Sinsinawa
Spectrum
A Congregation News Magazine
Tragedy Strikes St. Clara Academy Family
by Mary Paynter, OP
Mary We-Ha-Kee’s headstone (foreground) sits in close proximity to Sr. Alberta Duffy’s headstone (background) in the cemetery at Sinsinawa Mound.
This story is the third in a three-part series about Mary We-Ha-Kee LaBatte and the first Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters in Faribault, MN.
During the eight years We-Ha-Kee LaBatte spent at St. Clara Academy, her remarkable talents blossomed under the special affection and care that the Sisters, especially her “second mother” Alberta Duffy, OP, showered on her. Her musical gifts―in voice, harp, and piano―were especially evident in programs listing her performances in various Academy events, such as graduation and special feast days. At the same time, student reminiscences speak of how she became a “favorite” among the students.
What lay ahead for the 15-year-old We-Ha-Kee, whose widowed mother had given permission for the Sisters to take her from Faribault to Sinsinawa when the little girl was only 7 years old? Surely the other girls at St. Clara must have wondered if their talented classmate would become a music teacher like her beloved Sister Alberta. Would she go on to further studies? Or―they must have whispered―would she become a Dominican Sister? The same thoughts must have gone through We-Ha-Kee’s mind as she neared the completion of her Academy studies. Did she dream of returning to her people in Minnesota, perhaps as a teacher, sharing all she had learned at St. Clara?
We do not know We-Ha-Kee’s dreams―she left no written memoir. Much of what we know was recorded many years later by her St. Clara schoolmate. Angelico Dolan, OP, had been a younger Academy student who was clearly in awe of the talented Sioux teenager. Her memoir vividly speaks of the spring of 1878 when all knew that We-Ha-Kee suffered from “a wasting illness” and painful, open sores that she endured bravely. By June, the terminal nature of her illness was clear, and the Sisters arranged for her mother to come and stay at her bedside. Sister Angelico recalled being a little frightened by the distraught Sioux woman, dressed in her native attire and unable to speak English. Probably the Sisters could speak to her in French, while We-Ha-Kee could talk with her mother in the Santee Sioux language. How painful the bedside encounters must have been for all of them, as hopes for We-Ha-Kee’s recovery dimmed.
Finally, on June 14, 1878, in the morning, Sister Alberta was with We-Ha-Kee as she died. Sister Angelico’s memoir says that “to comfort her, she [Sister Alberta] raised the worn little body from the bed, and We-Ha-Kee fell back into the embrace of her who had been benefactress, tutor, spiritual guide and mother to her.”
The funeral Mass was held in the Exhibition Hall, which then served as chapel, and the Sisters and students all followed the casket to the new cemetery which was west of the Academy. We-Ha-Kee’s mother “threw herself on the ground” as the body was being lowered into the new grave, crying violently. Sister Angelico adds, “Of course, we all cried in sympathy with her, for everyone loved her.”
We-Ha-Kee LaBatte was only the second or third person buried in the new cemetery where her headstone stands today in the very first row. If a person looks closely, she will see not far behind We-Ha-Kee’s stone, the marker of Sister Alberta Duffy, her “second mother,” who died only a few years later, and who now rests very close to the child she taught and loved so much.