Sister Catherine Walsh interview, 07 August 2024

Abstract

Sister Catherine Walsh of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine recollects her early childhood growing up on a farm in County Mayo, Ireland. Before she made her religious vows, Sister Catherine immigrated to Ohio in order to work. After she made her vows, she taught special education at Parmadale and worked in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland. Sister Catherine then spent six years in El Salvador with the Cleveland Mission Team. After she returned to Ohio she helped establish the Akron Catholic Worker. Eventually, Sister Catherine returned to Cleveland’s Near West Side, where she continued to be an integral part of the community.

Interviewee

Walsh, Sister Catherine (interviewee)

Interviewer

White, Bali (interviewer)

Project

Near West Side Housing Activism

Date

8-7-2024

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

67 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Sister Catherine Walsh interview, 07 August 2024" (2024). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 544013.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1338

Related Resources

Near West Side @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Bali White [00:00:00] Awesome. Alright. And we’re live. Hello, everybody. I am Bali White with the Cleveland Regional Oral History Project. I’m at Carnegie West Library, and it is August 7, 2024. I’m here with Sister Catherine Walsh. First and foremost, how are you?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:00:18] I am fine, thank you. And I am glad to be here. And we don’t have any electricity in our house, [crosstalk] so life changed a little bit for that fact. And the– That’s okay. We’ll get through it. Yes.

Bali White [00:00:31] So could you introduce yourself when and where you were born?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:00:35] I was born in County Mayo, Ireland, and I came to this country when I was 18, kind of going on 19, along with my sister. And I was, as I used to say at that time, I was claimed [laughs] by my aunt, who – Mary O’Neill – who lived here on the east side. And so I spent the first part of my time in the United States with my aunt. And then a whole bunch of us, from immigrants, women, found an apartment, probably double the amount of people that should have been there, and found ourselves some work and went to work. And so I did that until I realized that I was going to go to a religious order. And I met the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine, and I entered that community when I was here about maybe a year and a little bit over a year. Yeah.

Bali White [00:01:36] Could you share a little bit about your family background?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:01:40] I’m one of eight children, and I was raised in a home on a small farm with twelve people. The eight children, a child we had fostered, my parents had fostered, an uncle that needed care, and my parents. So I came from a large family. But when we think of being twelve in the city and twelve in the country, it’s a little bit different because we had loads of outdoor space and outdoor activities and that we spent a lot of our time outdoors.

Bali White [00:02:15] And then your parents, did they both work? Or was–

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:02:19] Well, we worked the farm.

Bali White [00:02:20] Okay.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:02:21] Yeah. And my father did take extra jobs outside and to make ends meet, and my mom had plenty to do, and we also had animals to care for. So it was a busy place and all of us had pitched in. I mean, we learned how to do everything inside and outside in the home and outside the home, animal husbandry, as well as raising crops and also what you need to do inside. And we did a lot of our own. Money was scarce, so when we needed something, we made it. That was pretty much the way it was.

Bali White [00:03:07] Would you say like having neighbors, you were, like, few and far between from them?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:03:11] No, we were close neighbors, and the neighborhood was the neighborhood. All the neighbors knew each other. Everybody who went to the same church knew each other. And I have to say that it was very cooperative. If somebody didn’t have something, somebody else did, and if you had something, you shared it with somebody else, so that it was a very, what would I say? Mutual assistance, you know, and we did not have. We had very, very little, anything of government assistance, but we had mutual assistance. And I think I was in college taking a course in– What was we taking a course in? But whatever it was, I found out that from our income, we were poor. So it took me until I was in college to realize, you know, what? We were poor, but I didn’t know that, and therefore, I don’t think we were poor. Yeah. Because we– What we lacked in income, which really would have been nice if we had some more income, we, we did not realize, and we had what everybody else had. And, you know, I, we never thought of ourselves as being raised poor.

Bali White [00:04:28] Would you say religion played, like, a large role in your family life?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:04:32] Yes, we were churchgoing Catholics. We had church close by, and either we, we had– We either walked or had bicycles to church. And, yes, it was a big part of our upbringing. We had family rosary, so we had family prayer most days, most evenings. And so, yeah, I just thought the rest of the world was the same way. That’s the way we were raised. We didn’t– It took us until we were more older to find out that, no, the rest of the world is not like this, but that’s how children are.

Bali White [00:05:17] So could you talk about your educational background?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:05:21] Well, we had– My educational background in Ireland was not very extensive. I would say that education outside of the classroom was more extensive than in the classroom. But we did have a good, solid primary up to 8th grade. But I think most of my knowledge came from home, actually. My father and both my parents were readers. The daily newspaper – that was very, very good newspaper – was read every day, and my father read that to us. So we had a great deal of world news and know what was going on in our world all through our childhood. In fact, I think. I think, I don’t remember ever learning how to read. [laughs] But I think it was because my father read pieces of the paper, especially the comics, and the comics were like serial comics. And I think that’s how I learned to read, actually, because I knew I was reading when I was in kindergarten, but I never realized how it is that I got to learn. But I think that’s how it was that I, and he did that for the rest of the children, too. So we are all grew up readers. Okay.

Bali White [00:06:43] And then you mentioned you came to the US when you were 18, 19?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:06:46] 18 going on 19.

Bali White [00:06:51] Were you studying at a college here?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:06:53] No, I came as an immigrant to find work.

Bali White [00:06:56] Okay.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:06:56] Yeah. And so did all of the other immigrants that I got to know. You know, they did not– They were not coming on scholarship. They were coming to work. They were not in that category. If they went on to higher education afterwards, it was very few. But most of them came as working people, and so we found work. And wherever we found work.

Bali White [00:07:22] Could you recall, like, some of the jobs you had when you first came here?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:07:25] I was a waitress.

Bali White [00:07:26] Okay.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:07:26] At Stouffer’s. Yeah. And that was downtown. They’re closed now, but a lot of us did that. I did a very small sketch of factory work, and it was extremely boring for me, so I did not last long at all. And even to this day, that kind of work is that kind of repetitious work without seeing the finished product. It just would drive me crazy, and it drove me crazy when I was 17 and 18. And so I did not do much of that. But as a waitress, I felt that I was meeting people, I was waiting on people. I had conversations, you know, I could move around. You know, it was– That I could do. Yeah.

Bali White [00:08:17] So, I guess, how did you become, like, Sister Catherine?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:08:24] Okay. Well, I always– For a long time, I felt that I was called to what I would think of as religious life and missionary, but I had no knowledge. I didn’t know anybody who was doing that, and I didn’t know any communities, and I didn’t know. I mean, I did not. I had written to people, but I didn’t know them personally. So when I was in Cleveland and I got personally to know the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine, then that was when I really decided that that was where I was called to, you know, so. But I was around. I was around and around the bush a few times as far as, what am I going to do with my life? You know, before that, it wasn’t like, you know, all of a sudden, this is like, I knew from the beginning this is what I was going to do. That’s what I was. As I would call a vocation to. It wasn’t something I sought out me, say that. And. But when I knew for sure that that was where, then I embraced it. But it took me a while, you know.

Bali White [00:09:43] How old were you when you kind of decided that that’s [crosstalk] and then could you walk us through, what that process was like?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:09:54] It’s a long process. I kind of liked– Even I walked into what we call the mother house, which is the center for, you know, it would be like a monastery, and I– And I was visiting with somebody else, and then I was asked, would you ever think about entering the community? And I said, yes. And they said– Which surprised them. And then they asked me, like, when? And I said, oh, I’m ready now. So that’s really– It was so, like, nonchalant, I think, you know? And then once you’re in a community, you have a long process of what they call a novitiate, you know, because it takes at least five years to make the final vows to the community. Yeah. In the community. And it’s, it’s a process of education formation, you know, working, you know, but it is quite a long process. There’s both– It’s not just when I say education, it’s not just, like, book knowledge. It’s also the formation of, you know, do you fit this? Does this fit you? You know, and so you have plenty time to think about it and also plenty time to either say yes or no.

Bali White [00:11:23] Okay.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:11:24] Yeah.

Bali White [00:11:24] Yeah. So I guess once you fully took those religious vows and you decided that this is what you were going to do, what was, I guess, the next step? What were you doing?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:11:38] Well, I was sent out of what they might call a mission, you know, and I was actually, what I did in the beginning was the care of children who were placed in an institution, be either by the courts or by their. Or by some agency, mostly catholic charities. And that’s what I did for the first five years. So I really cared for children from 18 months at different times, 18 months to maybe about 12, 14 years of age. Yeah. So I did that for five years straight.

Bali White [00:12:19] Was this in Cleveland?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:12:20] In Cleveland, yes. Parmadale. It was in Parma. It’s closed now, but that day, our sisters worked there, and then I went back to school.

Bali White [00:12:35] What were you studying?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:12:36] I studied education at a college that’s now closed. It was called St. John’s, and it was right next to the cathedral in Cleveland, downtown on East 9th Street. For four years. And then went back, actually, to Parmadale to teach and ended up getting special education from Xavier University in Cincinnati as a masters. So most of that preliminary education was– My education was around the education of children, but it was a focus on special education.

Bali White [00:13:17] So I guess at this time, could you describe what Cleveland looked like in terms of demographics, housing conditions?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:13:27] Well, I didn’t– You know, I wasn’t really involved in what the housing was at the time. I did a little bit because at that time, when I was going to school, Sister Henrietta, one of our sisters, went to the Hough area to work, to live and work right after the riots, during and right after the riots. So I went, while I was still a student, I went there and lived there myself and another sister, younger sister, we both– She was a professor and I was a student. And we traveled from there at Our Lady of Fatima to St. John’s every day for school. So that I spent a couple of years there. And that was right after the riots. I learned a lot about what happened, what caused the riots, what were the aftermath, how the people moved out and the people that stayed behind, some of the effects. There were still a lot of homes and places going up in fire. There were a lot of fires. There was a lot of fear, and there was just a lot left behind. And so the two of us, younger people, concentrated and working with the children. So we did. We bring them together because there was very, very little offered to the children in the Hough area at that time. And so we gathered them together on Saturdays and Sundays particularly. We had tutoring and we had, like, excursions, anything that we could do. You know that line, we got to know the neighborhood very well because we were in the neighborhood and got to know their parents somewhat and because we didn’t have that much time, but got to know the neighborhood pretty well. Yeah. And it was at that time, there was no new housing at all, but with Sister Henrietta, and she gathered a lot of people around her and they started a housing called Famicos. And that’s still very much in use today. I mean, still going very strong. I don’t know if you know much about Famicos, but it is a housing– And it started right there at where I was living, at Our Lady of Fatima. And the first, I can’t remember exactly if it was a brand new house, I think it was, or a rehabilitated house was right next to where we lived. And it was almost like a prophetic sign because all the. There was so many houses coming down, there so many houses had been burnt. There was a lot of destruction. And this brand new house was built and people would say, wow, you know, a new house in Hough. Since then, there’s loads of new houses in Hough. But that was, it just was what you would call, was a highlighter of what you would call biblically as a prophetic sign that says, you know, we’re staying here. There’s something. This is worth staying in, and it’s worth building in, you know, so that was. That was a very good thing to have happened because, you know, one house, but it was one house was very significant, and then Famicos began to grow and develop, and then other housings came in after that. So that’s, you know, that was a good start for me to learn about what are the possibilities? What is it that ignites a very troubled neighborhood or a very devastated neighborhood? There was a lot of things that happened, but I think that was one of the significant.

Bali White [00:17:34] Would you say that the community received you well?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:17:38] Yes. Yes, I would say the community received us well. It was new for them to have us present. It was new. It was very– It was– But they were very– They were even protective, you know, because when we got off the bus coming home, sometimes it was dark or getting dark, and we would – and we never asked – but neighbors would come and walk us home just in case anything would happen to us. And so they were protective. Yeah. And we had, you know, a number of services or a number of things going on that they came to and enjoyed, you know, and we learned a lot from them.

Bali White [00:18:27] What kind of services were you providing?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:18:29] Well, one was the housing. The other one, and it wasn’t just building a house. It was like how caring for the house you’re in and rehabilitating the house you’re in. And then, you know, the usual things of food, clothing, you know, that kind of– And it was more presence than anything. So a lot of interaction, you know, with neighbors, people who came, and then, because the rest, you know, Cleveland responded in many ways and came in to provide services as long as there was somebody there already to have something going on that they could come to.

Bali White [00:19:19] So when you were in the Hough neighborhood, do you feel like it was typically. Do you feel while you were there? Excuse me, Did you feel kind of welcomed?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:19:36] I did. We did. We all did. Yeah, we did. Like I said, we did a lot of interaction, you know, with the neighbors, and we were pretty new at this ourselves. We were learning, you know, we did a lot of interaction with the neighborhood. We had scouts that were there already, had very little to do with it except that, you know, to be present. But we were, I felt safe, and I felt a lot of interaction and. Yeah.

Bali White [00:20:08] How long were you there exactly?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:20:10] I was only there two years, but the others were there much longer.

Bali White [00:20:14] Okay.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:20:14] Yeah.

Bali White [00:20:15] And then after you left, after the two years, what. What were you doing then?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:20:20] I was a student still. [crosstalk] I was a student, and then I lived in different places, and I ended up actually on West 41st Street.

Bali White [00:20:28] Okay.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:20:29] And Bridge. That’s the last year of school. I was on 41st and Bridge. But it wasn’t being gentrified at the time. You know, that was like ’69 and ’70, you know.

Bali White [00:20:41] So how would you kind of describe that area when you were living there?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:20:47] Different than it is today. Different and the same. Because the wonderful thing about that neighborhood around what we call Ohio City today is that there were already active people around the churches in particular. St. Malachi’s, St. Patrick’s, United Church of Christ, the community church St. Paul’s, and the Franklin Circle, you know, just to name a few of them, they were already active. And that neighborhood, people in that neighborhood, like, they cared about their neighbor, they cared about the housing, they cared about healthcare, and they worked on all those issues, and they worked on the education. You know, the Urban Community School came from– That used to be St. Patrick’s, and then St. Patrick’s and St. Malachi’s, and then the Urban Community School. So all of that McCafferty Center, you know, the May Dugan, all of that came about not just from the neighborhood, but a lot of activity going on in the neighborhood. You know, they were. And they’re still– A lot of them are still there, you know, like Jim Schlecht and, you know, and Mike Fiala and those people there and Maryellen and, you know, a lot of– They’re still the same ones.

Bali White [00:22:23] What can you recall, like, the years you were living there?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:22:26] The first time? ’68. ’67. No, ’68, ’69 and ’70. And then into ’71. Yeah.

Bali White [00:22:43] And then 1971, you moved away.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:22:48] Yes, I finally graduated [both laugh] and moved back to Parma to teach at Parmadale. But I commuted first, and then when commuting became, like, a bit difficult, because it was a long way. It wasn’t. I didn’t have a car, you know, so trying to get from the Near West Side out to Parma was not easy.

Bali White [00:23:17] Were you riding the bus?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:23:18] No. There was a man, the driver worked at Parmadale. I went there every morning. He picked me up, you know, and so it was, like, arrangement. I paid so much, and he picked me up, and, you know, so he took me there.

Bali White [00:23:35] You mentioned you kind of focused on special education when you were teaching at Parmadale. Is that kind of like, what your focus was?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:23:44] Yes, Yeah, yeah.

Bali White [00:23:46] And what age groups were you teaching at that time?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:23:51] Because it wasn’t, you know, special. We had to have special education pretty much throughout the school. I was from fourth to eighth but that didn’t mean that the ages corresponded all the time with the regular school. You know, I could have younger and older, I could have children that didn’t read yet, you know, and there was a good bit of tutoring going on and that kind of thing. But the school was good. Was a good. The school provided a good education, you know, to our students. And the students at that time were just the people who lived. The kids who lived there. Yeah. Now, afterwards, they many of went out to school, which was a good thing, but at that time, it was just those kids.

Bali White [00:24:43] And then were you focusing mainly on, like, a specific subject you were teaching or was it just kind of—

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:24:51] It was across the board yeah, we could be teaching just about anything, although we did have teachers that have specialties, you know. But, yeah, it was pretty much we had to look at the student body and make decisions as to what was best for the individual student. Didn’t always fit into the regular categories of, you’re this age, so you should be with this class or whatever. And so that was, there was a lot of that going on.

Bali White [00:25:28] So I guess, switching gears a little bit, you had taken a trip to El Salvador during the period of their civil war, where the US had backed the Salvadoran military, which was responsible for, like, various human rights violations. Could you talk about this trip kind of what you were doing?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:25:46] Well, I took a trip, but I also went there and lived for six and a half years. [crosstalk] You know, as part of the Cleveland Mission team, you know, so I did take a trip, and then I went back. Yeah the, it definitely was wartime, you know. Just landing at the airport, you were confronted, or the first thing you saw was just military, military, military. And you just didn’t, you know, now we’re not used to that, you know, just– And it was like, how do I behave? [laughs] You know, like you had to watch, I think, for, you know. Well, I was in South America before that, so I did see some of that same thing, but it was that you just, it was a very militarized atmosphere. And so when you– Everything you did from coming off the plane until you went back on it again, it was in the air. You were, you had to be mindful of the fact that I’m in a militarized zone now, where I worked for the six years was a lot of military, but they weren’t in your face all the time, like in the airport. And we were in an area also that was very, it was the FMLN, the opposition, the, what we call the guerrilla was they were present, very present. So we were very aware of when the military came in, because the military came in and they’re hiding out there. There was going to be some clashes, you know, and there were, there was, it was very interesting, though, as missionaries and being trusted more by, more by the FMLN, that we never stopped going to the outlying areas where they were hiding out. We never stopped. So when I said we, the mission team never stopped going there. So we had regular trips into the mountains where they were. And we used to, you know, you have to have some dark humor sometimes when you’re in a position like that. [laughs] So I remember one time being, coming back, myself and another sister and a lay woman coming back from the mountains. And we had, we were walking into the village and we realized that it was taken over by the military. So, you know, we used to say, well, we know something you don’t know. We know where they’re hiding out. [laughs] We never said it aloud. And so that’s, that was, you know, that’s the way life was. And again, we try to be as careful and as prudent as possible so that you didn’t get thrown out because, you know, it’s like you don’t behave yourself, you’re going to get thrown out or worse, and then the whole team might be, too. So we had to look out for the team members as well as ourselves. Yeah. And so, but we also had some very brave people with us who never didn’t do what they needed to do because of the military. You know, like, we were the only car in the village. And so any emergency, because the doctors didn’t come in, you know, they just, they were assigned there, they just wouldn’t show up. So we, we didn’t have medical care. And so taking people into the hospital and emergencies any time of day or night, at night particularly, because there was what we call paros. And a paro is when you have to stop. Nobody’s allowed, you know, to be on the road at all and to take somebody into the hospital. And you get stopped a number of times. And sometimes the people who stopped us were no more than 16, 17, 18, 19 years old. They were very young when they were, and they had very little training. But it was what you did and what we did and what we, if you didn’t do it, you may as well go home because you are not serving the, [laughs] you’re not doing your mission work. And so that was, and then I was there for the accords also, you know, the peace accords. So then we had post, you know, but we never stopped serving the people. And when I. When we talk about church work, it meant. It meant everything. It meant all kinds of. How do I say? Farming, safe water, clean water, just nutrition, just about everything. Safe water. Clean water was one of the big, big projects because you didn’t have clean water you’re going to have all kinds of diseases and deaths and. And vaccinations for children, you know, and all of that. Yeah.

Bali White [00:31:45] So you were there for six and a half years. Were you moving around a lot or were you typically in the same place?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:31:52] Same place, same. Same village yeah, I think that was important because to. And we almost always stayed in the same place unless, you know, there was a really. [sneezes] Excuse me. There was a need to. Sometimes it’s cleaning, cleaning fluid, sneeze or. Yeah, it could be anything. A perfumer. Unless there was a, you know, good reason to move. We did health projects like glasses, eye projects for, you know, because people didn’t have access to eye care, dental care, hearing, all of that, you know. So we did a number of those very big projects. We’d have. One of the projects we did for eye care, we had about 5,000 people that were attended to within the ten days that people. And then outside people from the United States and Canada came, you know, with all the equipment and the doctors and everything. Our job was to make sure that everything was ready when they came. And the people were, you know, it was a big undertaking, but well worth it.

Bali White [00:33:13] So could you kind of describe the environment where you were at?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:33:18] Like, it was very– The village was like a really small town. Within the central part of that town there was treated water. Outside of it was well water. Another big, big issue. And there was a school that functioned fairly well. There was an elected mayor. There was very little health care, especially during the war because nobody wanted to come and work there because it was very tenuous place to be and people were pretty poor and there was a lot of immigration. You know, El Norte was, you know, the vision for most of the people. I would say women got married and had children very young, which caused also a lot of health problems. And we did a good bit of nutrition. We had Caritas International there for supplemental food, especially for women, pregnant women and children. Mostly then they were what you might call tenant farmer here. They rented some land and grew corn and beans, pretty much. We had an agricultural program that helped a lot, you know. And there was a number of agencies that came in to help with that. But actually the people themselves were so much a part of that. It wasn’t like from the top down, it really all kinds of efforts to work from the bottom up. And prior to me go to the breakout of the civil war, there was a very extensive, what they called the university for campesinos. And in that one day, it was learned so very, very much of basic things, not just farming, but for the women, they learned Catholic social teaching. They learned leadership skills, and they were leaders in their, and their areas of like small villages. We call them cantons. And they were very well prepared so that when we went to an area, we already, the whole team, and they worked on it for years, they had everything that should do the services to teach the people, you know, teach there—they were in charge of that particular area. They were very well trained, very well, had a real good basic. So they were. And they were also the ones who the military was afraid of because they were leaders and they were, a lot of them had to escape out of the country or got killed. You know, they were targeted because they were the leaders. And, you know, just to say something basic, if you say, well, where does your rights come from, your human rights? So, well, the government, you see, but the teaching was, is you have inalienable rights. You are born with human rights. They don’t come from. You have them already. The government doesn’t give them to you, but they can take it away, you know. So that was like, just. That was, that was subversive. That kind of teaching was subversive. Yeah.

Bali White [00:37:18] So did you feel like there were dangers to the work you were doing there?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:37:24] There were always dangers, you know. You didn’t ask for it.

Bali White [00:37:29] Yeah.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:37:29] You know, you were– There was always dangers, but you didn’t ask for that danger and it makes you mad, you know, gets you upset, but better be in control of that. You know, you just, you didn’t ask to be a martyr. You didn’t ask to be thrown out of the country. You didn’t ask to get, you know, pushed around. You know, if you did, you know, you got to take it. But you didn’t ask for it, in other words. So we, I think even, I think we all, I would say across the board, we as a Cleveland Mission team, behaved very well, you know, in the sense of being able to stay there. And of course, we did lose, you know, we did lose four the women and lots and lots of laypeople, catechists and leaders, but you just didn’t ask for it, right? Yeah. And I think that at least what I saw. And if I think about myself, we weren’t fearful. Like, I don’t ever think that I was, like, really so fearful that I couldn’t do anything. Because if you’re fearful, go home, you know, you’re not really good to the people, you know, there. And I didn’t see that, you know, there are things that happen, like you might get run into an ambush or something. Well, you get back into the car, you know, and you drive it, you know. Yeah. You just didn’t. Yeah. Anyway, that’s pretty much.

Bali White [00:39:18] So after the six and a half years, I guess. What was your next step? Did you come back to Ohio?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:39:24] I came back to Ohio, yes. And I had a good break, you know, too, because returning missionaries really do need to have a program to help return because, you know, people were there longer than I was. And you come back to a totally different atmosphere, you know, and there is– There is a huge adjustment back into the culture that you left. You never come back the same. You just don’t, you know, if you come back the same, then you didn’t have much of an experience. [laughs] Yeah. And eventually I ended up working with the St. Bernard’s Hispanic community. So it was back. I wanted to– It’s not easy to learn a new language.

Bali White [00:40:23] Oh, yeah. [laughs]

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:40:24] And, you know, and use it well. And I thought I wanted to continue using that. That was a real gift to me. I felt it was a real gift to me, a real privilege to be able to learn the language, to get help learning the language, to be able to use it effectively. And I wanted to continue doing that. So I did continue doing that for the next 25 years in Akron, at St. Bernard’s. And then during that time, we also started the Catholic Worker.

Bali White [00:40:57] Yes.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:40:58] Which ended up doing a lot, an awful lot of work with undocumented, the undocumented. Now, we had some that were documented, but mostly were the undocumented that were coming into Akron brand new. They did not have family ahead of them. Now, if you have family ahead of you, you had some place to go. But these were people who didn’t, you know, so we were the family that were there for them.

Bali White [00:41:30] What year did you kind of establish the Akron Catholic Worker?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:41:36] That would be about 30 years ago.

Bali White [00:41:38] Okay.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:41:39] Yeah. And, you know, we started out– We didn’t start out just having immigrants or refugees. It was whoever, and it still is, whoever is in need and always was. But we happened to have– There was no other alternative for the undocumented. They didn’t have government help they didn’t have family help. So that was one of the reasons we focused on that because it wasn’t an alternative for them. But it was never, Catholic Worker never said, we’re only going to do this. It was whoever is in need still today. I think I would say the majority are still immigrants. You know, recently are not so recently arrived. You know, And then when you have that, you also have all the other things like the children’s education, healthcare. You know, they don’t qualify. Things they don’t qualify for. In fact, I had almost forgotten this, but the first four women we had that came from Honduras after the Hurricane Mitch that happened in Honduras and wiped them out. We had, they needed healthcare, they needed some care. And it was, we went to the Native American Clinic where we got good health care. Now that closed since, you know, but that was an acronym called the Medicine Wheel, and that’s where we first went. And then we, I had to learn all of that. And, you know, we all did. Because where, what do you do now that we have, now what do we do for the people that we have? You know, because we never did before.

Bali White [00:43:30] Right.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:43:30] Yeah. And so it was a learning experience, and there was a lot of people who helped. You know, it’s amazing how many people are ready to help. Like when we– I didn’t just discover the Medicine Wheel, you know, somebody came, a Native American who was working there and lived in Akron came to our house to see what they could do and told us about it and invited us to participate. And they, so, you know, that happened all the time. And we did a lot of work in going out to all the institutions, hospital, schools to say, you know, you do not have, you do not have interpreters here. And they say, well, we don’t need them. So, yes, you do, because now you have an immigrant population here, and that speaks Spanish. They do not speak, you know, and you need to have it. So just first of all, doing the interpretation for them and then saying, you know, this is something you’re going to have to do because you’re going, you know, you’re not, they’re going to be here. So we did a lot of that kind of work to get the services up and going in the community that they didn’t have before or like registering the kids in school and being told that we couldn’t because they were undocumented. So we had to prove to them that they, yes, they are eligible to be at this school, but they never had anybody before, so they didn’t. And then they weren’t able to speak for themselves at that point, you know, so they had to have somebody with them.

Bali White [00:45:20] So I guess, what would you describe to be the main goals of a Catholic Worker?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:45:26] To practice the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, which, you know, is– And how do you do that? Whichever way in which the people needs, whatever is needed, you know, that a Catholic Worker are different. What would they say the basic goal is? It’s very different. There’s also what we didn’t do enough of and would love to do more of, which is the harder part, is to change the system. And systemic change is definitely the most difficult. But the Catholic Worker as a whole is dedicated to also saying this is an unfair system. And, of course, immigration policy is so broken and has been for years, and what have we done to change that system? Very little, you know, so. And it’s ongoing. Yeah.

Bali White [00:46:22] So could you describe the neighborhood that the Akron Catholic worker house was in?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:46:30] It was a poor neighborhood. You know. Housing was old housing. It was built– Most of the homes were built from grants from the, to families from the rubber companies, you know, so the houses were not great houses to begin with. And that’s– A lot of them came- That neighborhood was built, not totally, around the rubber companies.

Bali White [00:47:06] Okay. And then would you say that the community kind of received the Catholic Worker in Akron well?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:47:14] It took time. If you think of a neighborhood that, not all, but most people want to get out of. And it was towards the end of, like, the white flight, and so they had dealt with that, and it was pretty much all done by the time we got there. And then we came in and bought a house and moved in when all the other white flight, and they did not know what to make of us, you know, because the people really, that came in there from outside, a lot of it was up. I mean, they were not your people. You would welcome, a lot of drug dealing, you know, so, in fact. Yeah, a lot of drug dealing. So it took a while for them to figure us out, you know, but it did happen because one of our goals was to be good neighbors. And it did. It did work out, and we became very much a part of the neighborhood and still are a part of the neighborhood. We did some gardening. We did some local things that involved the neighbors. But in the beginning, it was– It was very suspicious. Very, very suspicious. But they figured out that we’re not going to harm the neighbor or harm them. And we weren’t selling drugs.[laughs] So it turned out okay.

Bali White [00:48:59] Would you say that—

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:49:00] And the other thing is we rehabilitated four houses.

Bali White [00:49:03] Oh, wow.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:49:04] The ones that we bought and lived in. [crosstalk] So that was a boost to the neighborhood. I mean, it’s like, to the street, you know, to have four houses rehabilitated [laughs] was a boost to that street because one summer, seven houses around me came down by the city just in my, just around me, like, from my street to the next street.

Bali White [00:49:31] Were there people, like, living in those houses when they decided to tear them down?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:49:35] No, no. They were abandoned houses, some recently, some more, but there was no, the city did not at that time have a rehabilitation of houses. They were vacant. They were not the best houses to begin with. They come down. Yeah, that was the answer. So vacant lots we had plenty of.

Bali White [00:49:59] So I guess, would you say with, like, some of the families that you helped, there were some success stories. Were they able to—

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:50:06] Well, see, that was not our goal. [laughs] We didn’t– It’s very difficult to say what’s success and what isn’t success. We didn’t say, well, they’re successful if they all graduate from school and they all find jobs. I would say that they were hard workers. They raised their family, they sent their children to school and that, you know, they, when they left us, they were able to be on their own, and that’s success. Now, I wouldn’t say, though, that it wasn’t like if somebody was with us for some time and as far as, like, most people would judge, they weren’t successful. That did not mean that we felt it was unsuccessful, because if we, as a home, were able to better their lives and they lived with us, and then we would hope, hope something good happened. And I’m not the judge of what that something good is, really. So we didn’t really have a success chart. [laughs]

Bali White [00:51:31] So I guess moving forward, you currently live on the Near West Side. So when did you kind of come back here?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:51:42] Well, it’s actually just a couple few years ago, three years ago, really. And I lived on West Boulevard, but the community sold that house because there was only two of us left, and we’re older and two moved. And then I found a place on the Near West Side because I didn’t– I volunteer at Joseph and Mary’s Home. And if I went, like, the possibility of Lakewood because some of our sisters are there, but there was no, there was no vacancy in Lakewood for me. And the other one was out farther, like Richfield or Broadview Heights, and that was too far. Coming in, I did not want, I didn’t want to be driving. And also, I think ecologically, it’s not a decision I would want to make, not just for my own benefit, but also ecologically and time wise. So I’m close to where I’m volunteering and then volunteering for the drop-in center. I’m just down the street [crosstalk] it’s 42nd on Lorain and I’m on 38th, so it’s just down the street from me. And I can walk almost everything I can walk to. I walked to St. Colman’s this morning, although I don’t walk all the time because that’s a little more distance. But St. Patrick’s is down the street. The library is down the street. Shopping is, you know, if I need to take the rapid, it’s down the street. So, yeah.

Bali White [00:53:26] So could you kind of like, describe like, what is different in the Near West Side now as to when you were first living here?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:53:37] The population is much greater. Yeah. And it’s gentrified, you know, so we still have, there still are people that are here that were here when I was here in seventies or the late sixties. They’re the older people. They’re the ones who have lived for a long time in the neighborhood, raised their children, and very active, you know, most, for the most part, very active. They are community people, people coming in, the ones I don’t know are the ones living in apartments in. Well, it’s mostly apartments or high-rise or, you know, the recently, I don’t know that population, to be honest with you. They’re there and I see them all the time, but I really don’t know them. I know the school know, I know a good lot of young people from around, you know, the Catholic Worker and around our street that I interact with. But the gentrification, the people who have come in from, what would they say, the outside and live there, God bless them all, they’re welcome. But I don’t know them, you know, and they, so that’s very different. They’re not in church, they’re not in our, and I’m not in their social circle. There’s also, I think that there are people living there too, that are doing interning at hospitals because there’s, you know, there’s a lot of healthcare hospitals around there.

Bali White [00:55:28] Oh, yeah, it’s definitely an up and coming neighborhood for young professionals, they’d like to say.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:55:34] Yes. Yeah, yeah. But they have to get the ready, get rid of the old, the old guard first before it’s totally– [laughs] But the, I like the design to say you can walk almost any– You walk within walking distance, like I can walk to the bank. And so that, that I like, you know, that they’re, you know, it’s not– I don’t like it when I have to drive. I don’t think it’s a good design to have to drive, you know, to where you need to go. You know, you’re shopping, your banking, your whatever, or your church or whatever you need to do. There’s also good walking around, walking space. You know, I like that I can go to the lake and, you know, rather easily.

Bali White [00:56:27] So you are part of the Cleveland Catholic Worker, correct?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:56:31] Mm-hmm.

Bali White [00:56:32] So I guess what is your involvement there currently?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:56:36] I’m not doing a whole lot. You know, we have meals together, and I participate in that, and, you know, take my turn making a meal and cleaning up. And that’s a very important part, because a good number of the people who come to that meal are living alone, and this is community for them. We have young family also, and we have some young single people. I’ve been involved also. A program that young people from Germany has come, you know, so they live at the Catholic Worker and interact with that group of people, too. And the Interreligious Task Force and the NEOCH, you know, [crosstalk] you know what the Interreligious Task force is? [crosstalk] Okay, so what was the question again?

Bali White [00:57:41] Oh, what your involvement at the Catholic Worker was.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:57:44] And then at the drop-in center. You know, I’m there for their lunches, you know, all of them. We all take turns, you know, so I do maybe sometimes I might do three, four times a month. Sometimes I may do once and twice a month, you know, and every once in a while, I prepare the sandwiches and the bags, you know, the bag lunches, you know, so that usually I do at home, you know, and then bring them in. But. And then, you know, there’s– It’s not a long period of time, but it’s very intense because you open the doors, everybody comes in, you know, and there’s a certain time they leave, and. But there’s a lot of interaction. A lot of interaction. It’s small. You get to know the people by name. It’s not, like I said, there’s a lot of interaction, a lot of communication that goes on not only among the guests that come in, but also among the workers. Like I said, you know, almost everybody by name. And, you know, I told you about my cup of coffee this morning. That’s one of the people, the woman that stopped me you know, for coffee was actually recognized my face, at least from, you know, the drop-in center. So she felt comfortable in stopping and talking. So we have. I have conversations a lot with people that I meet maybe on the street or coming from someplace or–

Bali White [00:59:21] Yeah, seems like this community is very tight-knit. Everybody in a sense knows everybody. And then you encounter new people each day.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:59:30] It is friendly, but, you know, it’s– I think those of us who have lived there before and have lived there longer are better at that than the new people coming in.

Bali White [00:59:46] For sure. So I guess looking, looking back at all of all the things that you’ve been involved in, is there anything you would have liked to do differently or have done differently?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [00:59:57] I think there always is. You know, it’s like, I’d like to have done that better or maybe differently. And there’s a lot of things that I look at and I said I did do differently, you know, than had been done before. And that that’s good, but it’s also. I’ve learned from. I’m learning from experience and learn from my mistakes. So there are some things– I think there one thing that I would like to do more if I– I did do, but I would like to have done it maybe better, is that whole thing of– How would you put it like? In Spanish it’s “Capacitar,” you know, is to the development of peoples, you know, it that I never have been from the top down, you know, much more from the bottom up, so to speak, or to work with people because if we think we know the answers, we don’t. You know? It’s like together we find answers and we find ways. I think if I had to live it all over again, I probably would get good training in like something like community organizing and that kind of approach so that to be of service, you know, and. Yeah, that probably would be.

Bali White [01:01:34] And then I guess nearing towards the end of this interview, moving forward, what positive changes do you hope to see for the Near West Side and Cleveland as a whole?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [01:01:46] I definitely would like to see a different approach to housing. And I don’t know what all that different approaches would be, but to make sure that whoever is building and any developers, that part of their plan is for low-income [crosstalk] that have to be part of their plan in order to get the contract. I think less tax help, you know, to developers and less rising taxes for people who have lived there and own their houses and have been there forever, there isn’t. It’s not equitable. I don’t think, one of them I think, above all is to say, let’s look at housing for low-income and for unhoused in a different way. And not to be second thought or like a drip-down kind of, trickle-down kind of– It’s not, you know, that doesn’t work, and it’s not fair, you know, for people who are. These people are losing housing rapidly. Yeah. So that I’d be willing to work on. There’s one thing, though, that we didn’t mention at all that was very important for me before I went to El Salvador is I worked in the Mount Pleasant area.

Bali White [01:03:28] Okay.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [01:03:29] And that was the– That was my first foray, I think, into a neighborhood that was very different to any neighborhood I’ve ever been in. It was. There was a housing renewal that wasn’t renewal at all. And the people of the Mount Pleasant area suffered tremendously. They also were– It was terrible injustice, the red lining. And that included loans for people coming back from Vietnam particularly. That was when I was there. People were coming back from Vietnam and getting loans and then losing their houses because of red lining, because it was designed for the banks to win and get the money. And that was a tremendous eye opener for me that I hadn’t encountered before. And we had the Epiphany Parish and the pastor there had hired community organizers, and I worked very closely with the community organizers and just learned a great deal. And we actually, in the end, as community organizers, and the people. The people themselves actually were the ones that had to do with it. The community organizer was there to help, you know, and to provide their expertise. They called Washington. They actually had to testify against redlining and won. We won the case, you know. So in the bank, there is a photo of all of the organizers, you know, communities. And, you know, when you say there’s a photo was in the bank, usually it’s because you’re wanted, you know, by the police or something. Well, I just say, well, my photo was in the bank [both laugh] but that was a very hard one and very satisfying that it was a win in the end, you know, and it didn’t help the neighborhood tremendously because the damage was done already. Yeah, but the bank and insurance. The insurance. The bank, particularly those two, it was tremendous injustice, and it was a lot of damage done, But that case was won by. Yeah.

Bali White [01:06:08] Can you recall the year this was?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [01:06:11] Oh, dear lord. It was the eighties. Yeah.

Bali White [01:06:17] Thank you. Yeah, I guess, do you have any last thoughts or advice, maybe for younger generations that hope to get involved in a community like this?

Sr. Catherine Walsh [01:06:27] I hope they get involved.

Bali White [01:06:28] Yeah.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [01:06:29] And my advice would be, don’t be afraid to get your feet wet. Know, go in there and learn, you know? And it’s not all about you, you know, it’s, it’s really, in the end, it’s the community and building a sense of community, because without that, I don’t think that any culture is going to be a healthy culture.

Bali White [01:07:05] Sure. Well, we’re nearing the end of this interview. My name is Bali White. It is August 7, 2024. I’m here with Catherine Walsh, Sister Catherine Walsh. Thank you very much.

Sr. Catherine Walsh [01:07:18] Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine.

Bali White [01:07:20] With the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine. Thank you very much.

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