For Sr. "Geri" Bauer SSND, it’s always time for prayer

By Jay Nies

In wintertime, the Bauer children would keep warm behind the wood stove after dinner until their parents summoned them. “Time to pray!” Sister Germanus Bauer SSND still takes that call very seriously. Now living with more than 100 other sisters at a place called Veronica House near St. Louis, Sr. Germanus spends her days praying, sewing and visiting with residents of nearby Anna House.

A Freeburg native whose assignments have included Westphalia and Jefferson City, “Sr. Geri,” as her family calls her, professed vows as a School Sister of Notre Dame for 70 years ago. She turned 90 on Aug. 22. Her family and the other sisters helped her learn to recognize Christ in the poor and defenseless, the imprisoned and the impoverished, in her backyard and thousands of miles away. She has always enjoyed using her hands to help, to heal and to make things clean. “I have never regretted a single day that I entered the convent,” she said with a gigantic smile. “It’s a life worth living because of the goodness of God. He’ll never let you down.”

Seeking followers

Sr. Geri — baptized Philomena Bauer — believes any success she has had is a reflection of God’s goodness. “I feel so loved and close to the Lord, because I’ve given myself completely to Him,” she said. “I have made friendships for a lifetime. I love my work with people, especially the sick and the elderly, as well as with children. “And when I think of what God did for me — that He created me so that I can one day go to heaven for all eternity — it makes me want to take as many people with me as I possibly can. I want to make Him known to others.”

Praying together

Sr. Geri grew as one of 12 siblings on a 500-acre farm south of Freeburg. All the Bauer children went to Holy Family School. At one time, there were nine of them there. The family was tremendously close and maintained a rigorous prayer regimen. At night before bed, they would kiss the crucifix by the door and bless themselves with holy water. As they left for school, their mom would tell them, “Bring Jesus home for us, for Papa and me tonight, when you come.”

“Mom and Dad gave us a deep love for prayer,” said Sr. Geri. “They had the Family Rosary together for 53 years. We always had our morning and night prayers together. Then we knelt down at our bedside and said our ‘pet prayers,’ as we called them.”

Sr. Geri made up her mind in second grade, around the time she received her First Holy Communion, that she wanted to be a sister when she grew up. One day, her brothers Syl and Norbert were teasing her, and she said she was going to run away from home. One of them asked, “Where are you going.” She said, “I’m going up to Aunt Tilly’s.” Syl said, “No, you’re going to be a sister!” After that, her family talked openly about her plans to be a nun.

Called and chosen

Sr. Geri entered the convent at age 16, at the same time her brother, Father Sylvester Bauer, entered Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis. Their brother Norbert eventually went to Techny, Ill., to become a brother of the Society of the Divine Word. Their sister Frances (Sister Teresella) followed Sr. Geri into the Notre Dame convent in 1938. Another sister became a Holy Spirit missionary and later died of tuberculosis. The rest got married and raised families.

Sr. Geri was received formally into the School Sisters of Notre Dame and given the name Germanus in 1935. There were 36 novices in Sr. Geri’s class, including three who came from Germany because of World War II. Sr. Geri finished high school in the Notre Dame novitiate in St. Louis.

By a thread

Noticing how precise and detail-oriented she was, Sr. Geri’s superior asked if she would like to help make vestments for priests and bishops. Under an older sister’s guidance, she and another novice began turning thread into faces on the embroidered images of the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Mother.

Sr. Geri taught for three months at a Catholic school in Washington, Mo., then returned to needlework and service as sacristan in the Motherhouse chapel. She eventually asked to become a full-time teacher. Her assignments included teaching a class of 73 6-year-old Native American children in the state of California. More recently and closer to home, she taught at St. Joseph School in Westphalia and was a volunteer for the Osage County Ambulance District. She also did deep housecleaning in the school and church over the summers.

Teaching, healing

From the day the School Sisters of Notre Dame began helping children in Sierra Leone, Sr. Germanus wanted to work among the poor in that west African country. She finally got her wish. Her first day there, she caught a fever and thought she was going to die. She called for a priest to anoint her, and she quickly recovered. “I think that’s really what made me well, because I felt better immediately,” she said.

She went there primarily to teach, but she also worked in a health clinic for the students in the afternoons. Soon, their families also began coming to the clinic to get medicine and basic treatment. “I didn’t have any training at all in babies and children’s diseases, so I was really scared,” she said. “But we managed.” Her students spoke Krio at home, but they had to learn English in school. “We did try to learn as much as we could of their language so we could hold conversations with their parents,” she said. “I even bought myself a Bible in their language, because I loved it.”

The children didn’t have any books. The teachers wrote everything on a chalkboard, and the children took notes and studied them at home. Sr. Geri developed a taste for food she had never eaten before. Most meals consisted of rice and sauce. The bread and the fruit, she said, were delicious.

Two boys

She still mourns for a baby boy who died of malnutrition. The mother had twins and did not have enough milk for both. “You could count the little bones on his body,” she said. “But I had some milk that I bought for babies.” One day, after returning from a trip to Freetown to buy school supplies, Sr. Geri saw the mother with only one of the twins. “I said, ‘Where is my little boy?’” Sr. Geri recalled. “She said, ‘He died.’ Oh, how I cried!”

The story of another boy brings her immense happiness. A student who helped the sisters in exchange for tuition and school supplies always said he wanted to move to the United States when he grew up. Instead, he went into the seminary and was ordained to the Holy Priesthood four years ago. He is studying in Rome and recently saw Sr. Geri during an August visit to the United States.

Inner city

While she was back in the U.S. for a health screening, civil war broke out in Sierra Leone and the bishops asked the sisters to leave the country for their own safety. She wanted to go to another country, but she had contracted Hepatitis B, which is very contagious. She stayed at the Motherhouse for almost a year, trying to replenish her immune system. When the doctor cleared her to go back to work, she was sent not to Africa but the Southside of Chicago. There, she helped convert an abandoned high school into a 65-bed shelter for women and children living on the street. They cleaned the building and turned the classrooms into dormitories.

“We were always filled,” she said. “Some of the women came right out of prison and made their home at the shelter.” Drug dealers were omnipresent in the neighborhood. One day, Sr. Geri picked up the drugs a dealer was selling on a street corner and threw them in the trash. Later, several gang members went to the shelter, expecting to be paid for what she took. “It’s a good thing we always had that front door locked so they couldn’t get in,” she said. “I kind of peeked through the window, but I didn’t dare let them see that I was there.”

The shelter offered 24-hour care, and the sisters took turns answering the phone and the door at night. “My family worried more about me there than they did when I was in Africa,” she said. “But nothing ever happened to me.”

Into Ghana

After two and a half years in Chicago, she got a call from the Motherhouse, asking if she would like to return to Africa. “Would I? Yes! Tomorrow!” she replied. This time, she went to Ghana. She led a Bible study with the girls in formation to be School Sisters of Notre Dame there. She was also in charge of the sisters’ farm. She ordered fruit trees and coordinated the planting of an orchard. “Now they have as many oranges and bananas and other fruits as they want,” she said. She spent about six years in Ghana before a new formation team arrived to relieve her and the other sister.

Hospice, prisons

Sr. Germanus went to Jefferson City to help take care of several sick family members. Through that process, she began staying and working at the old Hospice of Jefferson City. She helped take care of patients at night, and kept the building clean and the medical supplies in good order. Her brother, Fr. Bauer, encouraged her also to visit people in prison. She became active in the Legion of Mary and eventually asked to go to the Legion’s meetings in the Jefferson City Correctional Center and the Algoa Correctional Center. “The men in the prisons came with such eagerness to learn and to find Christ,” she said. “I think once they find Him, they can start making a better life for themselves. And I pray they can take that with them when they get out.”

God’s will