Oral History: Sister Dorothy Gartland

“My neighbor is every person on this earth.”

Thus spoke a 55-year-old Sister of Providence to Judge Alphonse Witt in a criminal trial in Lake County Circuit Court in Illinois. Charged with mob action and resisting arrest, Sister Dorothy Gartland and seven others were on trial in front of a jury.

‘Gift of God’

Dorothy’s journey to that court room began on the day she was born in St. Joseph, Missouri. It was Oct. 29, 1929. Black Tuesday, the day the stock market crashed, setting off the longest and most severe economic downturn in modern history — the Great Depression — which would last throughout her childhood.

Dorothy is the fourth of eight children born to Eugene and Margaret Gartland, ‘Mom’ and ‘Pop’. There are three boys and five girls in the Gartland family: Margaret, Eugene, Theresa, Dorothy, Jennie, Willie, Mary Ann and John. Dorothy, with straight hair, was born between Theresa who had naturally wavy hair and Jennie who had naturally curly hair. As a result, she said, “My life has been spent putting my hair in curlers! Always sleeping in hard curlers! My mother, who also rolled her hair, would say ‘you have to suffer to be beautiful’.”

She was named Dorothy by her Uncle Bill. The name Dorothy shares the Greek origin of Mother Theodore’s name, meaning Gift of God; and, like Mother Theodore, this Sister of Providence has validated her name many times over. Mom and Pop raised a policeman, a physician, nurses, businessmen and two Sisters of Providence. The policeman, Captain Willie Gartland, oversaw the homicide division that investigated the O. J. Simpson murder trial. He is still living, as is John, the retired physician, and Mary Ann, the nurse.

Growing Up

St. Joe, Missouri, was rife with the Ku Klux Klan. And they targeted Irish Catholics. Children would throw things at the Gartland kids as they walked to and from school. Pop, who was employed as a machinist for National Biscuit, lost his job when the Depression forced the plant to close in St. Joe. He began making stilts with a friend, because there was a large family at home to support. After a while, Eugene Gartland was asked by Nabisco to come to Chicago to work as a machinist for them. He would be responsible for the Ritz and the Animal Cracker machines as well as the machine that put the string on those little boxes. He went.

Pop was able to save money to bring Mom and the three youngest children to Chicago first. Dorothy and the others stayed with relatives in Missouri. In 1936 when Dorothy was 6 years old, they were finally able to join their parents in Chicago. They took the bus from St. Joe. When a stranger on the bus remarked that Dorothy’s sister looked ‘Irish’, 6-year-old Dorothy spoke up and said, “She’s not Irish! She’s Catholic!” She wasn’t sure what Irish was, but she knew what ‘Catholic’ was because that’s what the kids in St. Joe yelled when they threw things at them.

Settling in

All ten members of the Gartland family settled in a three-flat in Chicago. They had the first floor with three bedrooms and heat from the furnace. The neighbors above them were a group of men: a policeman, a precinct captain, gang members and Mafia. The third floor of the three-flat held multi-generations of families.

“The era into which we are born is the era for which we have responsibility, the era for which we are meant to be a blessing.” — Sister Joan Chittister, OSB

The Streets in Chicago

It was the Great Depression, and it was not uncommon for Dorothy and her siblings to walk by unemployed men drunk and passed out in the street, or bookies taking bets. “We were surrounded by mafia.” But the neighborhood also carried the aroma of Italian cooking, and Mom prepared large meals on Sundays with cake. Dorothy attended Our Lady of Sorrows Elementary School and Providence High School, taught by the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.

“I liked Chicago. It was great! I had a great mother and father. They loved to sing and dance. I think they met at a Parish function in St. Joe. Pop got out and went to work, but Mom had eight kids to take care of at home. Mom’s best friend in Chicago was a woman who smoked and swore, totally unlike my mother. My mother didn’t do those things, but that was her best friend. My parents weren’t judgmental. My father had a great sense of humor. They were so happy we moved to Chicago and my father had a job.”

Work

Like most children during the Great Depression, all the Gartland children worked from a young age. Theresa worked at the A & P Grocery. Dorothy worked at Sears in the catalog department. She also babysat when she was still a young teen. As Dorothy was preparing to enter high school, she got a job caring for a politician’s nephew at their summer home in Long Beach, Indiana. She spent every summer through high school with that family. Long Beach welcomed the rich Irish and politicians and the mafia, although Jews were not allowed. Dorothy even dated the son of the infamous gangster Paul-the-Waiter.

Dorothy’s work at Sears during high school paid for her education. There were many shortages during the war — metal, gas, food, clothing, plastic — and one of the shortages was elastic. She laughed heartily telling a story about elastic shortage and under clothing. “Rubber was very scarce. Underpants had buttons, no elastic. I had to take the bus from work. I was waiting right outside the Art Institute when my button broke! We didn’t wear slacks, so my underpants fell off on Michigan Avenue in front of the Art Institute. So, I bent down and picked them up and put them in my purse. By the time I got home I was laughing so hard to myself my mother thought I’d been attacked or something!”

Strong in Faith

Mom and Pop Gartland were first-generation Irish Catholic, and the faith was strong. The children went to daily early Mass with their father so they could go home and eat breakfast before going to school without having to fast before the school Mass.

Dorothy and Theresa were very close. When Theresa entered the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods community following graduation from high school, Dorothy missed her terribly. No one in the family had ever been to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods before they visited Theresa, who took the name Sister Eugene Therese to honor her parents. The Gartlands depended on public transportation in Chicago, so to visit Sister Eugene Therese they relied on friends or relatives who had cars. Eventually Dorothy would take the train to visit Theresa, especially when the Sisters in Chicago would come to the Woods each year.

“I was lucky. I came from a family of non-judgmental people so I didn’t hear them criticizing people. It makes a difference. I was truly blessed.” — Sister Dorothy Gartland

Fun-loving family

The Gartlands were a large, fun-loving family who took trips on the streetcar, went to museums, saw movies. Someone gave them a jukebox and there was always lots of dancing with Mom and Dorothy’s sisters and brothers. Someone else gave them a piano that Mom would play.

The Gartland family knew how to celebrate. One Christmas as the family was anxiously awaiting a cousin to arrive to share Christmas dinner with, they received word he had been killed in training in WWII. Pop immediately went to the Naval Base and found four sailors to join them for a wonderful family meal, a meal that ended with Mom leading the family and guests in the conga around the house. They delighted in celebrations.

I will prepare, and some day my chance will come. — Abraham Lincoln

The ‘Radical’ in the Family

Mom said Dorothy was ‘the radical in the family, always out for the causes.’ By age 16 she was studying the plight of the poor, and unions and organizing, and became more and more involved in working against the injustices she was seeing.

“Our neighborhood was segregated. Everywhere was at that time. There were no Black families, just poor families.”

Dorothy volunteered at Friendship House in a Black neighborhood, teaching catechism to children. And on Sundays she volunteered with the Little Sisters of the Poor taking care of the elderly. Her experiences led her to be in contact with people from different backgrounds. Her interest in social justice developed and grew.

Becoming a sister

It seemed a natural step to join the Sisters of Providence community. Dorothy had been taught by Sisters of Providence, was familiar with them and her sister Theresa was there. And Dorothy believed it was a wonderful opportunity for women to have broader choices. Did her parents have any reservations about a second daughter becoming a Sister of Providence? Her mother told her, ‘I made my decision early in life, and you should be able to make yours.’

Dorothy entered the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods in February 1948. On the train to the Woods, Dorothy met Laurette Bellamy, also headed to the Woods to join the community. Although she wasn’t sure they would have much in common, they became friends for life.

“Sad, and leaning against the cordage, I was contemplating the shore of my country, which was flying away with inconceivable rapidity and becoming smaller and smaller at every moment.” — Saint Mother Theodore Guerin, July 27, 1840

Tough Transition

“I’ll never survive.” It was a challenging transition away from Dorothy’s close, fun-loving family. Her first meal was boiled onions. She thought the semi-cloister rules were rigid, especially regarding family visits. Dorothy Jean Gartland became Sister Margaret Eugene, to honor her parents whom she missed every day.

Describing early life in the Community, Dorothy explained, “We were together in the large group in community for two years before mission, scrubbing floors, all kinds of work. We were the workhorses. Everything done by lay people today, we were doing it. We took care of the infirmary and all the housekeeping. Our big thing was to work in the cannery, and you’d get to eat. We were in a habit, pinned up in front, pinned up in back, and of course under that we wore two underskirts: a black one and another called ‘stripes’, a material of white and blue stripes and that material was heavier than our underskirts were.”

But she also had a lot of fun with the sisters who entered with her. Sister Dorothy experienced all the changes with the habit, including the serre-tête that would make cuts along your throat if you didn’t cushion it to protect your neck.

But she was lonely and homesick for the family she loved so much. “One more week,” she would tell herself. “Just one more week. One more week. One more week.” Finally she decided that the Feast of St. Joseph would be the day she would decide to stay in community or go home to her family. “I decided to stay, but for 25 years I cried about leaving my family and my home.”

Community

Did she ever again re-evaluate her decision to join the Community? No, she did not, not after the Feast of St. Joseph. There was a large exodus of members of her band after Vatican II, but she never again considered leaving.

Providence had kept her in community and when it was time for the obedience she knelt in the church while the Bishop called the assignments alphabetically. Hers was Washington, D.C., so she was on her knees a while. She would teach at St. Ann’s, her first ministry.

We exist to be miracle workers to one another. — Sister Joan Chittister, OSB

24 Years in Teaching

Dorothy taught elementary school in D.C., Chicago and Indiana. Her teaching career spanned 24 years. Times were changing. Vatican II had encouraged religious orders to look at their communities and the needs of the people. Everything Sister Dorothy had experienced had prepared her for what was to come.

When she taught in Brownsburg, Indiana, a sundowner town at the time, Blacks were not allowed to stay overnight. The railroad had brought a group of Black men into town to work on the tracks. Since they could not stay in town, they were given a railroad sleeping car to stay in not too far from town. “People drove around that railroad car all night long blowing their horns, shouting ‘This ain’t Little Rock, this is Brownsburg!’ It’s incredible what people do to each other,” she recalled.

The basis of her experiences, her strong faith in God, and her pursuit of justice would be a powerful motivator for the rest of her life.

“Yes, above all things; justice, justice. If any preferences be shown, let it be to the poorest or most abandoned.” — Saint Mother Theodore Guerin

‘Sensitive’ to the Surroundings

“She’s not Irish! She’s Catholic!” That 6-year-old on the bus, Dorothy-the-radical, the social justice one, the woman from a family that was not judgmental and not critical of others, had been led to this moment. She was sensitive from an early age to what was happening around her. And now a group of religious sisters in Chicago from six congregations, plus a Dominican Priest, were coming together and organizing for justice.

Sister Dorothy had always been involved in justice issues even while teaching. After planning, the 8th Day Center for Justice came to fruition. God had rested on the seventh day, so ongoing creation was in the hands of the people, until justice rules the land. Over 40 religious and other organizations came under one umbrella to combine efforts and resources for justice.

Sister Dorothy Gartland was the first Social Justice Minister in a collaborative that was actively working to change oppressive systems. “I didn’t choose not to be an educator. I did it because I had always advocated for justice when teaching. It was a choice.” To assist with the financial support needed for the Sisters of Providence to become a part of the 8th Day Center of Justice, Sister Dorothy took Spanish lessons so she could teach English as a second language students in the evenings while working full-time for 8th Day.

“Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starving man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives…” — Dan Berrigan

Focus on Justice

From the beginning, they were busy. 8th Day focused their efforts the first year on hunger in Chicago. They created the Food Stamp Hotline which was the first hotline people could call for information on food stamps. They also created the Chicago Metropolitan Food Stamp Coalition, the Conference on Hunger and the Chicago Summer Program. That effort and the Greater Chicago Food Depository continue to this day.

The success of 8th Day led to a widening focus on justice covering more than 40 years of work on behalf of the poor, the unjustly treated. 40 years of being in solidarity with those who suffer injustices at the “hands of dominating and abusive powers. Those who are condemned, burdened, stripped of dignity, tortured and killed by unjust public policies.”

It was not limited to Chicago or the United States. The oppressed, the poorest, the abandoned, as Saint Mother Theodore noted, are throughout the world. Sister Dorothy’s work with 8th Day included economic justice issues, human rights, women’s issues, the Iraq War and world peace. The military buildup and interventions in Central America became a significant focus. 8th Day was an NGO and had a special consultative relationship with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

The Cry of the Poor

“I hear the cry of the poor.” — Sister Dorothy Gartland

Sister Dorothy traveled with Father Chuck Daum of 8th Day to Latin America and worked with volunteer groups in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. The extreme poverty of the people there heightened her activism. The way Coca Cola treated their workers in Guatemala, denying union organization and murdering those who fought for it, led to Sister Dorothy helping the Sisters of Providence submit a resolution to Coca Cola. She and Father Chuck flew to Guatemala to meet with the owner and with the workers who were in hiding. Eventually the owner of that Coca Cola plant was removed due to the worldwide pressure on the company.

Dorothy aligned herself with the poor everywhere. This was courageous work. She worked with the disappeared of Guatemala, those who were seeking to know the fate of 46,000 Guatemalans who had gone missing under the repressive regime of Guatemala. 8th Day Center for Social Justice was a voice and advocate for marginalized and victimized groups and made known the systemic issues which led to such injustice. Sister Dorothy spoke truth to power and believed that we have a mandate to work for justice for the poor and disenfranchised. She was very active in public, non-violent protests.

“We are the U.S. Government. Demonstrators are our national conscience.” — Sister Dorothy Gartland

A ‘Justice Warrior’

In May 1985 hundreds of protesters stood outside the Athletic and Convention Center at Notre Dame University. Sister Dorothy and another justice warrior procured two fake tickets to sneak into a ceremony at Notre Dame that was honoring the notorious President Duarte of El Salvador. When the ceremony began, Sister Dorothy and her cohort stood and unfurled large banners to protest Duarte. They were ushered out of the ceremony quickly but not arrested.

She demonstrated in protest at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning in Georgia annually. Demonstrated against South African apartheid at the South African Embassy. There were demonstrations and protests at the Shell Oil Company building. “Die-ins” at federal buildings and offices, refusing to leave by sitting or lying on the floor when it was time for the building to close, sometimes being rolled out of the building by security personnel while seated in a chair.

Sister Dorothy was 73 years old when she climbed over barriers to protest the War in Iraq. The very next day she participated in blocking traffic and was arrested. It wasn’t the first time she had been arrested. The first time was for blocking a street in Chicago protesting nuclear armament. She was a familiar face to the police who often asked her, ‘Are you here again?’

In 1984 Dorothy was arrested at the Great Lakes Naval Base when she and other protesters drove to the base, linked arms, sat down on the road and refused to leave. She was arrested along with 22 other protesters. Following that arrest she was taken to jail. Although Sister Dorothy never spent any length of time in a jail, she did spend time while being processed after arrests.

‘Pleading for the Poor’

“I am pleading for the poor people, trying to save the lives of the many people who could be killed by nuclear weapons and U.S. support of civil wars in Latin America,” — Sister Dorothy Gartland

These were the words said to the judge when Dorothy came to court for a plea of guilty or not guilty. The presiding judge, the Honorable Judge Witt, was a patient man who asked following her declaration if she was then pleading ‘not guilty’. She was indeed.

Ultimately seven defendants were tried together in Judge Witt’s courtroom in front of a jury. They had all been charged with mob action and resisting arrest. At trial they argued their actions were justified, ‘acting out of necessity, believing their actions necessary to prevent imminent and actual threat requiring immediate action from further U.S. military involvement in Central America — the necessity defense.

A former CIA operative testified on their behalf regarding the U.S. involvement in other countries, as did university professors and lawyers. In closing argument, Sister Dorothy Gartland stood and told the jury, “Protesting is a manifestation of my faith in God. I live out my faith through the love of my neighbor, and my neighbor is not just the person next door. My neighbor is every person on this Earth.”

‘Not Guilty’

The jury took only one hour to find all defendants ‘not guilty.’ This case was nationwide news at the time and is still cited and debated 40 years later in legal journals and law schools. In a later interview with Studs Terkel on his radio show, Sister Dorothy and two jurors spoke about the trial. The jurors had this to say: ‘It was a dramatic and emotional education … The trial was very emotional for me, so moving that I felt I had an obligation as a citizen of the United States to do whatever I can to help spread some of this information….’ The information impressed the jurors. They learned information they had never known about. Their vote to acquit was unanimous. One juror said, “It was absolutely necessary for them to get arrested in order to get the information to the rest of us.”

The reaction of the jurors epitomized the education Sister Dorothy Gartland and other 8th Day members sought to provide: that there is information that every citizen should know and understand. That without that information change was slow and ponderous.

Sabbatical and more Ministry

Sister Dorothy went on sabbatical to El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala when her work concluded with 8th Day. She took language classes in Antigua and lived with the people there.

 When she returned to Humboldt Park in Chicago, Dorothy became teacher and volunteer supervisor of the after school homework program at Providence Family Services (PFS). She considers it one of her favorite missions although she is quick to say that all her missions were rewarding.

But of working with children and their families, working with students from DePaul and Dominican Universities as well as high school students who volunteered to tutor students at PFS she had this to say, “It was the first time I had worked with people of this age group. One of the big lessons that was reinforced in me was to never judge by appearances. I came to see over and over that how a person dresses, how many hair colorings, body piercings, mohawks or tattoos one has, does not really reveal who a person is. Over and over again, as I worked with the young people, I saw young men and women who came to help our children achieve their potential — and in helping them became aware of their own gifts and just how special they are.”

A ‘True’ Daughter

She is a true daughter of Mother Theodore, whose love for the children and for education, for love, mercy and justice is embedded in this woman who cried for 25 years because she missed her family but who chose to stay to serve where Providence had called her. Sister Dorothy sees her family infrequently now. She has nieces and nephews who periodically visit. Sister Dorothy wrote a book about her life with one of her nieces, Amber Kunkel. It is a fascinating read.

Sister Dorothy Gartland received the Guerin Outreach Ministries Leadership and Advocacy Award for her work at Providence Family Services. Sister Patty Fillenwarth, founder and director of PFS and President of Guerin Outreach Ministries had this to say: “Sister Dorothy deserves this award, and a gold medal, and a trip around the world for all she does for all of us here.”

“I thank God each day for being a Sister of Providence.” — Sister Dorothy Gartland

Sister Dorothy Gartland told me, “I count my blessings. I had a very open-minded mother and father. I never heard anything derogatory about another person from them.” She grew up during the Great Depression. She lived in a segregated neighborhood in Chicago because all neighborhoods were segregated in that era. Schools were not integrated, even when she taught. St. Ann’s in Washington D.C. enrolled their first Black student while Sister Dorothy was teaching there. She has traveled to Central America and to South America, living with families there. She has taken that information to countless others who have not seen the poverty and injustice up close.

“We must move from asking God to take care of the things that are breaking our hearts, to praying about the things that are breaking God’s heart.” — Margaret Gibb

All Things Justice

What has driven this Sister of Providence? What is her passion? “Justice. This has been such a part of my life. I’ve had a good life. I had an inclination or a feeling for the poor and disenfranchised. I thank God every day for being a Sister of Providence. I was a Chicago girl who saw Central America.”

Always a justice advocate, her experience witnessing blatant racism while teaching heightened her desire to contribute to pursuing justice for all. She had lived among the poor. Sister Dorothy knew how to manage a classroom of 64 first graders. She became a principal at the age of 29. It was justice that always fired the engine inside the classroom and outside the classroom.

Sister Dorothy Gartland has pursued justice for others her entire life. She didn’t just see Central America, she also impacted Central America. The radical one in the family, always after the social justice causes. She has a wealth of experience and is a delight to talk with. Her father’s sense of humor and her mother’s spirit of fun is telling in this Chicago girl from the Gartland family. Ask her about elastic shortages during the war, or changing the red statuary candles to white in Evansville. Or frog legs. Or Joseph’s Coat. Ask her what she knows about the ‘Window Wonderland’ Christmas song. She honored her parents by becoming who she is today, although her entire life is a testament to Mom and Pop.

Blessing

Without distinction of persons, do good to all for the love of God…Charity does not consist in loving one or two persons and being indifferent to all the rest. — Saint Mother Theodore Guerin

We are all blessed that on the Feast of St. Joseph, Sister Dorothy Gartland heard the voice of God and the assurance of Mother Theodore that she was in the right place. She accepted 25 years of tears so she could pursue love, mercy and justice for all. She is passionate, and courageous and a constant model for us of following Christ in such a way that demands justice in this world. We are all better for it. She never waivered. God had pressed on her the notion that all people on this Earth are her neighbors. Providence had geared her entire life toward this end, and she has honored God and her community.

“The community I belong to all come in response to the needs of people. This is not contradictory. Everyone on this Earth is my neighbor. This is how I serve my God. I hear the cry of the poor.” — Sister Dorothy Gartland