RECIPIENTS OF THE LETTERS

Sr. M. Scholastica Demer and Sr. M. Joachima Hornung 

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Sr. M. Scholastica, born Barbara Demer, was born Dec. 25, 1862, in Scheβlitz, in the Archdiocese of Bamberg. A very gifted girl, she received her education with the Dominican Sisters in Bamberg. She met Mother Frances in St. Gangolf’s Church in Bamberg, when Mother Frances had just left the Carmelite convent in the month of December 1882, and was living with her family in Bamberg. Mother Frances invited Barbara to travel to Rome. From January until the day she left for Rome in March 1883, she was employed as a domestic worker with the Streitel family. A few weeks after her arrival in Rome, she took the religious habit, and professed her vows in October 1883. In the following years, she was given the task of collecting alms in Germany and the United States of America; she worked hard for this cause, showing great skill. Mother Frances appreciated her for the enthusiasm she showed for an austere religious life, although she knew her insecurity and vanity. In 1892, Sr. M. Scholastica was asked to open a new mission in Vienna, where she would have been appointed local superior. However, after three years, she left the community with five other sisters, and worked as a domestic worker for 11 years in Munich. After her readmission to the Congregation in 1906, she lived another 30 years as a zealous, humble and ready-to-sacrifice sister. On January 12, 1937, she died at the age of 74 in Vienna. Her body rests in the Simmering cemetery.

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Sr. M. Joachima Hornung, who entered the community on May 29, 1885, took the religious habit on January 6, 1886, made temporary vows on Feb. 10, 1887, and perpetual vows on January 4, 1890. She died on June 9, 1945.