A BOROUGH church said goodbye this week to Wokingham town’s last surviving member of the order of Dominican Sisters of the Charity of the Presentation of Our Lady.
Following the death of Sister Veronica, 100, in December last year, Sister Thérèse, 90, became the last surviving nun.
Now she returns to her roots in France.
Around 250 people, including children from St Teresa’s Catholic Academy, parishioners, residents, and deputy borough mayor Cllr Adrian Mather, came to a farewell mass for her at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, led by Parish Priest Canon Simon Thomson.
After 60 years serving as a teacher, Sr Thérèse will join nuns at a Dominican convent near Toulouse.
It is the end of an era.
Sr Thérèse began her work in Wokingham in 1967 and has remained here ever since, teaching thousands of children.
“I was born in a tiny mountain village, Montréjeau, in the Pyrenees Mountains on the Spanish border,” she said.
“It was lovely growing up there, and there were happy times.”
But life could also be hard.
“I’ve gone through a lot,” she said.
“There were difficult periods, even days without food.
“The war affected us enormously, and taught us a lot.
“When it ended there was an atmosphere of friendship, helpfulness and gratitude.”
After secondary education in Bearritz, she began looking after children whose parents weren’t able to care for them, in Montauban, 50km from Toulouse.
“I arrived three days before my job started, and I needed somewhere to stay,” she said.
“I took a room at the convent hostel in Montauban, and it was so good that I never looked anywhere else.”
It was there that she chose her life’s path.
“I had always wanted to be a nun, even as a child, but in Montauban I decided to give my life to the Lord,” she explained.
By coincidence, it is to the same town that she will return to live later this month.
Sr Thérèse has language degrees and is fluent in English, Spanish and French, but it wasn’t her decision to become a teacher.
After she had assisted the nuns in French convents, she was asked if she would prefer to teach Spanish or English.
“Coming from where I grew up, of course I said Spanish,” she said.
“But they said, ‘hard luck, you’re going to England, the sisters in Wokingham need another nun to help them.’
“I was the only one with enough English, so I came.
“The sisters told me: ‘you are going to teach,’ and so I did.”
The sisters first came to Wokingham in 1904, and took rooms above what is now the Edinburgh Woollen Mill.
Here was their first school room.
“The children were mostly from poor Irish Catholic families escaping the troubles,” she said.
“But Catholics and non Catholics alike were all welcomed.
“It was lovely, and the sisters did a lot of good.”
Eventually the nuns bought the plot of land where Corpus Christi Catholic Church and St Teresa’s Catholic Academy now stand.
They built Presentation Convent (now two private houses), and St Teresa’s Primary School.
“When I arrived, I decided to do whatever I was asked,” continued Sr Thérèse.
“It was hard to begin with – everything was different, and English money, especially counting in 12s was very difficult – until decimalisation.”
She did enjoy teaching, though.
“I gave my best, and I made the children produce their best, too,” she said.
“I know at times I was strict, but I hope I was always fair.
Canon Simon Thomson, and parish administrator Hannah Procter at Corpus Christi Church were both her pupils.
“Father Simon, and Hannah were both good students, but Hannah dreaded me because she wasn’t good at spelling and I was trying to help her to improve,” she said.
“It was a good thing, though, because with the job she has now, she needs to be able to spell well.”
One year Sr Thérèse had 53 children in her class.
“There were no regulations,” she said.
“As long as you could manage, you could have as many pupils as you liked.
“And once the children were seated on benches, they couldn’t move until playtime because they would have to step over the others to get out.
“But they were happy – it was a very happy time.
“Once, we built a car together out of cardboard.
“The children put names in a hat to see who would take it home.
“The winning child’s parents hired a van to collect it because it was twice the size of my dining room table.”
She made current pupils laugh a few days ago when she told them about fire drills, which involved passing children out one at a time through an upstairs sash window, to another teacher standing on a flat roof below.
From there they would cross another roof to a ladder leading down to the ground.
“Of course if there had been a fire the children probably wouldn’t have escaped,” she said, “But never mind, we did it – in the days before health and safety.
“It was great fun, me with my big habit going through the window last, after making sure nobody was left behind in the toilets.”
In his thanksgiving address Canon Thomson celebrated her 60 years in Wokingham, and 120 years of service from the Dominican sisters.
He said: “I feel enormously privileged to be here.
“Who would imagine that little Simon, her pupil, would one day end up as the parish priest of Corpus Christi where he grew up as a boy.
“I’ll never forget my first Saturday evening mass five years ago, with Sr Thérèse sitting there.
“I was 59 at the time, but I felt seven years old in her presence.
“We have never lost touch, and I am so thankful for those formative school years.
“We wish Sr Thérèse every blessing in this next stage of her life.
“She and the sisters have been witness to their faith and will be remembered for a very long time.”
When she returns to France, Sr Thérèse says she will accept whatever her new convent would like her to do.
“I will re-adapt to living in France, and to speaking French,” she said.
“I have good, good memories of Wokingham.
“I will miss the town and people terribly, but it is right for me to go now.”
Asked what Wokingham was like 60 years ago, she said: “It was marvellous, more of a big village.
“There were fields everywhere, and it was easy to stop the traffic in those days to let the children cross roads.
“You couldn’t do that now on the Easthampstead Road.
“Gradually lots of people have arrived and the school has grown.
“When I started there were around 120 children – now it’s much bigger.”
Asked what is important to her, she said: “I believe in prayer, and making sure I say thank you to the Lord, even when something bad happens – because something good will happen eventually.
“I firmly believe this gives me the strength to carry on.
“My motto is to ‘live and to die in the service of God and my neighbour’.
“It is what I and my sisters have tried to do all our lives.
“I have tried to give my best.
“I didn’t always succeed – I had failures like everybody, but I had quite a few successes, too.
“I found my strength in the Lord, and in prayer.
“I thank everybody from the bottom of my heart; the parishioners of Corpus Christi, and the people of Wokingham, many of whom have sent me cards.
“Remember that the Lord is always there to help if people are willing to listen.”
For more information, visit: www.corpuschristi-wokingham.org
