I know exactly when the founder of my primary/public school died (cheapest & best btw) a foggy morning on 18 October 1979 we went straight to the assembly hall in the girls upper block & there under a huge copy of Da Vinci's Last Supper our headmistress Sister Theresa clearly trying to hold back how distressed she was announced Sister Marie Claire had died on her 95th birthday at 4 o' clock in the morning.
I knew Sister Marie Claire Villet from when I first met her at the sprightly age of just 90 & I was about 4 years & 11 months. I was actually interviewed by her in front of all the other nuns on a Saturday afternoon as to why I wanted to come to the Convent. I had chosen the school because something felt so right when I walked past it, like deja vu or Charlton Heston playing General Gordon as he says "It's good to be home" as he arrives back in Khartoum, one of his best performances in that little scene.
When I finally started researching and writing on St Joseph's Convent in 2014 I wrote & told former pupils that Marie Claire was 17 when she was sent from Normandy in France to Sidcup in Kent to foudn the convent and the school.
Impressive that a 17 year old was a qualified teacher & had the admin skills to set up & manage a school and convent. Such a character would not be a quiet & submissive but a strong & dynamic character.
Except I got that wrong!
Remembering her birthday was 18 October I realised only recently that when she founded the convent she was
16 years old
I have wondered if she was sent from France at such a young age to get rid of her. The nunnery sent her to another country across the English Channel in 1901!
The Loreto Ladies have 3 divisions: schools, orphanages & medical it appears some medical followed from France at a later date. In 1901 the 3 French nuns who arrived in Kent were:
Sister Marie-Claire Villet (born 1884)
Rosalie Noel born 1883
Anna
Benchard born 1882.
All 18 & younger
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