The right place to be

A firm decision 55 years ago has been Sr Ellen Cranitch’s support in her commitment to the Good Samaritan sisters. She spoke with Rosie Hoban about her life.

Ellen Cranitch was born into a crippling drought on Queensland’s Darling Downs in the mid 1920s. The drought dragged on for a second year as the youngest Cranitch child learned to walk, and her parents struggled to feed their ten children. Glendalough, her family’s farm, produced little food to sell and people had little money to pay for even the necessities of life.

No sooner had the drought passed than the Depression engulfed Queensland, as it did the rest of Australia. It was then that her mother gave away the little she could to those who might be even more needy than the Cranitch family and her father remained hopeful, ever hopeful, that the bad times would pass and the family would keep the farm.

'We came perilously close to losing the farm when things were really tough, but Dad never doubted that God would get us through. He always had hope and faith that things would be better next year. Dad’s trust in God was unwavering’, Ellen says.

This was the family that Ellen was born into. She remembers abundance and good fortune amidst the struggle and poverty. Sr Ellen Cranitch, a Good Samaritan Sister for more than a third of the order’s existence, grew up surrounded by hope, love and generosity. It’s little wonder she committed herself to a life of service and has lived, for more than half a century, with a sense of rightness about that choice.

Ellen insists that she is ‘ordinary’, having never done anything worthy of reporting. And yet the legacy of her childhood and her decision to join the Good Samaritan Sisters 55 years ago have left her in an extraordinary position, one that many people, from all walks of life, might envy. ‘I knew once I joined the Good Samaritans that it was the right decision. And that was very helpful, especially in the years when religious left the orders in droves. I knew I was in the place I was meant to be,’ Ellen said.

Ellen is the first to admit that she took a while to accept the ‘call’ to join the Good Samaritans. Instead, she left school, studied teaching and travelled around Queensland teaching in primary schools and enjoying life. She was 25 and at a country ball when she decided to submit to the feelings that had plagued her since she was a young girl.

‘I thought I would give religious life a sincere effort so I joined the novitiate in Pennant Hills in Sydney because it was far removed from all I was loathed to leave behind,’ Ellen said.

Ellen’s story is similar to those told by thousands of women over the past 150 years who have joined the Good Samaritans. This year the Sisters, and those associated with them, are celebrating the sesquicentenary of the order. It’s a chance to celebrate the life, times and work of the many women who have joined the Good Samaritans over the past 150 years. Of course many have died, others left the order after doing great things and many remain, continuing to serve in a variety of areas.

The Good Samaritans began a long way from Ellen Cranitch’s Darling Downs. It was the poverty and destitution of Sydney’ s streets that inspired Archbishop John Bede Polding to gather five young women to form a new religious congregation.

He named the congregation the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict. The specific ministries of the Sisters were the care of needy women and the education of children, although Polding, a Benedictine monk from Downside Abbey in England, also wanted the Sisters ‘to apply themselves to every other charitable work’.

According to the Sister’s own website history, they began working in a women's refuge in Carters' Barracks, an old building once used as a prison in Pitt Street, Sydney. They visited the sick and the poor and looked after orphans, initially at Parramatta, then at Manly and finally at Narellan from 1910. The work begun at the refuge in Pitt Street was continued at St Magdalene's Retreat, Tempe, in Sydney, where the Sisters looked after girls committed to their care by the courts. Opened in 1887, Tempe closed almost 100 years later in 1983.

Education was always a major area of activity for the Sisters of the Good Samaritan. The first school was set up in Sussex Street in the heart of Sydney in 1861. Later other schools were established in NSW and throughout Australia. Now, there are ten incorporated college across Australia, and one in Japan. The Sisters first went to Japan 1948 in response to an appeal made by the Bishop of Nagasaki to start a school there. On October 15, 1948, six Good Samaritan Sisters left Sydney on board the SS Changte bound for Nagasaki, the city devastated by the atomic bomb. Currently, there are Good Samaritan communities at Tokyo, Nara and Sasebo.

Today, there are more than 100 Good Samaritan communities active in a wide variety of ministries across Australia and in Japan, the Philippines and Kiribati.

Ellen Cranitch is proud to be part of the Good Samaritan traditionand of her community in Queensland. She has journeyed from her beloved Glendalough, the place where she first experienced the great love of God and the hope that comes from faith.

Numbers now are low, but the commitment of the women to service is as strong as ever. Good Samaritan sisters are working in different jobs, some unimaginable to the community of 150 years ago. But a great compassion for those who are marginalised, needy and alone is still at the heart of their work. Examples include Sr Mary O’Shannassy who is Director of Victoria’s Catholic Prison Ministry and Sr Pauline Coll who chairs the Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH) group.

Ellen, at 81 years old, is still working. Although poor hearing forced her to give up secondary teaching almost 20 years ago, she is still deeply involved in the lives of people in need. Since leaving teaching she has been working on the Catholic Marriage Tribunal in Queensland. She began as a member of the team instructing cases and is now a judge at the tribunal. She welcomes the more compassionate approach that is now shown to people through the annulment process.

‘Some people have had such horrendous childhoods that they deserve another chance to be happy. You realise when you are involved in this work that so many people have suffered enough,’ Ellen said.

It isn’t easy work, listening to people discuss painful, and often sad, parts of their lives. But she hopes her patience and gentle approach gives people the freedom to speak about painful issues that they may never have felt able to discuss.

‘It’s very emotionally challenging and at first I didn’t think I could stick at it,’ she said. But she has stuck with it, just like she stuck with another difficult decision 55 years ago. And now, as then, it’s the right place to be.