The Delightful Haunting

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

If my dearly departed Irish Catholic mother was to haunt a place, she’d choose the old Sisters of Mercy convent and boarding school in her hometown of Burlington, Vermont.

The Sisters of Mercy came to Vermont in 1874 to minister to the poor and sick. Catherine McAuley started the religious order in Ireland in 1831. McAuley was a wealthy Irish socialite who spent her family inheritance trying to relieve extreme poverty in Dublin.

In 1886, the Mercy sisters opened Mount Saint Mary, a distinctive red-brick, five-story convent and school with a bell and a watchtower that sat on a lush, wooded lot at one of the highest points on the east side of Burlington. Farmland surrounded the 36-acre property.

At the turn of the century, the resident nuns, including my own mother’s aunt—Mary Elizabeth Gleason—wore the full-body, traditional, black-and-white habit, wide wimple, and veil. The sisters rose each day at 5:30 a.m. for prayer and mass, worked in schools and hospitals and other ministries until 4 p.m., and then came home to the convent for dinner and evening prayers with lights out at 10 p.m. 

My mother ended up there too, as a preteen in the early 1940s. Unlike her aunt, however, she arrived under rather tragic circumstances, effectively as an orphan. Her mother died in 1939. 

Mom’s father, having lost both parents and his wife over the course of 13 difficult months, self-medicated and retreated into a whiskey bottle. Eventually, he disappeared altogether. For all intents and purposes, my mother was an orphan.

Her aunt—the nun at Mount Saint Mary—and her uncle—a Vermont Catholic priest in nearby Middlebury—arranged for my mother to attend school and stay at the convent. It was the best and worst of times for her. 

Mom was somewhat lost, held back a year in school, lonely, and still grieving her parents. Some of the strict disciplinarian nuns did not fill the void in her heart very well, instead deciding she needed lots of practice scrubbing floors. 

Yet, other sisters were kinder and gentler. They ensured my mother enjoyed some of the same goodness as her wealthy non-orphan peers. When these other girls went home for the holidays, and Mom did not, the Mercy sisters left anonymous gifts for my mother, including small Christmas presents and Easter baskets.

Mother made her own mark on the school and convent, usually through mischief. I recount some of these wonderful stories in the memoir about my own boyhood at a Northern Utah Catholic abbey, Monastery Mornings (Paraclete Press 2021). Here’s an excerpt:

Mom’s affection for the Sisters of Mercy did not stop her from engaging in mischief at the convent now and then. One escapade involved a bold attempt, with friends, to leave the school for some sort of late-night outing via the girls’ second-floor dormitory room. The conspirators tied sheets together and hung them out the window. Mom climbed down first only to find a tired, unhappy, and very stern-looking nun holding the other end of the sheet rope at the bottom. Another time, Mom and a friend mixed up all the nuns’ individual prayer books. A nun’s prayer book was akin to what a person’s smart phone is today, holding all sorts of personal notes, pictures, letters, meditations, and prayer cards. Comic chaos erupted as the sisters, each in her full-blown, traditional black-and-white habit, wide wimple, and veil, anxiously scrambled about the chapel trying to find their own books. Mom and her accomplice watched hidden away nearby, simultaneously thrilled by and fearful of the bedlam they had caused.

While in high school during the World War II years, Mom lived with her older sister Mary in a small apartment on Maple Street. She moved away after marrying in 1951, but her hometown remained in her heart and mind.

Mom regaled her children, including me, with stories about the Sisters of Mercy and her early New England life. Mom was such a good storyteller that, years later, my heart quickened when I visited Vermont and encountered her favorite Burlington haunts—Maple Street, Church Street, Battery Park, and Mount Saint Mary’s old Sacred Heart Chapel.

The relentless passage of time spares nothing and no one. My mother’s aunt and the 200 or so other nuns who had lived, worked and prayed in the lovely Burlington convent moved on or passed away. Our aunt and many of these women take their final rest in the lovely secluded wooded cemetery behind the convent.

The Mater Christi School succeeded the old Mount Saint Mary Academy in the 1960s. The rest of the convent closed in 2019. Now owned by the school, the future of the 136-year-old building is a pending question mark on the Burlington landscape.

My lovely mother wilted and withered too. When she passed, after having lived her adult life far away, we knew we must take her back for eternal rest in her childhood hometown, where she had known so much sorrow and so much love. 

We buried her beside many generations of family members in the old Saint Joseph graveyard, just around the corner and down the road from Mount Saint Mary.

I know not if ghosts exist, but they might. Emotion and  memory—especially mixed with passion and love or fear and dread—hold great power. They could emanate enough spectral energy to animate a ghost.

Although I harbor my doubts, sometimes I fervently wish ghosts did exist. For then, I’d walk along the tree-lined lanes of east side Burlington on a dark and quiet autumn night. 

The only sound piercing the still nocturnal air would be the rhythmic crunch of unraked yellow and red maple leaves beneath each of my footsteps. I’d pause in silence at the hallowed Saint Joseph burial grounds. 

The old bone yard is a classic spooky place. Its narrow dirt roads mark crooked paths between stone gates, mossy obelisks, decaying headstones, and decrepit markers of various shapes and sizes, many of them taller than me. 

From within, I’d feel the lithe spirit of a young girl skip past me. I’d chase the specter—a few blocks south and a half block east—arriving finally at the foreboding front facade of Mount Saint Mary, subtly illuminated by a hint of silvery moonlight. 

From a dark upstairs window, I’d sense other young spirits too—some silent, some crying, some laughing, and some chattering nonsensically, excited at the prospect of  a forbidden frolic. Inexplicably, an upstairs window would seem to open and from it what appeared to be a tied sheet rope would emerge and hover above my head.

Suddenly, back down below, an older benevolent and veiled spirit would emerge from behind the old boarding school and convent. She’d gently brush past my shoulder, agitated to be disturbed, but patient and amused by the reason for the disturbance.

The youthful apparitions above would grow quiet, at first merely hoping to avoid detection, but eventually succumbing to a calm and peaceful slumber, the sleep of those who are loved and protected, even from themselves. 

As quickly as it had started, my paranormal adventure would end, leaving me to ponder, once again, whether or not I believe in ghosts.

It would be a delightful haunting.

*Mike O’Brien (author website here: https://michaelpobrien.com/) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (https://www.amazon.com/Monastery-Mornings-Unusual-Boyhood-Saints/dp/1640606491), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah—and about his family’s roots in Burlington, Vermont—was published by Paraclete Press in August 2021 and chosen by the League of Utah Writers as the best non-fiction book of 2022. He is working on a book about discovering his Irish heritage.