An {Unstoppable} CSJ Christmas

Religious faculty celebrates Christmas in Brady Hall, 1961.
At right learning on an elbow is Sr. Aline Marie Gerber.

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY. One tiny image in our "Sisters in Traditional Habits" file shows the Mount's Sisters enjoying each other's company in Brady Hall.

At first glance, it's a not-very-interesting Christmas snapshot. But if you know some Mount history, there's a story behind the setting: the old Lecture Hall, now Brady Lounge.

According to the back of the photo the year is 1961. Scores of holiday greeting cards are pinned to the stage curtain in the shape of a row of Christmas trees. A real tree, off to the right, is festooned with tinsel and more cards. What appears to be a pile of newly unwrapped presents -- mostly books -- is beneath the tree.

Christmas, 1961: Just six weeks before this photo was taken, the notorious Bel Air Fire swept through Brentwood Heights, damaging or destroying about a fifth of the Chalon Campus and doing serious damage at Carondelet Center. Burned to the ground, with everything in it, was the Faculty Residence (Rossiter Hall). Mercifully, no one was hurt, but many of the Sisters lost all they had.

But soon it would be time for the holidays! Although the campus was still grimy with smoke and the air reeked of burned wood, we can be sure Christmas would proceed as planned in a new location.

Other details are only hinted at in this 54-year-old picture. Were there more cards than usual that Christmas? Were the donations tucked inside extra-generous after the fire? Did that load of new books under the tree replace some of the faculty's lost teaching materials? We can be fairly sure the answer to all of those questions is yes.

After the party, the Sisters would scatter to their temporary homes -- other CSJ convents, hospitals, or the Mount's dorms where they would spend the next year. There was a new semester to prepare for, and reconstruction on damaged buildings was already under way. Funds had to be raised for new buildings. The Mount and the CSJs' community life had to keep moving forward, fire or no fire. 

But Christmas in 1961, as it is in 2015, was a special time at the Mount. For an afternoon, at least, our {Unstoppable} Sisters could relax and enjoy some Christmas cheer in familiar, if makeshift, surroundings.

Lost and found: the art of Sister Ignatia

Mount convent (Rossiter Hall) in ruins after the 1961 Bel Air Fire.

SISTER IGNATIA CORDIS, CSJ, founded the Mount Art Department in the 1920s and passed away in 1986 at 99, renowned for her sometimes avant-garde work and for pushing the boundaries of what was considered suitable for a Catholic nun to paint.

In a film cabinet drawer in the College Archives, a yellowed envelope tells a familiar story of pictures borrowed and never returned. A typewritten label dated December, 1985 -- a few months before Sister Ignatia's death -- reads:

Lost -- set of slides of Sr. Ignatia's art show. The set was removed from the archives and never returned. I have asked the Art Department, the press, etc., but no positive results.

It's signed by Sister Margaret Lynch, then the College Archivist.

Every archivist knows that kind of frustration, but for Sister Margaret it had to be especially painful. When the Mount convent (Rossiter Hall) was destroyed in the Bel Air Fire in November, 1961, most of Sister Ignatia's early work also went up in flames. She continued to paint -- including documenting the damage to the College in a series of impressionistic watercolors like the one above -- and in October, 1979, the College staged a tribute exhibit of 50 of her paintings. Photographic copies were carefully made of the hanging work by Los Angeles photographer Gerson Bender and a set handed over to the Treasure Room (as the Mount's Archives & Special Collections were then known).

We are happy to report that after nearly 27 years, the slides have surfaced. Our intrepid volunteer Vivian Santibáñez unearthed them in a shoebox full of unmarked yellow slide boxes, and the Skirball Cultural Center archives kindly let us scan them there last week.

We'll post some of the images over on Facebook at MSMC Archives. Mostly buildings and interesting landscapes, some paintings have historic value, like the one below, a drawing of 21 Chester Place. This imposing white mansion next to the Doheny Campus was torn down and the land sold to L.A. Unified to build Lanterman High School.

That's life in the archives world -- you lose a few, you find a few. Some of Sister's originals hang here and there around both campuses, but the location of many from the 1979 show is unknown. At least now we know what we're looking for. We're sure Sisters Margaret and Ignatia are pleased.

21 Chester Place was the model for the Addams Family home in the
classic 1960s sitcom. No other images exist in the MSMC Archives. 

Grips and grins

Sister M. Rebecca Doan, CSJ, president,
with alumna Dorothy Lieb Von der Ahe '29.

IN PHOTOJOURNALISM, THERE IS A CATEGORY of photograph called the "Grip and Grin," in which two people with broad smiles are shaking hands or passing something between them -- like a large check.

Sr. Rebecca with Alumnae
Association president.

Looking for photographs for Doheny's 50th anniversary, we noticed that Sister Rebecca Doan's picture file holds a lot of grip 'n' grins.

And no wonder. Sister, who was named Mount president in the spring of 1961, took office for academic 1961-62 -- just in time for the terrible Bel Air Fire of November 6, 1961, and the launch of a new Associate of Arts program at the newly acquired Downtown Campus planned for academic 1962-63. In other words, she was president during a very costly time in Mount history.

Faced with rebuilding much of burned-out Chalon and preparing to take students into a handful of frankly decrepit Victorian mansions on Chester Place, Sister undertook an unprecedented fundraising campaign, launched in the spring of 1962. 

Sr. Rebecca with A.C.
Pearce of Sears Roebuck.

It was known as the SPACE Program, echoing the excitement of the new Space Age and Mercury astronauts, but standing for Scholastic and Physical Advancement Centered on Excellence. With a goal of an astonishing $10 million ($75 million today, adjusted for inflation), SPACE designated $5 million for scholarships and other academic priorities, and an equal amount for construction on both campuses.

Fifty years ago this summer, the money was starting to come in. The kickoff donation was $25,000 from the Vons Foundation, led by Mount alumna Dorothy Lieb Von der Ahe '29. The $25,000 check is the equivalent of almost $190,000 today.

Companies, individuals and campus organizations contributed, including the Alumnae Association, Mothers' Guild, Gulf Oil, Crown Zellerbach, and Sears Roebuck. At the end of the summer of 1962, Sister Rebecca had collected nearly half a million dollars with a long fundraising road ahead.

The archives don't have records of the final accounting of the SPACE Program, but some of the immediate results can be seen today: the Humanities Building at Chalon and the Classroom building at Doheny, both constructed in 1964 and 1965. By then, Sister Rebecca and the College had a lot to grin about.

Sr. Rebecca with unidentified donors. The architectural model in front of them  shows
the proposed Humanities Building and the existing Chalon Library.

Advent

SISTER IGNATIA CORDIS, CSJ, served as chairman of the Art Department for more than three decades, from the founding of the Mount in 1925 until 1961. She passed away in 1986 at the age of 99.

A few of Sister Ignatia's works grace the college walls, including a watercolor hanging in Hannon Parlor that depicts the ruins of Rossiter Hall after the Bel Air Fire. Many of her works, sad to say, were lost in that same fire, which destroyed her rooms in Rossiter as well as the studios in the Marian Hall of Fine Arts.

The image above is "The Annunciation," an oil painting done in 1946 and probably Sister's best-known and most unusual work. Her surviving works are all landscapes, but this modernistic treatment of a classic theme is unique. The original is hanging in the Chalon office of President Ann McElaney-Johnson and makes a nice welcome to the Advent season.

Is that Mary Chapel?

LOOKING FOR BEL AIR FIRE IMAGES to add to our online photo archive, I came across a photocopy of a remarkable newspaper article describing a painting. In the fuzzy photo is Mary Chapel in flames.

The clipping, headlined "Bel Air Flames Again in Massive 'Firescape,'" with the "kicker" headline, "Chief Relives Battle." It describes a massive, 16-foot painting providing an eyewitness remembrance of the firefight at the Mount.

The photocopy and this scan are poor quality, but there's no mistaking the contours of the chapel and the steps leading to the arched door. A silhouetted figure aims a thin stream of water into the raging flames. In the foreground a firefighter renders aid to one of his teammates stretched out on the pavement.

I've read numerous accounts of the disaster, but never one that mentions Mary Chapel fully engulfed. Apparently the fire did start burning through the big wooden front doors and may have melted some of the leading in the stained glass before it was stopped. But unlike Rossiter Hall and the fine arts building, the chapel was saved.

The archives photocopy identifies neither the newspaper nor the date, unfortunately. Publication was definitely some years after the 1961 fire, because it mentions that the painter, Charles W. Bahme, took two years to finish the work, and that he had retired in 1967. Perhaps it was 1971, on the 10th anniversary .

Bahme wasn't just any eyewitness. He was deputy chief of the LAFD and the field commander for the fire. He was at the Mount on November 6, 1961, as cinders ignited buildings on all sides of the College, as the wind was gusting close to 100 miles an hour, and as the water supply started to fail.

The huge painting is a composite of his recollections of the entire disaster, which blazed through Bel Air and Brentwood for three days and at one point had a 154-mile fireline. "I tried to condense into this [work] the whole scope of the fire," Bahme said, adding that doing it was a way to "get it out of my system." The battle to save the Mount is clearly front and center in his memories.

Maddeningly, the clipping is cut off in the middle of his description of saving a college building that had caught fire. Ack! Which one? And then what happened?

Another day, another set of archival mysteries. The article is an great find, but not as great as the questions it raises: Where's the rest of it? Where was it published? Most of all, what became of that 16-foot painting? Will we ever find out?

Images of the Bel Air Fire

Shrine of St. Therese of Lisieux on the eastern
edge of the Chalon Campus sustained damage.

THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE EPIC DISASTER is coming up on November 6. Using the Mount's new image repository software SimpleDL, I've created a gallery of photographs from the Mount Archives. Here's the link.

http://stmary.sdlhost.com/c/Bel-Air-Fire/

Running through the end of the year, there is also an exhibit of Archives artifacts from the collection, including photographs, news coverage and the 1962 yearbook.

So, so close

IT'S WELL KNOWN THAT THE BEL AIR FIRE of Nov. 6, 1961, came very, very close to the Mount. What may not be quite as well known is how close -- and how close the College came to being lost.

In fact, the 6 o'clock news that night had Mount St. Mary's College burned to the ground. When they were finally evacuated around noon on that terrifying Monday, resident students were told that the firefighters had given up the College for lost. They gathered that evening in their homes or with friends and listened to the reports, tears streaming down their cheeks.

A dramatic nighttime photo transmitted by United Press International showed the blazing ruins of the Marian Hall of Fine Arts on the west. Rossiter Hall, on the east, had already burned. Surrounded by fire in the smoky, lightless night on the Mount, it was easy to conclude there was nothing left.

Two of the CSJs, away at Notre Dame University working on their doctorates, endured two days of agony, fearing the worst. Local newspapers and national television reported the College's loss but didn't get the name right. Then one of the Sisters got a phone call. Most of the campus had been spared. The letter Sister Mary Brigid Fitzpatrick wrote to Sister Rebecca Doan, telling her of the prayers of the community in South Bend, is in the College Archives, dated Nov. 8, 1961.

We have scores of photos, mostly snapshots, from the days after the fire, but only two or three from the day of the fire. The College community had evacuated by early afternoon, so there were no students or faculty to take pictures at the peak of the disaster. However, I did come across the photo above, taken by person unknown in the late afternoon. The smoke towering just behind Brady Hall tells the story of how close the flames really were.

There are many riveting stories in the jumble of records in the Archives; the Bel Air Fire artifacts are listed in four separate locations in the files. Pulling them all together is a fascinating but sobering process, especially when you see that nice, lush, 50-year-old chaparral just over there in the next canyon. The word miracle was used more than once in 1961, and now, seeing these pictures for the first time, I understand why.

Some of the photographs and other artifacts relating to the Bel Air Fire are on display in the Reading Room of the Charles Willard Coe Memorial Library at Chalon, with additional items in the College Archives. The exhibit will run through December.

Fire on the mountain

PAUL MARTIN'S comment about preserving archives from fire is timely. This November 6 we'll mark the 50th anniversary of the Bel Air Fire.

Nothing makes a statement about the devastation more than this sad snapshot of the shrine of St. Therese of Lisieux on the eastern edge of the Chalon Campus. The shrine was built in 1946 and dedicated on October 3 that year, the feast day of the beloved Carmelite saint known as the Little Flower.

She watched over the Circle for the next 15 years until that Monday of midterms week, when a spark from a construction site turned into a raging orange hell of wind and flame. After the fire did the unexpected and jumped the new 405 freeway in the Sepulveda Pass, the Mount was directly in its path.

The fire raced up the eastern canyon, turning a row of eucalyptus trees at the edge of campus into a wall of torches. Windborne cinders ignited the wooden eaves of Rossiter Hall and St. Therese's shrine as it headed south along the canyon wall.

Only Rossiter's walls were left standing. The fire mostly skipped St. Joseph Hall but renewed its fury on the Carondelets' House of Studies (now Carondelet Center), burning off portions of the pantiled roofs as it continued into the residential streets below. The fire also blew west, destroying the Mount Bowl, a beautiful outdoor amphitheater, and the Marian Hall of Fine Arts, which housed the music and art departments with all their instruments and equipment. At one point, the Chalon Campus was almost completely surrounded by fire. By all accounts, there was a lot of heroism in saving the campus.

Remarkably, the College was closed only one day, thanks to cleanup efforts by scores of students, faculty, staff and volunteers. St. Therese got a new shrine the following spring. Funds were raised, buildings rebuilt and one of the biggest disasters in California history faded into memory.

Could it happen again? Of course. In fact, the Bel Air Fire of 1961 was actually the second or third time the College was in imminent danger of destruction by brush fire, going right back to the beginning in the 1930s. The threat goes with being the last outpost before the chaparral begins. It goes with Chalon's spectacular location.

Yes, I worry about this room full of paper. I'm marking a little anniversary of my own this week. Two years ago, a brush crew from the Getty Center ignited the chaparral east of the campus. Returning from a trip to Doheny, I saw the fire as I drove up the hill. I raced up Bundy, hoping to get at least a few things out of the Archives before the campus was evacuated. But I was turned away at the gate.

Fortunately, it was a windless day, and fire crews were able to stop the flames at the ridgeline. The College Archives was safe.

But as 1961 showed us, it doesn't always work out that way. Archives preservation is a millennia-old story of almost complete loss, and all I have to do is smell a hint of smoke on the breeze to be reminded. St. Therese, pray for us.