This past summer, Fr. Stanislaus Maudlin celebrated sixty years of service as a priest. Fr. Stan was a founding member of Blue Cloud, and is our most senior member in profession and age. He was born in Greensburg, Indiana in 1916, began study at St. Meinrad Abbey in 1929, and was ordained on May 26, 1942. Besides his studies at St. Meinrad, he also studied theology at the Benedictine College in Rome, Sant' Anselmo. While in Europe, Fr. Stan made his solemn vows and was ordained to the subdiaconate at Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland, the founding house of St. Meinrad. His time in Europe was cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War. Returning to America, Fr. Stan was sent to Immaculate Conception Indian Mission in Stephan, South Dakota. He completed his theology studies during summers at St. Meinrad until ordination in 1942.

Fr. Stan has served at St. Michael's Mission and St. Ann's Mission in Belcourt, North Dakota. In his present job as Director of the American Indian Culture Research Center, he has spent 35 years. He also writes a monthly column for the Sioux Falls diocesan newspaper.

On this occasion of his 60^th anniversary, Fr. Stan was asked to share some memories and reflections on his years of service. This is what he chose to tell us:

"Ten years of my life were spent in Pierre, the capitol of our State, while the Missouri river dams were being built. Hundreds of laborers from every Reservation and State were needed. An old dance hall was our church. It was a Quonset hut. A man from Crow Creek helped me put up a tower. We had a bell, Kelly Construction with a tall lift raised it to its place. The brothers from Blue Cloud came, dug a basement and put up a foundation for a small house. They also put in a septic tank. The house and St. John Church, near the city dump, was for laboring men and their families a place of refuge, recreation and prayer.

We had three masses each Sunday. A Catholic boys’ advisor at the Pierre Indian School brought a huge busload of children for the early mass. Only a few additional adults could squeeze in. Governor Kneip came occasionally with his wife and seven boys. ‘It’s so nice to pray down here,’ he said. ‘It’s kind of real.’

My house was at the end of all city services. I put two faucets through the foundation so water would be available for others in the neighborhood. The house door was never locked. I had the only telephone in the area. If I was away, a note would be left, ‘Father I called -------. When you get the bill let me know.’

We needed about $90 a month for expenses. The collection averaged $8 each Sunday. (Mothers left food on my kitchen table or in the refrigerator.) Bingo was our sustenance. I got tired of bingo. Spring came and then summer. ‘Let’s close down bingo for the next couple of months,’ I dared to suggest. ‘Oh, no Father! We have our birthday parties and everything during the breaks. If you can’t be here, we’ll make the coffee and take care of everything.’

If the church was very full, the floor sagged a little. We had a small portable pump organ. The organist sat her son in front of the organ, with his back to it, so it would not scoot across the floor when she pumped hard for more volume.

Funerals at the time cost at least $400, which was devastating to families. Using my house as a work place to make coffins, we reduced the cost to $90 for adults and $25 for a child. My station wagon was the hearse. I had gone to the Attorney General and found that we did not need an undertaker or embalming. He told me only, ‘Now don’t you go into business.’

I never did work alone. As our numbers grew I asked in Church, ‘You folks get to know a lot more people than I do. You work at the Dam, the machine shops, in the hospitals and hotels and the cafes. If you know someone new in town or someone who has a little trouble, or if they have a baby to be baptized or a marriage to be blessed, would you tell them to see me? We’ll take care of them.’ I seldom had an evening free. Even white people from up the hill started to come. No priest is any good working alone.

If you are interested in the practical work that a priest does when he is ‘south of the tracks’, write to the Institute of Indian Studies at the University of South Dakota. There you will find more than two hundred hours of tapes about the Benedictine presence on the Reservations of North and South Dakota".

This summer saw another large influx of guests to the retreat center. The end of the school year in May brought several school groups visiting us on field trips. Larger retreat groups during the summer included: Priests of the Sioux Falls Diocese on two separate dates, Independent Television Service of San Francisco, Deacons of the St. Cloud Diocese, Rittman family group, PRH Program (two separate dates), Jesu Caritas Priest group from St. Paul MN, Alcoholics Anonymous Retreat, Asbury United Methodist Church. In addition to the large groups, we had a considerable number of individuals making retreats or visiting. This even included a few guests staying at the hermitages, a brave move as this was a hot summer and the hermitage cabins are not air conditioned.

Camp Mahpiyato also had its share of guests this summer. On Memorial Day weekend the camp opened for the season. Due to a very cool spring, leaves were just beginning to open on the trees. Four courageous campers stayed overnight with temperatures dropping to 32 degrees. As the summer heated up, so did activity at camp. Besides individual campers, larger groups included the Berg family reunion, the Whetstone Valley Rodeo club (and their many fine horses), Heffernan family reunion, Emanual Lutheran youth group from Milbank SD, St. John’s Catholic Youth Group (Ortonville MN), Knights of Columbus and Kiwanis groups from Milbank, AA group from Watertown.

Along with the greenhouse, a number of other construction and maintenance projects were completed this summer. Underground drain pipes were placed around the building's foundation outside the church basement. The auditorium below the church had been troubled with leaks for years, and we hope the new drain systems will correct this. A gazebo for the monks' summertime use was completed at the south end of the monastery. The basement chapel was completed with the addition of forty custom-made wooden chairs. Fr. Abbot Thomas and his helpers in the carpentry shop plan to make kneelers for some of them.

Fr. Abbot Thomas and Br. Benet attended the General Chapter meeting of the Swiss-American Congregation. The meeting took place at St. Benedict's Abbey, Benet Lake, Wisconsin during July. The entire Blue Cloud community has been

preparing for our formal visitation by representatives of the Congregation this fall. Each monastery gets a formal evaluation every four years this way. The visitation examines both the physical and spiritual state of the community and makes recommendations.

Also in July, Fr. Abbot attended a meeting of the Alliance for International Monasticism (AIM) in Erie, PA. AIM is an association of American religious communities that works to support monasteries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Monasteries in the Third World Nations are getting a much larger number of vocations than American communities are, but often lack the financial means to properly educate these new members. Blue Cloud Abbey continues to be a financial supporter of these missionary efforts.

By August, the garden was again producing in full swing. Green beans, beets, zucchini and corn began coming in by the bucket, and Vicky our cook needed volunteers to help with canning and freezing. Abbot Alan also forecasts a good apple crop from the orchard.

At about the time this newsletter is sent out, Fr. Christopher will be traveling to Europe, to address the annual convocation of Benedictine musicians of Great Britain and Ireland. The meeting will be held at Ampleforth Abbey in northern England. Fr. Christopher will speak on the topic, "A Question of Style, Music in the Liturgy Today". He will also share selected liturgical compositions composed by modern Benedictine musicians.

NEW GREENHOUSE

Visitors to Blue Cloud often find the greenhouse one of our most interesting work areas. We use the greenhouse to start our garden in early spring, and for flowers placed on our altars. Three years ago in the newsletter our readers learned about replacing the fiberglass skin on our greenhouse. Br. Christopher knew at the time that the new polypropylene skin had a limited life. To continue covering the greenhouse with the thin plastic sheeting would mean replacing it every three years. But this was not our only alternative. The existing greenhouse was deteriorating structurally, and was too small for any commercial use that could support the abbey. In fact it was so small that there was barely room to work while visitors were inside it. For several years the community had been discussing the possibility of replacing the greenhouse with a larger, professionally manufactured one.

One year ago the community decided that replacing the entire structure would be the best option. Over the past year, funds were raised in a campaign among our friends who had a particular interest in the greenhouse. (None of the funds raised for this special project came from the donations sent during our prayer campaigns.)