Mother Paul, the director of the Sacred Heart Home where Leta had recently relocated, was a stern, but benign woman. Her family, of German stock, had turned her over to the order when she was a small girl. Having come to the United States with sixteen children and another on the way, they couldn’t afford to keep four of them—she and an older sister became nuns, one brother a priest and the other a Jesuit. Her birth name was Claudia, but no one had called her that in years. She took the name Paul, partly because of her fierce devotion to the Apostle, and partly because thirteen other young ladies who took their vows with her gobbled up the various Marys.
Paul suited her. She was a superb manager with a firm sense of the Gospel. With her staff and subordinates, she would broach no shenanigans, as she called them. With the residents, however, she fulfilled every word of the mission of her order—compassionate understanding for seniors. All of her ladies, she declared, were her grandmothers. Most giggled pleasantly at the thought and loved the pampering.
When Leta strode confidently into her office that morning, Paul was startled.
“I have an offer,” Leta said. As nearly everyone who charged into her office with such a demeanor wanted something, such statements were rare.
“Good morning, Leta,” Paul said with a smile, curiosity burning in her for the first time in she couldn’t say how long. “What can I do for you today? Please, sit down.”
Leta sat and looked the other woman right in the eye.
“I’ve been looking at the craft classes and work being sold in the store,” Leta said.
“Yes, we get a little revenue here from the sales. At Christmas, we have a large fair.” Paul noted. “Were you thinking of taking a class?”
Leta laughed her brusque, rough laugh. “Take a class? Mother Paul, I’m offering to teach one!”
“Teach?!?”
Paul failed to conceal her astonishment. While she knew that as younger women, many of her residents employed a variety of talents in many different ways, none had ever offered them in service to the organization. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Margo Foster often played piano in the lounge, and for the most part her playing was passable, and of course, many of the residents took the classes and made crafts to be sold in their boutique. But Leta’s proposition was entirely different and completely unexpected.
Leta held up one of the dolls. “Have you ever looked at what we’re selling in our craft shop?” she asked the executive director. “I would be embarrassed to sell this. It’s just a bunch of rags.”
“It is a rag doll,” Paul noted.
“Oh, don’t give me that,” Leta snapped. “A two-year-old could pull this apart in seconds. But before that, who would even want one? None of the fabric matches, and it looks deformed.”
“I’m sure someone worked very hard on this,” Paul said protectively.
“I don’t disagree with you on that,” Lea said, “but don’t you think it would be better to have something that someone would want to buy? Something that a little girl would want to play with? Something that would last?”
Paul was stumped, but instead of nodding her head in her agreement, she posited a question.
“And how do you propose we do that?” she asked.
“Let me teach a sewing class,” Leta answered decisively.
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