Mount St Joseph Retreat Center in Wheeling, West Virginia houses many of Mount St. Joseph’s sisters.
The congregation was first established in France in 1650. They eventually moved to Wheeling in 1853 and their original building was a hospital. The current building was built between 1954-56.
The Singing Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph was a choir of sisters in the congregation that traveled around West Virginia performing.
“One of the unique things about the Sisters of St. Joseph, this group, is that our commitment was to the people of West Virginia,” said Sister Marguerite O’Brien. “A lot of other religious women’s groups have served not only the state where they were living, but they also serve many other areas. But our primary commitment was to West Virginia. So people knew us.”
Sister Marguerite also explained the origins of the group.
“One of the reasons for starting [The Singing Sisters] was we built this building,” said Sister Marguerite. “And we were working very hard to pay off the mortgage. And so one of the ways we thought we could do that was to do this traveling group of our sisters… we had a lot of good voices… so we ended up being probably about 40 or 50.”
With a choir also comes a fine selection of singers.
“We were chosen to be in the choir,” said Sister Alicia Weiskircher. “I don’t remember if there were tryouts or anything like that. I think they knew we could sing.”
The sisters also discussed the different types of music they performed.
“I believe it was called Bach to Broadway,” Sister Marguerite said. “It was the theme of our era, so we ended up doing… a couple of pieces of sacred music and popular things at the time.”
“We did various different kinds of music,” said Sister Alicia. “We had that small group [in the picture]. It did the folk songs.”
Along with having sisters perform in the choir, sisters also played the accompaniment music.
“When we did some concerts, we took a break and she [Sister Charlotte] played a couple of songs on the piano for wherever we were,” said Sister Barbara Kupchak. “If you’ve ever seen an organ in a church there’s pedals on the floor, and I used to love to watch sister Charlotte hit the pedals. I don’t know how she knew which one to hit but it’s like… she was dancing only she was sitting down and she was really very talented.”
Each sister also shared her favorite memory from being part of the group.
“I love the music,” said Sister Alicia. “We [were] always talking in a corner somewhere and I love to learn new music.”
“It was fun,” said Sister Joan Singer.
“I really enjoyed the practices,” said Sister Marguerite. “We would practice sometimes in the room right below here… what we call a rectory.”
“The travel and getting to know people because I was a young sister,” said Sister Barbara. “I only just made my vows before I went into nurse’s training, and back in the day we didn’t spend a lot of time with the sisters who were older so I got a chance to know them…it gave you a break from daily life.”
