Family members FRANZISKA KAROLINA, HER MOTHER
“THE MOST BELOVED MOTHER"
'Beloved mother, Franziska Karolina - as Mother Frances called her - was born on October 22, 1817, in Ingolstadt, the second child of Peter Hörhammer and Therese. Her father was the owner of a brewery, her mother was the daughter of a caterer from Karlskron, and seven other sons and three daughters were born of their marriage.
Franziska Karolina attended primary school in Ingolstadt, her hometown. It is thought that she later attended high school, opened in Ingolstadt in 1835 by the Franciscan Sisters of Gnadenthal.
In 1844, at the age of 27, she married the young 32 year-old Adam Streitel. The wedding celebration took place in the cathedral parish in Regensburg and on the same day, two of Adam's sisters got married.
The newlyweds moved to Mellrichstadt, where Adam, a brilliant young lawyer, had been called as an assessor at the district court and here their four children were born.
AN ENERGETIC AND TENACIOUS WOMAN
Franziska Karolina was an energetic woman, an active homemaker, an expert in sewing and embroidery, delicate at heart, loving of outer and inner order. Over the years, she would prove to be a formidable educator, endowed with a very fine intuition. Her children remembered her as a true teacher of pedagogy and a wise, enlightened catechist who transmitted to them a religious knowledge and profound piety, infusing her fidelity to Christ and the Catholic faith.
Mother Frances and the community
That maternal vigilance
inherited from her mother...
Drawn from the heart of her mother Franziska Karolina, Mother Frances' maternal sensitivity becomes benevolent love and educational firmness among the sisters and in the apostolate.
From the Norms of 1883:
"Let all the sisters, driven by the love of the Good Shepherd, care for the sick with merciful love, nurture and educate the little ones with motherly care and vigilance”.
Mother Frances Streitel
“WORKING CHARITY”
The moral and religious integrity of this tenacious woman flows into a daily hard-working charity, especially towards the poor and the sick--an uncommon sensitivity, which she passes on to her children, educating them to care for and give loving attention to the most destitute.
After her husband’s death, Franziska Karolina lived her widowhood with dignity and holy resignation, if only for a little more than a year. She died peacefully in Bamberg on February 8,1896, almost an octogenarian.
On the second anniversary of her death, clearly moved by this poignant memory, Mother Frances writes to her sister Hedwig:
“Two years ago, our good mother entered into eternity.
I hope she is near to deliverance
and soon worthy to contemplate God’s throne.
May she show herself as a mighty intercessor before God’s throne
for her children still tarrying
in this veil of tears.”
Excerpt of a letter from Franziska Karolina to her daughter Frances
I have always thought of the good God in heaven
Today, after lunch I went
for the first time again for a walk
with dad and Hedwig;
and I always thought of the good God in heaven,
by whose grace I am still alive ...
(1891)