Memories of Father Dan

March/April 2009

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To meet Fr. Dan, the person that many of us met in the early 1950s, was to meet a person who radiated strong emotions. He was either happy – with a boyish glint in his eye and an amazing energy in his step, the cane barely touching the ground as he pranced up the steps of Immaculata House in Alexandria – or he was sad. His sadness did not originate within himself but was born of some difference of opinion about something to do with "My Sisters."

If any one of us had had the misfortune to think she was not loved in her past, there was no doubt after having entered Our Lady's Missionaries. Fr. Dan had a very special love for each of us.

He thought we were "the very berries" and often to our embarrassment he let others know this. Sr. Odelia and Sr. Mary Ida of the Sisters of St. Joseph were "privileged," he said, to be our mentors. As were the Hotel Dieu Sisters in Cornwall, the directors and supervisors of the hospital, who taught us nursing. Fr. Dan had priorities, and we were his.

His courage and his capacity to dream in his 80s, were the gifts of the Spirit that he modeled for me, and which amazed and inspired me in the 1950s as I looked towards my future as a missionary. Over the years, that Spirit has been my strength. I am grateful to God who gave Fr. Dan the inspiration and courage to found Our Lady's Missionaries.

Sr. Clarice Garvey, O.L.M.

For some time in the late 1940s I had been discerning my future and had spoken with one of the Redemptorist priests in my parish in Saint John, New Brunswick. He suggested I make a retreat that was taking place at Villa Madonna, the renewal centre of the Diocese of Saint John.

I followed his advice and booked my attendance. There I met two young women who were doing the same discernment. To our surprise, Fr. Dan, having been contacted by our pastor, showed up at the Retreat Centre and met with each of us. He was looking for young women to join his new missionary congregation. A year later he was waiting for me when I arrived at the train station in Alexandria, Ontario, to take me to Immaculata House to begin the long road to becoming a missionary.

Sr. Mona Kelly, O.L.M.

It was December 1955. I was 18 years old and had entered a missionary order because I heard that they lived in an ordinary house on an ordinary street and would one day be sent to what I thought of as a mission country. But for now I was a postulant in Our Lady's Missionaries in Alexandria, Ontario. All I felt was that it was a long way from my prairie home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

As a postulant it was an honour and a privilege, as well as a usual assignment, to cook and serve our founder Fr. Dan his breakfast in the parlour after Mass. Since Fr. Dan had an illness making swallowing difficult, it was also not unusual for him to be upset and displeased with the food as well as with the server. So it was with fear and trepidation that I would enter the parlour with my painstakingly prepared breakfast tray often to leave with at least a red face.

But this is not the end of that story. Monsignor Dan, so frail and elderly, would invariably call me back and apologize. This shattered my idea of greatness or should I say changed it. When I face my own weaknesses and foibles, which try as I may I cannot hide, this memory helps me to trust that God's goodness can shine through me as it did in so many ways through him. It also gives me my unique bond with Fr. Dan.

Sr. Marie Clarkson, O.L.M.

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