By Lisa Chmelecki,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – The boat ride was long and bumpy. Nearly all eight of the Dominican sisters aboard were so seasick, they couldn’t even attend Mass.

Things started to improve when the group finally arrived at Fall River, Mass., for a brief training on how to operate a school.

But the challenges of the trip were far from over.

The women – chosen for their experience in teaching English – were on a mission.

A growing Catholic parish in Lewiston, Maine, needed a new religious order to run its schools. The Dominican priest who ran the parish persuaded his female counterparts in Nancy, France, to make the long journey.

“We traveled in lay clothes, except for three of us, but people knew we were religious and the ship’s personnel showed us respect, serving us separately in the dining room and allowing us to enjoy the first deck although we were second-class passengers,” one of the sisters wrote.

That 1904 boat ride was nothing compared to what was waiting for the women in Lewiston.

Unlike the students in Massachusetts, those who paid 50 cents a month to attend the Catholic schools in Lewiston lacked discipline and essential writing skills.

The sisters didn’t fret. They simply came up with a plan.

For the next 64 years, Dominican sisters ran the schools started under what was called Saints Peter and Paul Church.

Their work at the Dominican Block, Le College, St. Peter’s School and the first St. Dominic High School is one of the many things that will be honored Friday during a special Mass at Saints Peter and Paul.

Part of a five-day celebration leading up to the church’s inauguration as a basilica, the Mass will pay tribute to the Dominican fathers, brothers and sisters who led the parish and ran its schools for most of the 20th century.

“It certainly is a great honor to acknowledge the Dominicans who worked so hard in building this wonderful church, this temple,” said Brother Irenee Richard. “They gave so much of themselves.”

515 loads

The first Dominican fathers arrived in Lewiston from Lille, France, in 1881 to take over what was then St. Peter’s Church on Bartlett Street.

Under the administration of the first pastor, the Rev. Alexandre Louis Mothon, galleries were added to the existing structure to make room for the growing parish. In 1904, Mothon hired a Belgian architect to draw up plans for a neo-Gothic church constructed of Maine granite.

More than 30 years, 515 boxcar loads of granite and about $625,000 later, the church with its soaring twin steeples was complete.

Robert Gilbert, one of the local organizers for the inauguration celebration, pointed out that the church was built during the Great Depression.

“It seems odd to start a major project at that particular time, but they were determined,” Gilbert said.

Tension

Some times were harder than others.

In the early 1900s, the Dominican fathers were faced with the growing tension between the parishioners, who saw the church as a means of preserving their French-Canadian heritage and language, and the Catholic bishop, who pushed for Masses said in English.

Just as the Dominican sisters found a way to deal with the parish’s unruly pupils, the Dominican fathers, who came first from France, then from Canada, managed to rise above the conflict.

They continued to serve the growing community while satisfying the demands of the diocese.

“I have to commend their willingness to do services in English, even though their English was not perfect,” said Brother Richard, founder of St. Martin de Porres Residence, a homeless shelter on Bartlett Street.

Richard described Dominicans as easily adaptable. That certainly can be said of the first wave of sisters.

Upon their arrival in 1904, they divided each grade into two groups and gave each a color and a flag. The students, who all wore pins displaying the color of their team, were given marks for good conduct and work.

Every two weeks, the sisters counted the marks. The team with the most points got to display its flag in the classroom until the next tally was taken.