ST. MARY-OF-THE-WOODS —
The Fillenwarth sisters are sisters in more than one sense of the word.
Both were born two of the eight children of city cop Henry and his wife Catherine Fillenwarth. Both grew up among a large and giving Catholic extended family in inner-city Indianapolis in the 1940s.
It was a decision that older sister Mary (now known as Sister Joseph) made as a teenager: that she wanted to become a Sister of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, and that Patty (now known as Sister Patty) made four years later that made them sisters in a second sense: both members of the same Congregation of religious sisters.
Sister Sisters
Thus for the past 55 years the Fillenwarth sisters have lived not only as blood sisters, but as religious sisters as well.
A fun sense of camaraderie livens the area when Sisters Patty and Joseph, now both in their seventies, are together: a teasing humor, a warmth, a playful bantering.
“She was spoiled,” Sister Joseph taunts Sister Patty.
As the two sisters work together cleaning dishes after preparing treats to share with family members, Sister Patty mentions, “I was one of the youngest, so I used to sneak out when they were doing dishes at home.”
“See, she was spoiled! It came from her own mouth,” Sister Joseph says.
“I was not just a youngest, I was the smartest,” laughs Sister Patty.
“There’s one in every family,” laments Sister Joseph, shaking her head.
Both sisters know the teasing is all in fun. They say their parents taught them that you could be different and still get along, and that has served their relationship and that of their siblings well.
“Since we’ve been in the community, we really haven’t been in proximity all that much. But we’re always happy to see each other, and we always seem to love what we do,” Sister Patty said.
Despite the lack of proximity, plenty of similarities exist in the sisters’ life paths. “We both started as teachers, and then we were both principals, and then she went to the foreign missions in South America and I went to the home missions, so we were both missionaries in different senses,” Sister Joseph said.
The sisters say they are both full of energy and determined. They point out plenty of differences as well: Sister Patty is more laid back than Sister Joseph; Sister Joseph is more of a neat nick than Sister Patty.
But both share a similar life’s passion: helping others, especially those who are poor.
That passion has sometimes stretched them beyond their comfort zones: to the South American country of Peru, to areas in the U.S. where only one half of one percent of the population was Catholic or to the big, intimidating city of Chicago.
Today, both sisters live out that passion full-heartedly in the work they do.
Sister Patty
Sister Patty is the founder and director of Providence Family Services in Chicago, where she also serves as a counselor to Spanish-speaking and often low-income individuals who would not have access to such help elsewhere.
Sister Patty’s journey to Chicago started in Peru when she volunteered to go as a foreign missionary with a group of Sisters of Providence in the early 1970s.
“That changed my whole life,” she said.
Sister Patty returned home after six years due to political unrest that caused the Congregation to deem it unsafe, but she didn’t want to lose her Spanish. A sister in her Congregation’s leadership suggested she go to Chicago; that did not excite her.
“I said, ‘Oh no, too big and chaotic and busy, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. And the other sister said, ‘Just go and try.’ So, here I am 37 years later. So it is big and busy, but it also has a lot of wonderful people,” Sister Patty said.
Sister Patty served as a teacher and then principal at Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary School in Chicago for more than 15 years. During that time she noticed among the people in her Humboldt Park neighborhood an unmet need for affordable, bi-lingual counseling. So with the support of her congregation, Sister Patty set out to fill that need to a struggling population. She returned to school to get a counseling degree and then opened Providence Family Services. Now, 18 years later, PFS also offers English as a Second Language classes, citizenship classes, computer classes and an afterschool homework club for students whose parents may not speak English well enough to help with homework.
“I love doing it. It gives me energy in itself. People say, ‘You’re always running around, up and down, up and down, up and down all day.’ And I get tired from it, of course, but I’m energized by it because I know we’re doing good work, and people are being helped. It does my heart good to see people helping themselves. “
Sister Joseph
“I wanted to do some kind of missionary work with the poor,” Sister Joseph said.
So she spent 27 years working with the Glenmary home mission priests in small, impoverished rural parishes in Oklahoma and Kentucky.
Upon her retirement six years ago, Sister Joseph stepped right into her current role as director of Providence Food Pantry in West Terre Haute. There she works with agencies and various churches in the area to offer food to people in need.
“I think the most important thing is the support that we give from the pantry. It’s nice to see all the churches working together and trying to help the needy in the community,” Sister Joseph said.
People who come to the pantry are treated with dignity. They get to choose foods they like, and they get three different kinds of meat, and eggs and fresh produce, she said.
Sister Joseph said that she is thankful for the good health and energy that keeps her so active despite her 76 years. In addition to running the pantry every Thursday morning, the rest of the week she keeps busy with tasks such as traveling around Terre Haute and West Terre Haute to pick up donated foods from Catholic Charities or local grocery stores. She also works to keep the area from which they operate clean and organized and to keep all the paperwork in order.
Sister Joseph also volunteers two afternoons a week tutoring a child at Educational/Family Services in West Terre Haute. She staffs a phone room in one of her motherhouse buildings on Monday and Wednesday mornings. When she’s not doing those things, she is writing thank you notes and encouraging people to keep on giving to the pantry.
Like her sister, Sister Joseph is always going, always pouring her energy into helping others.
“I think we’re here to be of service, and Jesus didn’t go to the wealthy. He went to the people who needed help. Not that you overlook the rich, but there’s such a great need,” Sister Joseph said.
Sister Patty agrees.
“I’m happy here. I’m here because I want to be here. Nobody ever made me come. Nobody ever made me stay. And that’s why I stay, because I like it,” Sister Patty says of her ministry at Providence Family Services.
And though their common passion has led them to different places with similar missions, the sisters remain close.
“I’m always glad to come home and see Mary [Sister Patty still calls her sister by her given name], but she knows and I know that I do my business and she does hers. And she thinks I’m crazy sometimes, and I think she’s crazy sometimes,” Sister Patty says.
Sister Joseph agrees with her sister. “And we both know it,” she says, “… that you’re crazy sometimes.”
Features
Related Photos
-
Dishes and a smile: Sisters Patty and Joseph Fillenwarth wash dishes together at St. Mary-of-the-Woods after preparing treats to bring to a family gathering. The two sisters share not only a biological sisterhood, but a religious sisterhood and a passion for serving people in need. (Submitted photo)
-
Sister Patty Fillenwarth chats with a student in the after-school homework club at Providence Family Services in Chicago where Sister Patty serves not only as the founder and director but also as a counselor offering affordable, bi-lingual counseling to her neighbors in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. (Submitted photo)
-
Sister Joseph Fillenwarth puts her many years experience as a teacher and principal to use as she volunteer tutors a student at Educational/Family Services in West Terre Haute. (Submitted photo)
-
Sister Patricia Fillenwarth (Submitted photo)
-
Sister Joseph Fillenwarth (Submitted photo)
Discussion
Sisterly Habits: Fillenwarth sisters are linked together in more than one sense
Sister sisters share a love for helping those in need
- Features
-
-
Longtime weatherman Jesse Walker relates well to people of Wabash Valley
While in middle and high school, Jesse Walker developed a strong interest in the weather. He thought about a career at the National Weather Service or at a storm prediction center, but the idea of becoming a television meteorologist never entered his mind.
-
YOUR GREEN VALLEY: Keep your garden — and yourself — safe from lead
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead poisoning is the No. 1 preventable environmental cause of illness in children.
-
TRIED ‘N’ TRUE: Need something for the kids? Try these Ritzy Cookies
When we have dinners at the church, one of the ladies brings these cookies. Nancy Kahl has been making these for some time now. They are so good. Need something for your kids? Make sure that there isn’t any one who can’t have peanuts. These are so easy and extra good.
-
CULINARY COURSES: Clabber Girl Classroom Kitchen provides variety of cooking courses for the Valley
There are a few taste-bud-tantalizing-perks for having America’s leading baking powder producer in your backyard. For nearly 120 years, Clabber Girl has been a staple in Terre Haute. In 1899, Hulman and Company began offering up what was to become one of the oldest brands in the country, Clabber baking powder. In 1923, the company changed the baking powder brand name to Clabber Girl.
-
RIVER OF SOUND: Composer sees symphony bring his musical imagination to life
David Watkins smiled as he stood on the Tilson Auditorium stage. The audience stood, too, applauding.
Two of his compositions had just been performed by the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra. Neither piece — “A Wabash Portrait” and “River Fanfare” — had been played publicly in decades. -
The Beauties of Spring: Stunning array of wildflowers bloom each spring in Collett Park
Groundskeepers put off the first mowing of Collett Park each spring.
Admirers of the place, Terre Haute’s oldest park, like it that way.
A stunning array of wildflowers covers the 21-acre lawn for a few short weeks. Those plants, known as “spring beauties,” emerge in March, bloom in April and go dormant by May, when the brilliant waves of white and pink flowers disappear. -
Day spent with daughter inspires Valley man to write children’s book for her
It started with a warm sunny blackberry picking outing, a bee buzzing, a little bird nest with eggs in it and a little girl begging her daddy for a night-time story. And from those ingredients the children’s book, “The Bee in the Blackberry Bush” came to fruition.
-
From kilts to haggis, Wabash Valley Scottish Society marks a decade of preserving heritage
As soon as Richard Cooper breaks into his Scottish accent, a smile automatically follows.
It happened last week as he recited a work of legendary Scotland poet Robert Burns. -
Witness to history: April movie chronicles Jackie Robinson’s trials as be breaks Major League Baseball’s color barrier — something Vigo County native Harry Taylor witnessed first hand
The upcoming movie “42” aims to show America what Jackie Robinson endured.
Harry Taylor witnessed it firsthand.
Robinson wore jersey No. 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Taylor wore 41. Both were 28-year-old rookies, considerably older than most. Taylor got delayed by military service in World War II. Professional baseball’s unwritten but ironclad code of racial discrimination had kept Robinson and other African-Americans out of the majors since the 1880s. -
Sisterly Habits: Fillenwarth sisters are linked together in more than one sense
The Fillenwarth sisters are sisters in more than one sense of the word.
Both were born two of the eight children of city cop Henry and his wife Catherine Fillenwarth. Both grew up among a large and giving Catholic extended family in inner-city Indianapolis in the 1940s. -
Geocaching Indiana: Clay County man develops idea to use geo-art to create outline of state in caches
Indiana, long-known as the Crossroads of America, has for years been a destination for people coming from around the world to witness such activities as the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, Indianapolis Colts football games and Indiana University Hoosiers basketball games.
Since October 2012, Indiana’s attractions have come to include the surprising geo-art creation of a group of Wabash Valley geocachers — people who use Global Positioning Systems and similar location-sensitive devices to find hidden objects for fun. -
Voice of a Storyteller: Chance meeting of Twain, Paris youngster inspired narrative voice of Huck Finn
The block offers no hints of its place in American literary history.
Customers dodge raindrops, walking in and out of an auto parts store. -
Pearls of the Wabash: Efforts to reintroduce mussels
Broken bricks, shattered large clay tiles and thin strips of lumber nailed into a crimped piece of sheet metal, sit piled down a county road in Hillsdale.
-
Natural Habitat: Meet 17-year-old Ben Cvengros, who has a knack for capturing wildlife — in particular, birds — on his camera
I would like to introduce you to a 17-year-old Parke County teenager who has an incredible level of patience. Ben Cvengros was 12 years old when he found his passion for photography.
-
WORD PLAY: Scrabble Club broadens Greene County youngsters’ vocabularies and experiences in a fun way
Drew Helton nodded his head like a wise college professor dispensing scholarly advice.
-
Doing a lot with a little: Family’s resourcefulness leads it to reuse vegetable oil as fuel
Up a winding driveway, tucked off a main road in Clay County, sits an average-looking house in a hardwood forest. The homeowners, Chris and Lori Hart, are two resourceful people.
-
Coming full circle: Vigo County 4-H’er hopes donation of livestock auction money helps youth
The phrase “giving back” is often quoted but sometimes lacks personal follow through.
-
CRUISIN’ TO A CAREER IN MUSIC: Terre Haute native Will Foraker on a roll with new album, job as cruise ship entertainer
On his way to the Panama Canal, Will Foraker sounded energized.
-
Fountain honoring sacrifice by life-saving Santa may return to site of his heroism
A commemorative drinking fountain once marked the spot. Someday soon, it may return there.
-
A Devotion to Art: The Halcyon featuring artistic legacy of Evalyn James during month of December
Evalyn Gertrude James first made a name for herself in Terre Haute in the late 1920s when she took a job as a professor of art at what is now Indiana State University.
-
‘A Song for Indiana’ to raise money for Dresser sculpture
Art Spaces will present “A Song for Indiana – The Paul Dresser Project” at 5:30 p.m. on June 6 at the Holiday Inn of Terre Haute.
-
Sign up for Community School of the Arts classes
Summer is the perfect time to enroll children and teens in theater and visual arts and music classes at the Indiana State University Community School of the Arts.
-
FAMILY TIES: While searching for my grandfather, I found my mother
I remember the afternoon my mother received the chilling news from her nephew that her oldest sister and brother-in-law had been killed in a car/bus collision.
-
GRAPE SENSE: Same old whites getting you down? Try something different
If the same old Chardonnay, Riesling or Pinot Grigio is getting you down, try something different.
-
TRIED ‘N’ TRUE: A Rhubarb Nut Bread for the season
Last fall we went to the Covered Bridge Festival. Gene loves to go. Anyway, I got to talking to this lady, Treva Smith, at Bridgeton.
-
Diamond Hill Station goes bold in ‘Katy Bar the Door’ album
On the second track of Diamond Hill Station’s new CD, the band deftly rambles through a catchy, love-gone-wrong song called “Same Old Thing.”
-
Roxie Randle takes next step with single ‘Everything I’m Not’
The next step for singer-songwriter Roxie Randle is a single with the attitude and power to crack radio airplay lists.
-
Opening reception Friday for ‘Mud Musings’
Indiana State University’s Community School of the Arts is scheduled to host an opening reception for an art exhibition from 4 to 6 p.m. on Friday in the Gallery Lounge of ISU’s Hulman Memorial Student Union.
-
CHRIS DAVIES: Keep sodium levels in mind when sweating buckets
Salt, or sodium, is vital to life. Too much or too little sodium can cause all kinds of problems in your body. How much sodium do we need if we are exercising consistently?
-
YOUR GREEN VALLEY: Union Hospital creates community garden
Union Hospital will be opening a community garden on its campus in mid-May. Before they embarked on such a challenge, they looked to their neighbor Indiana State University for advice.
- More Features Headlines
-
Raw: Tornadoes Spotted in Kansas
Probe Begins After Conn. Commuter Trains Crash
Coffee Run Leads to Hatchet Hitchhiker Arrest
NTSB Begins Investigation Into Conn. Train Crash
Obama Exhorts Good Deeds by Morehouse Graduates
Winning Powerball Ticket Sold in Florida
Lotto Fever Sweeps the Country
Fmr. IRS Head Insists No Politics in Targeting
Conn. Commuter Trains Collide; 60 Go to Hospital
Music Therapy Bonds Parents and Preemies
Today in History for May 19th
NM Mom Chases Down Child Abductor
Raw: Texas Gov. Flies Over Tornado Damage
CDC: Fecal Bacteria Common in Swimming Pools
Raw: Driver Ejected From Truck, Over Bridge
Raw: Germany Protestors Picket Barbie House
One Million Evacuated As Cyclone Hits Bangladesh
Raw: Gun Scare Mars Cannes Film Festival
Raw: Crash Sends Car Into Fla. Pool
Raw: Bear Falls From Tampa Tree
Twiggy, the Water Skiing Squirrel
Sailor Surprises His Mom At Her CU Denver Graduation Ceremony
Official: ‘Amazing’ No One Was Killed In CT Train Crash
Coffee Stop Leads To Arrest Of YouTube Sensation Wanted For Murder
Bearded Dragon Reunited With Owner
Marine Reunited with Warzone Companion
Beyonce Is Pregnant!
SF baseball player overpaid $500,000 RETURNS money -- and team says KEEP IT
$1 Million in Jewels Stolen at Cannes Film Fest
Dad returns from Afghanistan, surprises family during Rays' first pitch
See Jennifer Lopez's New $10m Hamptons Mansion
Woman tricked into taking abortion pill
Emma Watson Goes Pantless
IRS scandal: Republicans seek to tie Obama to agency's woes
Play of the Day: Flipping to Safety
Pregnant Kim Kardashian Squeezes Her Swollen Feet Into Stilettos
Top Videos of the Week: Angry Taco Bell Guy, Glacier Moves on House, Dog Hates Baths
