 |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
March 21, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 6Oakland,
CA
Presentation Sisters to mark 150 years
with April 10 celebration in Berkeley
San Francisco was still humming with the advent
of Gold Rush days when the first contingent of Presentation Sisters arrived
in San Francisco. It was Nov. 13, 1854, and the Sisters plunged into their
work, opening schools for the growing population of children.
More than two decades later, in 1878, the Presentation Sisters crossed
the Bay into Berkeley. Mother Teresa Comerford had received land from
farmer James McGee and opened St. Joseph Convent and School at the corner
of present-day California and Addison Streets. Soon to follow at the site
were more schools and St. Joseph Parish.
Now, after serving several generations of Bay Area Catholics, the Presentation
Sisters are preparing to mark their 150th anniversary in California. They
will gather with former students, co-workers, friends and benefactors
for a thanksgiving liturgy celebrated by retired Bishop John Cummins at
St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 10.
Among them will be four Presentation Sisters who continue their ministry
in the Oakland Diocese: Sister Denise Bourdet, on the staff at St. Joseph
the Worker School; Sister Gloria Loya, an adjunct faculty member at the
Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley; Sister Bernice Gotelli, chaplain
at Children’s Hospital in Oakland; and Sister Marilyn Medau, director
of the food program at St. Mary’s Center in Oakland.
After the liturgy, which will give thanks for the community’s friends
and benefactors, the Sisters will host a reception in St. Joseph Elementary
School, which grew out of schools founded by the Sisters during their
early days in Berkeley.
After moving from San Francisco, the Sisters established St. Joseph Academy
for girls, St. Peter School for boys and a boarding school at the Berkeley
site. The school for girls evolved into Presentation High School, which
closed in 1988. The elementary level schools for boys and girls became
St. Joseph Elementary School, which continues today as a parish school.
Sisters of the Presentation were the founding faculty at St. Columba School
in Oakland, where they taught from 1925 to 1975. In 1952, the Sisters
also began teaching at St. John the Baptist School in San Lorenzo. When
the San Francisco Sisters withdrew from San Lorenzo, Sisters from the
community’s United States Province replaced them at the school.
The Sisters also helped found St. Joseph Parish in Berkeley when –
with the permission of Archbishop Joseph Alemany – Mother Comerford
invited her brother to serve the Catholic population in that city. Father
Pierce Comerford became the first pastor of the parish in April 1879,
and the convent chapel served as the parish church in the early years.
For more information on the anniversary celebration or the ministries
and programs of the Sisters of the Presentation, contact Sister Stephanie
Still, PBVM, at Sisters of the Presentation, 281 Masonic Ave., San Francisco,
CA 94118, (415) 422-5020 or sstill@pbvmsf.org
or visit the website www.presentationsisterssf.org
Mother Teresa Comerford founded St. Joseph Convent and School in 1878 and was instrumental in the creation of St. Joseph the Worker Parish.
This lithograph shows the St. Joseph Convent and Church founded by the Presentation Sisters in Berkeley.
