Sister Virginia Hafey-Wells
1920-2011
Sister Virginia Hafey-Wells was a woman of many talents: teacher, musician, choir director, interior decorator, watercolor painter. The daughter of Lydia (Williams) and Michael Walter Hafey, usually called Walter, she was born at home in Detroit on May 21, 1920. Both her parents were very young, nineteen years of age. Two more daughters – Jacqueline and Patricia – followed Virginia into the family.
Walter Hafey’s grandfather was from Ireland, became a lumberman, and settled on the Little Muskegon River in Michigan. Walter’s father owned a farm and a saloon. Lydia Williams was of English ancestry. She grew up in a large family on a Michigan farm between Greenville and Lakeview.
During the early years of their marriage, the Hafeys lived in Detroit. Virginia began her education at Annunciation School. Her father was not Catholic, but in early 1927 he told his wife that he would like to become a Catholic. Shortly after that, he was killed in an automobile accident and was buried on Virginia’s birthday, May 21.
Pregnant with another child who was born shortly after Walter Hafey’s death and baptized Michael, the young widow was determined to keep her family together. Her mother had died, and at the invitation of her father, now living in Hollywood, Florida, she took her family to Florida. There, she met and later married John Wells, a widower with two children, Howard and John. The merged family was blessed with five more children: Patrick, Joan, James, Peter, and Eddie. So Virginia grew to maturity in a family of eleven children.
John Wells, looked upon and loved as their father by the Hafey children, was a landscape designer and contractor, and his specialty was growing and transplanting royal palms. In her autobiography, Sister Virginia wrote, “Many palm trees he planted are still standing. Hialeah and Gulf Stream race tracks, Hollywood Boulevard, Las Olas Boulevard in Lauderdale were a few of his projects.”
Lydia and John Wells wanted their children to attend a Catholic school, so when Virginia was in fifth grade they moved to Fort Lauderdale, where she enrolled at St. Anthony School with Adrian Dominican teachers. These were the years of the Great Depression, but the Wells children felt no deprivation. Sister wrote, “Our years were fun, filled with simple pleasures, picnics, boating trips up and down the river.” Because the family was so large, they had “maids” to help with the laundry and cooking.
When it was time for high school, Virginia did not like the available options. She talked her parents into allowing her to go to St. Joseph Academy in Adrian, Michigan. During her junior and senior years, the idea of becoming a religious Sister rose in her mind. She tried to rid herself of the idea, since she enjoyed dating, dancing, and good times. However, after Christmas vacation of her senior year, she talked to her senior teacher and decided to enter the postulate with the next group. In spite of some opposition from her parents, who wanted her to wait, on February 22, 1938, she received the postulant’s veil from Mother Mary Gerald Barry. She wrote that the things that bothered her most in the postulate were rising at 5:10 a.m. and the fear that she would not be able to teach. “I planned that God would have to do it all, and God did.” With her group, she received the habit and her religious name, Sister Marie Peter, on August 24. She professed her first vows on August 25, 1939.
On that same day, she was on her way to Utica, Michigan, where she taught second grade at St. Lawrence School and thanked God for the help she received with her lesson plans. The next year she was assigned to St. Anastasia in Fort Pierce, Florida, but was asked to teach at Blessed Martin de Porres School, which was opening there. She was thrilled to be teaching black youngsters. Her stepfather had a black workman whom he had taught his children to like and respect. She remained at Blessed Martin for four years, and taught middle and junior high students. She wrote that those years were among her happiest teaching and learning years, although the school was in a garage, one room, with a blackboard dividing her class from the lower ones. These were also the war years, and she saw little of her family because of gas rationing.
In 1944, she was sent back to the Midwest and assigned to St. Matthew School in Chicago, where she taught on the junior-high level. Because she had studied piano for three years, she also gave piano lessons and trained the boys’ choir. During the summers she attended Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian, and in 1947 she received a bachelor’s degree with a major in history and minors in English and French. St. Mary in Swanton, Ohio, was her next assignment. There she taught middle grade students, as well as directing the choir and playing the organ for Mass. During these years, to her delight, her sister Patricia entered the Congregation and became known as Sister Peter Mary.
Her stepfather asked that Virginia return to Florida in 1951. As a result, she was again assigned to St. Anastasia in Fort Pierce, where she taught middle grade students for three years, then was transferred to Little Flower in Hollywood as a teacher of junior high. Her stepfather died in 1953, bringing a period of sadness into her life and that of her siblings. In January 1957, she was assigned to a newly opened mission in Nassau, Bahamas. There, again, she had black students, but they were young men wishing to learn English and planning to attend college in the States, native Sisters preparing to teach, and young ladies preparing for work in offices.
In 1958, she returned to the States, to Blessed Sacrament in Tallahassee, Florida. She taught middle level students and worked with Dr. Irvin Cooper of Florida State University, who used Blessed Sacrament as a pilot school for his teaching at the University. His main emphasis was boys’ changing voices. Sister wrote that he taught her conducting and helped her to find God in a more personal way. Barry College (now University) in Miami, as a result of summer study, awarded her a master’s degree in education in 1959.
She received a surprise in 1962 when she was assigned as principal and superior at Sacred Heart in Pensacola. As a result of her work with Dr. Cooper, she had been studying at Florida State University in Tallahassee, and in 1966 received a second master’s degree, this time in music education. When her successful six-year term at Sacred Heart ended, she spent a few months at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Fort Lauderdale, and at St. Helen in Vero Beach. Then followed a series of one-year missions: Blessed Sacrament in Tallahassee; Little Flower in Hollywood; St. Patrick in Miami Beach; and St. Bede in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time, Patricia had the idea of adding Wells to their last name. When Patricia left the Congregation during the 1970s, Sister Virginia was left with “the computer-frustrating name of Hafey-Wells.” Their brother John had become a priest, and he also left the priesthood.
In 1973, Sister Virginia was asked to supervise the renovation of the dining rooms at the Motherhouse. She had lived in old homes and worked at making them livable, so she agreed to do this. She described her decision as “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” She supervised the make-over of the priests’ dining room, Madden Hall dining room, and the Old Aud (now the Adrian Room) with the help of Joseph Cotey, who had previously helped to decorate several of the Congregation’s buildings. He told her she had innate talent and didn’t need formal training. Publication of this work appeared in the Adrian newspaper.
She branched out into doing renovation projects for other institutions: Rosarian Academy in West Palm Beach; the BVM Motherhouse in Dubuque, Iowa; the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ (PHJC) Ancilla group in Indiana; a new nursing home in West Palm Beach; the student lounge of the seminary in Plymouth, Michigan; Aquinas Institute in Dubuque; St. Rose de Lima Hospital in Nevada; the provincial Motherhouse of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ in Ruma, Illinois; and areas at Barry College in Miami. Her creative endeavors were interrupted in 1989 by the death of her mother at the age of ninety. Sister’s last projects were the latest renovations of Madden Hall and the Dominican Life Center in Adrian. In her retirement she took up watercolor painting, and showed an aptitude for art. Illness assailed her, and in 2008 she moved into the Maria Building, where death came to her on December 2, 2011.
A wake-remembrance service was held for Sister Virginia in St. Catherine Chapel on December 6. Sister Jo Gaugier, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, extended sympathy and welcomed all those who had come to say farewell. She summarized Sister Virginia’s life and ministry, and added, “She reflected on the privileged moments of being with family members in their last days . . . and was humbled by realizing how God has constantly worked in her life.”
Sister Christine Matthews shared some memories. Among her remarks, she said:
I have known Sister Virginia for over forty-five years. . . . There are many stories I could tell, but I’ve chosen one. We all know that Virginia always looked nice. She knew what to wear and when. It just so happened that when we were in the process of changing from the long to the short habit, Steve O’Connell, the husband of a good friend, was appointed to the Supreme Court of Florida. Virginia was invited to the ceremonies. Later . . . she told me that she had worn her short habit to the afternoon swearing in, and then for the gala event in the evening she wore her long habit. She was dressed appropriately for each event. . . . I have kept the memories of her presence, and the first watercolor she painted.
Sister Carol Fleming also spoke. She said in part:
Sister Virginia saw the potential in an old chest in a garage sale, a swatch of fabric, a pre-adolescent boy desiring to sing, an old kitchen chair that could be painted. She rescued the art of our women when institutions were closed or going to new usage. She found one of Sister Agatha McAuley’s paintings in the attic, and she was so thrilled. Sister Agatha was one of our pioneer Sisters. Among the things Virginia taught us—pictures should be hung at eye level, and furniture should be against the wall, not kitty-corner.
Sister Winifred Lynch told a humorous story and praised her friend.
Many of you know that Virginia was left-handed. I’m right-handed. We agreed and disagreed on many subjects. One time we were driving from Adrian to Florida and she was driving. We stopped to get gas, and at that corner we were supposed to turn. Being left-handed, she turned left. I said, “This is the wrong way,” but she said, “I know what I’m doing.” About forty miles from the area where we turned there was a sign that showed us that we were forty miles away from where we should have been. . . . She was such a delightful person. What an inspiration she was, and still is. . . . In spite of our different personalities, we got along pretty well. Many times she asked me to be a go-fer when she was doing a project, and I loved doing it. I’ll miss her and see her in all the beautiful areas that she created.
Sister Carleen Maly sent a remembrance from her days as a Chapter Prioress in the South.
In 1995 the decision was made to demolish the Regina building located behind Rosarian Academy in West Palm Beach, Florida. . . . Sister Elizabeth Clare Schindler directed the process of getting permits to demolish the Regina building, getting an architect and construction company, and getting Virginia. Virginia arrived. . . . As we walked from floor to floor, Virginia was able to match and see in her mind’s eye what a chair or stand from the fourth floor would look like next to a piece of furniture she saw two hours later on the first floor. She determined what could be refinished and where, the few pieces of furniture that would need to be purchased, what was to be painted, and the fabric WE, yes WE, would use to recover the newly-painted dining room chairs. . . . I speak in behalf of the sisters who have and will continue to live in Casa Maria when I express gratitude to God for the gift of Virginia and her willingness to graciously give of herself to us.
Following Sister Virginia’s funeral liturgy – which took place on December 7 with Motherhouse chaplain Father Robert Kelly, OP, as the presider – Sister Virginia was laid to rest in the Congregational cemetery. Sister Attracta Kelly, Prioress of the Congregation, was the homilist at the liturgy. She said in part:
Sister Virginia was my principal and superior from 1962 to 1968, and I was, as people would say, very wet behind the ears.
There is an old Irish proverb that says that there is seldom a creative person without a flaw. Virginia was no exception. She suffered greatly from depression over the years. However, Paul’s encouragement to the Romans in today’s reading –“Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, exercise hospitality” – was how Virginia lived, was how Virginia died. I believe that, even in her passing years, Virginia wanted to remind us that while during her life with us she created beauty for all of us to enjoy, now she will dwell in God’s house and gaze on the beauty of the Divine forever.