lot of their time was spent keeping the fire going in the newly completed boiler plant that provided warm air for the entire complex of buildings. It has also been noted that some of the Navajo boys baked better bread than the girls.

Enrollment grew steadily since that first class of 1902-03. (Eventually 50 pupils had enrolled in the school that first year.) In subsequent years efforts were made to recruit students from a wider area, including Chinle, Lukachukai, Ganado, Tsaile and Tohatchi. In 1912, Mother Katharine gave permission for Pueblo students from Acoma and Laguna to attend St. Michael. A few years later Papago (Tohono O'odham) boys began to show up on the rolls. Before the addition of the high school, enrollment pretty well leveled off at 300 students.

By 1910 the St. Michael boys were playing football with the teams from the Ft. Defiance Boarding School and Crownpoint (Pueblo Bonito) Boarding School. St. Michael School also fielded a boys baseball team and both boys and girls basketball teams.

The seriousness which everyone took in sporting events is captured in a diary entry written by Mother Josephine in August, 1920. She, and the rest of the faculty and students were watching a baseball game between the Ft. Defiance employees and those of St. Michael on the ball field adjacent to the school building.

As the score went back and forth in a highly contested game, both Sr. Marie Anthony and Sr. Honora were praying and praying for the success of St. Michael. Finally; when it looked like the Fort team was winning, the two sisters got up, excused themselves, and headed for the Chapel. Sr. Honora was heard to say; "This is going to require some very serious praying." Apparently it worked. The St. Michael team won the game!

Another event that occurred several times during each school year was the conferring of the Sacrament of Baptism, followed by First Communion. Fr. Anselm always taught the religious classes in the Navajo language. Conversion to Christianity and Baptism were always a voluntary and consensual decision. Once a pupil desired to be baptized, the parents had to give their approval before the sacrament could be conferred. An additional year of catechism classes were normally required before the student received First Communion.

The sisters always made a big fuss over these events, which always served a visual impression of their spiritual importance. The girls were all decked out in white dresses and veils and the boys in white shirts and ties. The ceremony always involved a Solemn High Mass, followed by a reception, and, of course, a concert by the school band.

Sometimes, however, circumstances required immediate attention. Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart recalled an episode in the summer of 1913. " An old Indian woman, the grandmother of some of our students, got all ready to go to Heaven. She was real sick and wanted to be baptized. She received Baptism, Holy Eucharist, Extreme Unction and Matrimony; now wasn't she lucky old soul! And she didn't die after all -she is still living, and that was about a month ago."

But not all the happenings and events those first two decades had happy endings.

Living as they were, sisters, students and employees, in such close surroundings, there was always the threat of contagious diseases.

In February, 1911, the school was hit by the measles epidemic that was devastating both the Navajo and Hopi Reservations. Within a period of three weeks they treated 58 cases. All the students recovered except two (Paul and Bart) who actually succumbed to bronchial pneumonia.

In March 1920, Tom, one of the Papago boys who had gone home for some reason, returned to the school very ill. It was the dreaded flu. As soon as the sisters recognized it, they isolated him, but it was too late. One child after another fell victim, and in less than three hours over 80 children had the flu. Several of the sick began to show complications of pneumonia.

Fr. Ludger and Fr. Emmanuel came up from the Mission and helped with the nursing of the boys. Mr. Peter Paquette, the Indian Agent, sent over several medical people from the Ft. Defiance hospital. Both Fr. Ludger and one of the sisters developed the disease and were bedridden. For three weeks everybody at St. Michael was quarantined, but all the victims, except Tom, the Papago boy, recovered.

One of the worst natural catastrophies occurred on July 28,1914. There had been a slight flooding of the Cienega Amarilla on July 3, but this did only minimal damage.

However, at the end of July; after two days of torrential downpours, a flash-flood engulfed the entire valley. Some of the maintenance crew and four Navajo students wrestled with the 1,000-lb. gasoline engine and pump, trying to get the equipment out of the pump-house and up to higher ground as the pump-house (which was built next to the wash) was rapidly being inundated by the rising flood waters. All the gardens were washed away, and as the waters began to flood the barn, the livestock were driven to higher ground. All but two of the pigs were lost, however. All three bridges were destroyed, along with several storage buildings near the pumphouse.

The priests from the Mission came down to render aid, but since all the bridges were out, could do nothing but turn around and go back.

The tragedy of the flood, however, involved a Navajo family who lived a short distance up-stream from the Mission. Two of the girls, in an attempt to avoid the floodwaters, tried to cross the wash, and were swept away; On July 30, a couple of days after the flood subsided, the body of the older girl was found near the hogan, but the younger girl's body (Cecilia) was not found until the next day. The body had floated all the way down the wash to Black Creek. The grieving parents asked the sisters for help, and both bodies were washed, dressed, wrapped in blankets, and placed in simple wood coffins.

It was just before sunset when both were buried in a common grave in the school's cemetery, as the assembled sisters chanted the melancholy strains of De Profundis.