Sue Sitter/PCT Sister Mary Ruth Huhn, left, and Sister Jean Louise Schafer, both with the Franciscan Sisters of Dillingen, pose on the front porch of their home across from St. Therese the Little Flower Catholic Church in Rugby.

The Franciscan Sisters of Dillingen ended an 80-year presence at Little Flower Parish and Catholic School with the close of the school term on May 20.

Sisters Jean Louise Schafer and Mary Ruth Huhn, both with the order, have been busy preparing for their move to their motherhouse in Hankinson. Although both have returned to Hankinson for the summer every year since they’ve been with Little Flower Parish, they will not come back to Rugby in August, as they had for several years.

As they sat in the front parlor at their home across the street from the church, Schafer and Huhn said they would miss the many people they’ve met in Rugby and Little Flower Parish.

Schafer, who took her first vows with the Franciscan Sisters of Dillingen in 1983, talked briefly about the order’s history.

“Our community began in Dillingen, Germany, in 1241. That’s 15 years after St. Francis died. So, we have a long and varied history,” Schafer said.

In 1913, 24 sisters came from Germany to Collegeville, Minn., to do domestic work for the priests of that parish and diocese. More sisters came in waves and expanded their reach to German-speaking communities in the region, moving west to Hankinson.

Huhn said Hankinson “was a place where they were invited and they were welcomed into the community. They built their convent there in 1928.”

Schaefer said about 14 years after the convent’s construction in Hankinson, Rugby’s Little Flower Parish built its school.

“That building has a little history, which is interesting,” Schaefer said.

“The building originally came from a little town near Hibbing, Minn. They discovered iron ore under the town, so Hibbing had to move,” Schaefer said. “All the buildings were moved and relocated some distance away, including the school.”

“The pastor of the parish in that little town was looking for a Catholic parish that would want a school,” Schaefer said. “So, he drove down Highway 2 asking pastors if they wanted to start a Catholic school. And the pastor here at Little Flower was Monsignor Nicholas Cloos. And he was very excited about having a school.

“They took the school building apart brick by brick and moved it to Rugby,” Schafer said. “The people in Rugby dug out a basement and put the school back together again and rebuilt it. In 1942, there was a war going on, so there was a moratorium on building supplies. They couldn’t buy any, that’s why they had to use everything they could from the school and rebuild it.”

Cloos next invited sisters from the Franciscan Sisters of Dillingen to teach, since the nuns spoke German and many were familiar with the German-Russian immigrant families who had settled in North Dakota.

Sisters from the order served other communities in the region as well, Schaefer said. Some taught in the Pierce County community of Selz, while others taught in Karlsruhe in McHenry County. Nuns from a different order taught the children of German-Russian immigrants in Balta.

The nuns taught in public schools in the region to relieve a shortage of teachers caused by World War II, according to Schafer.

However, since not all public school children were Catholic, North Dakota legislators passed a law forbidding nuns to wear their habits while teaching in public schools.

“So, it was a real challenge to the sisters. But, they wanted to provide an education in the public schools,” Schafer said.

The nuns teaching at Little Flower School numbered about nine when the school opened in 1942. Children at Little Flower School learned reading, writing, math, and other traditional school subjects with religious teachings as well. Nuns also taught religion to Catholic children attending public schools in after-school programs.

“Our sisters over the years have served in several communities and parishes in religious education as directors of religious education, or in schools here in North Dakota in the eastern half of North Dakota, but we just don’t have the people to do it any longer,” Schafer said. “There are people who say ‘We would like to have sisters in our school, too,’ but there just aren’t enough to go around.”

Schafer said Sr. Donna Welder, who served Little Flower from 1976-2000, had told her there had been no sisters taking their final vows.

“There have been some novices who’ve tried it out, but for some reason, they didn’t persevere,” Schafer said.

Schafer began her work at Little Flower Parish in 2000. Huhn joined her and another sister as a novice in 2009. The number fell to two again two years later.

Huhn, took her first vows with the order in 2011. She said she moved to the Fargo Diocese, which encompasses Rugby and Hankinson, after growing up in New Ulm, Minn.

Schaefer said she came from the Bismarck Diocese.

Both said they would always remember their time with Little Flower Parish.

“The community was very welcoming. It was like our family away from home. We did a lot of different things in our work with the children and the adults,” Huhn said. “But our main work here is just being present and giving witness to the value of the faith. There’s something more than we’re doing every day. We’re pointing to Heaven.”

Schafer said , “I will miss the contact with the children, praying with the people in the parish and the warmth and hospitality people have shown to us. From the moment we stepped into this town until today, people have been extraordinary in their support from the sisters, not only from the Catholic parish, but other parishes too.”

Schafer and Huhn said many Rugby residents, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, had come to know them over the years.

“I like to take walks around town,” Huhn said. “One person said to me one day, ‘I could set my watch by you. You pass my house at the same time every afternoon.'”

Schafer said, “We’ve dealt with the good people of Rugby and they have been more than supportive of us and our role as women religious.

“Father Miller has been so supportive of religion in the parish, and in fact, all the pastors in the parish in the 22 years I’ve been here, they’ve been so appreciative of the presence of sisters and they’ve done so much to support us,” she added.

“Father himself was taught by our sisters at the Catholic school there, so he has an affinity and a great relationship with our sisters,” she said. “So, it will be hard to leave that community.”

Huhn said, “I think a big part of our vocation is community life, so it will be nice to be back with the sisters. There are challenges living with them also, but it will be nice to be there to help around the house. If they say, ‘Oh, we don’t have anybody available to drive,’ we’ll be able to help with that, so I think that will be a good thing.”

Schafer added, “I would echo that. It’s always nice to pray with the sisters in a group and that will be something I’ll be looking forward to, and also the community life with the small group there. So, it will be good to just get to know each other and work with each other again.”

Both said Rugby residents have already asked them if they planned to return for a visit in the future.

Huhn said they hoped to come back to see the friends they’ve made in the community “at some point.” She added she would keep the people of Rugby in her prayers, as she also prays for the families of nuns at Hankinson, some of whom are buried in Little Flower Cemetery.

Both sisters said area residents who happened to be traveling near Hankinson were welcome to call and visit the motherhouse.

The Franciscan Sisters of Dillingen sponsor retreats for Catholics to build their faith every year. The order will host two mother-daughter retreats this summer, one scheduled for June 19-21 and a second scheduled for July 21-23. For more information on the retreat, contact Huhn at 208-1245.