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I was born February 9, 1926, the first girl in a family of two brothers, Harold and Arnold. My parents were John and Ella Snetsinger. We lived in a comfortable big brick house with a front verandah facing the beautiful St. Lawrence River, a mile and a half above the Long Sault Rapids. On the main shore of the river just where the Rapids began was a long canal built to accommodate the Canadian steamships. The Rapids Prince Liner was the only ship to venture into the Rapids which it did every summer afternoon carrying three deck loads of travellers to Montreal and the city of Quebec. Our parish Church, Our Lady of Grace, was erected on the shore of the canal entrance by the Irish workers who were responsible for digging the canal, allowing the steamships to carry their goods to Newfoundland and the Atlantic Ocean. My father, John Matthias Snetsinger was a cheese maker and his factory was across the busy Highway Two which linked the west to Montreal and points east. Next to our house on the east side was a large apple orchard, a strawberry patch and raspberry bushes, as well as a large vegetable garden, all of which kept my older brothers and my sister and me out of mischief when we were not in school or playing baseball with our neighbours. We grew into a family of three boys and three girls. The neighbours’ sons and daughters joined us in a spare field on our property to play baseball. When winter came my father aided by my brothers, built a large rink in our backyard where the neighbours joined us for hockey and skating, as seasons dictated. When we weren’t playing or attending school, we learned to help out in the house by baking and cleaning. My brothers tended two jersey cows who were in a rented pasture belonging to a farmer on the outskirts of the village. Morning and evening Harold and Arnold went off up the hill and over the fences into the pasture to call ‘Pickles and Pete.’ The patient jerseys separated themselves from the farmer’s herd and came to be milked. In the winter the cows were sheltered in a small barn built by my father and grandfather on the outskirts of our property. The cows supplied us with milk and cream and probably kept my brothers out of mischief. We attended school in the local public school at Dickinson’s Landing, and later we walked three miles to the high school in Wales until we finished Grade Twelve. When we graduated from Grade Twelve, which was as far as the teachers there taught, we went off to boarding school at St. Andrew’s Convent, St. Andrew’s West, for Grade Thirteen. My teachers there were Sister Alexis, Sister Noreen and Sister Wilhelmina. My brothers went to Cornwall to work, and later into the Army and Air Force. In 1941 my brother Arnold, a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, was killed when his plane was damaged over Germany and then crashed in Holland. Our Pastor celebrated Mass outside my mother’s bedroom door - she had suffered a stroke just shortly before the arrival of the telegram bearing the sad message. Our neighbours, most of them non-Catholic came to join us at 6:00 a.m. for Mass which coincided with the time of Arnold’s funeral Mass in England. Mother slowly recovered. In 1944 I graduated from Teachers’ College in Ottawa and returned to teach eight grades (54 pupils) in Bonville (St. Andrew’s Parish). It was a public school. After two years there I moved into Cornwall to teach a Grade Six class of boys at St. Columban’s Boys School. They were an energetic group of thirty-six boys from different backgrounds. One lad was my first cousin who had to learn to call me “Miss Snetsinger.” A Christian Brother on the staff caught my cousin addressing me as ‘Ethyle.’ He was given a stiff lecture on how to properly address his teacher as ‘Miss Snetsinger,’ even if it happened to be recess and we were alone in the room. Wolfe Island across from Kingston, was my next teaching experience for two years. This was a rural school with eight grades. I was close enough to home that I could take a bus every other weekend to be with my aging mother. Two years later I was in Erinsville, at St. Patrick’s School. The pupils and parents were very welcoming and a pleasure to be with. In the evenings we went swimming, boating, skating, tobogganing, card playing and country dancing. Each season had much to offer. Our landlady was an Irish widow who enjoyed our company. The Church was just across the road from the school. The Pastor, an ex-teacher, was called upon one afternoon to supply teach. He probably enjoyed the change of scenery and the activity. Time was passing and I had a sense of being on the edge of having to make a decision for the future - to be or not to be; married or ?. To arrive at a decision, I knew that I had to go and see. By this time my mother had died. My oldest brother had married and moved on with his own life. My sister had gone to France following her External Affairs posting. My other sister Kathleen had died quite suddenly, and my youngest brother was getting married. I had been putting off decision-making too long already. So, I went to Peterborough “to see.” I entered the Congregation on February 2, 1950. Within the year I received the Habit and was known as Sister St. Paul. Since I already had my teaching certificate, I was immediately assigned to St. Anne’s School, Peterborough. Upon completing my Novitiate and canonical year, I taught for the next eighteen years. All of my assignments in elementary schools were in Ontario: St. Mary’s and Sacred Heart in Peterborough, Almonte, St. Andrew’s West, Cobourg, Hastings, Kirkfield and Honey Harbour. I also taught for ten years at the high school level: Vancouver, and St. Pius X in Ottawa. After these years in high school, the call to missionary work prevailed. In 1982 I went north to Labrador, to Davis Inlet and Sheshatshit to work with the Oblates and with the native people. I worked in the rectory offices as accountant-secretary and later, as Director of the just beginning Naskapi-Montagnais Religious Education Centre. Here we provided adult education programs, sacrament preparation courses and catechetical services for the two schools serving the native people of Sheshatshit and Davis Inlet. Two years later I left Labrador to attend the Focus on Leadership Program at Spokane University in Washington. Upon its completion I moved to Lindsay, Ontario where I worked in the Faith Development Program. Studies called again and in 1990 I returned to Ottawa to take theology courses at St. Paul’s. On my return to Peterborough one year later, I was involved in proof-reading the chapters written in the Congregational 100 year history book “As The Tree Grows.” At this time I was also involved in the direction of many Spirituality Courses in Peterborough. I also worked with the Diocesan Cursillo Movement as Spiritual Director. In 1993 I began working in the Archives at Mount St. Joseph, where I stayed for several years. In 2000 I celebrated my Golden Jubilee. Although I gave up formal teaching for School Boards in 1982, for the past twenty years or so my teaching has been in the area of faith development, which I have loved very much. I am now retired and living at Mount St. Joseph. God has been patient, compassionate, merciful, loving - what more could I be wanting? I came, I saw, and God conquered. Thanks be to God!
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