“Musically Yours” – Uplifting and Rewarding

In 1965, the Sisters of St. Joseph in Peterborough accepted an invitation from the Scarboro Foreign Mission priests to staff a newly-built maternity hospital deep in the Amazon jungle of Brazil.  For the first few years, no money was received from the Brazilian government and so the Sisters relied on donations to operate the hospital.  Aware of the financial need, the Sisters at Mount St. Joseph in Peterborough mobilized and formed a travelling choir to perform benefit concerts for the missionaries in Brazil.  During the fall of 1968, the Sisters, along with additional volunteers from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Peterborough and St. Joseph’s Convent in Lindsay worked hard under the direction of Sister Eileen (June Prentice) to prepare a two-hour concert of sacred and uplifting songs. Along with the usual piano accompaniment, the concert featured the addition of guitar with many of the songs – a novelty in sacred music at the time.

In February of 1969, the choir began the hectic performance schedule of “Musically Yours” with a concert for the Sisters at Mount St. Joseph, including Mother St. Rose, General Superior, and Bishop Francis Marrocco.  Fifteen more concerts followed in all the communities in the Peterborough diocese where Sisters served, as well as in Parry Sound, Ottawa and Cornwall.  Two of the more unusual concerts were held at the maximum security prison in Warkworth in March, and at an annual gathering of over 30,000 members of the Catholic Council of Men at the Canadian National Exhibition Stadium in Toronto in May.

All of the Sisters in the choir had to keep up all their normal responsibilities – teaching, nursing, housekeeping, studying, etc. – while fitting in practices and performances.  Other Sisters not in the choir also pitched in to cover for choir members as needed. The choir gathered one last time at the end of May to record an album of a selection of the songs from the concert.  The efforts of the choir resulted in many happy audiences and in a gift of over $7,000 for the mission in Brazil!

-The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada Archives