Sr Marion

It is the Christmas of 1910; in Yale, Canada, a group of schoolgirls are going from door to door singing ‘Wake and Sing good Christians’, under the guidance of Sr Marion. That is all I noted down from East and West, the magazine we published between 1886 and 1919. It is enough, however, to justify writing about Sr Marion just before Christmas. A Christmas related blog is going nowhere. So, let me introduce you to Sr Marion.  

Born in 1869, she was the third child of John Croomes Hollings and his wife, Cecilia Harriet Hooper Hollings, who were based in London, where John worked in the War Office, as his father had. Julia Marion Hollings was baptised in St Paul’s, Battersea in January 1870, and was one of at least five children: two brothers (Geoffrey and Hereward) and two sisters (Charlotte and Lilian). In 1871, John and Cecilia lived in Battersea with their four oldest children. What happened next is uncertain. I have not yet found any of the girls in the 1881 census; Geoffrey is at school in Hastings, and Hereward is a visitor with a family in Lambeth. John is lodging in St Pancras, but his wife may have been a patient in St Andrew’s Hospital for Mental Diseases in Northampton. She is down just as C H H H, but the initials and the age are correct. That this is possible is borne out by the fact that Cecilia is a patient (lunatic) at Bethnal House, Bethnal Green in 1891, 1901 and 1911. Whatever had happened, and whatever she suffered from, it seems to have affected the whole family. The children may have returned to live with their father as in 1901 John, a war office inspector of military stores, is living in Bethnal Green with Charlotte, a teacher, Hereward, a clerk in an insurance office, and Lilian. By 1901, Marion was at Ditchingham, where she had been professed in 1898. As a choir Sister, she likely joined in 1896, but I have no knowledge of where she was between 1871 and 1896. I’m uncertain as to why she used her middle name, but she is one of many Sisters who did.

One of Sr Marion’s early works was in Norwich, at St Augustine’s Lodge, a refuge for where girls would stay for a few weeks or months before going on to a long stay refuge, such as our House of Mercy. Sr Marion was one of three Sisters there in 1901, with 10 girls aged between 14 and 21 also registered there. It would not have been easy, although the census does not tell us the exact nature of the work Sr Marion did there. It seems likely that she knew, or even worked with, our Associate, Theophila Coyte, who was treasurer at St Augustine’s and died in 1907. 1907 also brought changes for Sr Marion. It was in this year that she was sent to work in Canada, and she is registered there in 1911. Sr Constance went out the same year, and Sr Louisa the year after. Sr Althea was also registered there in 1911; the Sisters also worked alongside lay staff. So far, all I know about Sr Marion’s time in Canada is that excerpt about the Christmas of 1910; that she taught needlework; and that she was one of the party who met the Prince of Wales on his visit to Canada in 1919. A group of children went, as well as the Superior and Sr Eileen. Sr Marion provided two good meals, as the trip meant a 20 mile journey.

There will be more to discover about Sr Marion’s time in Canada, once I have had the chance to look at the Canadian magazines we published at the time. It’s likely that she was among the last Sisters there, as we withdrew from Canada in 1920. Sr Marion seems to have spent the rest of her life in the Community House at Ditchingham. She was Novice Mistress between 1938 and 1939. Her health started to fail in July 1949, and in the January of 1950 she was anointed by the warden. Later that month she became gravely ill with Pneumonia, and died peacefully at 8.20am on the 10^th February. Her funeral was three days later. The Community Diary comments that she had been 54 years in religion [dated from her clothing] and was a most selfless Sister.

Returning to the image of those school children singing carols under the guidance of Sr Marion, I’m wondering what we can do to spread the true meaning of Christ’s coming, and whether that has to be rooted in prayer and contemplation before the mystery of the Christ child, to draw to ourselves more deeply that mystery. Does it mean carving out time to spend in prayer? Possibly; but maybe it could be helpful to carry that image of Jesus around with us as we go about our daily lives, reminding ourselves that it is in this reality that Christ came. For I also think back to Sr Marion’s childhood, to how difficult it must have been for each member of the family. In order to truly celebrate Christ’s coming, we need to see beyond the glitzy glamour of Christmas that is promoted among us, to see the reality of people’s lives; trauma, upset and difficulties do not disappear on the 25^th December each year. Can we remember that it is this actual world that Jesus was born into, and that it is this real, actual world to which he sends us?