Provincial House marks 40 years

St. Joseph's Provincial House in Latham marked its 40th anniversary June 22 with a Mass, reception, and special thank-yous to family and friends of those who helped create it, including the children of the original electrician and architect. For the occasion, members of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet shared some interesting facts about the property with The Evangelist.

HOW IT BEGAN

The sisters originally lived on property in Troy that's now part of the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In the late 1950s, when their buildings began to crumble and they simultaneously had a vocations boom -- 100 novices entering the order -- they started the search for a new home.

THE PROPERTY

The site of the Provincial House, on Watervliet-Shaker Road in Latham, is rich with history. Madame Henriette-Lucy de la Tour and her husband, the Marquis de la Tour du Pin, had fled the French Revolution to make their home there in 1794. The aristocrats became farmers, harvesting the apple orchard on the property and starting a small dairy. Two years later, the family was able to return to France, leaving behind their colonial-era home -- with a basement that was used in the 19th century to hide slaves escaping via the Underground Railroad.

MOVING IN

When the Sisters of St. Joseph bought the 129 acres of land in 1958, five sisters moved into the original "Delatour House" while the Provincial House was being built.

Ground was broken for the Provincial House in 1961, and Catholics all over the Albany Diocese pitched in to raise money to pay for the building. Several sisters described card parties where parishes would set up tables, provide men's choirs as "background music" and donate the proceeds to the fund. The Provincial House was finally dedicated in 1963, and it only took four years to pay off the entire $5,806,000 building cost.

FACTS AND FIGURES

* The Provincial House has three wings -- A, B and C. The A wing used to have rooms for 140 sisters, but many have been converted to office space; the rest are rooms for ill and infirm sisters. The B and C wings are for ambulatory sisters; C wing also has guest rooms

* about 200 sisters live in the Provincial House today, most of them retired. A few Sisters of Mercy and Holy Names sisters also live there -- the former out of convenience, the latter because their order is too small to have a retirement home of their own

* it is the center of the order's Albany Province, which includes more than 520 sisters. All of the order's administrative offices are located in the Provincial House

* the Provincial House employs more than 100 laypeople for maintenance, food service, nursing and office help

* a woodworking center, computer lab, store, library, beauty salon, sewing center, chapel and auditorium are all in the building. An in-house TV studio broadcasts prayer requests, daily menus, news and chapel services to sisters confined to their rooms

* Carondelet Music Center, also in the building, offers music and voice lessons to more than 400 students

* Delatour House still stands on the grounds; it's used as a novitiate for new sisters entering the order

* The property also includes a cemetery with the graves of more than 300 sisters, the first dating back to 1965

QUOTES

* "It's homey. I love the fact that at night, I can wander into the chapel and spend some time with the Lord. Where else can you do that?" -- Sister Anne Clark, CSJ (former dean of The College of Saint Rose, Albany)

* "I call it `the village enclosed.' You have everything here -- your church, your recreation, the library, shopping. I gave up driving two months ago, and I really haven't missed it much." -- Sister Frances Eustace, CSJ, who works in the archives

* "I'm the youngest one in the house. It's definitely [got] a spirit of warmth and hospitality, and it's given me a real sense of our roots. It's like living with the living history. You meet an old sister and you realize that our life is really beautiful." -- Sister Mary Rose Noonan, CSJ, communications director

THE FUTURE

Sister Lauren Van Dermark, province director, says the order is currently doing long-range planning to decide the future of the house and the sisters. The house has been opened for use by parish and diocesan groups, and some land was sold to the Albany Diocese in the 1980s (and is now Carondelet Commons, a senior apartment complex), but no other decisions have yet been made.

"We have a need for both our home and our ministry," Sister Lauren said. "It's not like we're hanging onto it just to hang onto it."

The Provincial House, she said, is "a real house of hospitality" and "a wonderful tribute to the women that designed this 40 years ago."

(Contact the Provincial House at 783-3500. The order's website is www.csjalbany.org.)

(6/26/03) [[In-content Ad]]