First of all I always like to tell folk I’m
not giving this testimony because I have any
ill feeling in my heart toward the Roman Catholic
people. I couldn’t be a Christian if I still
had bitterness in my heart. God delivered
me from all bitterness and strife and delivered
me out of all of that one day and made himself
real to me, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
And so, when I give this testimony I’m giving
it because after God saved me he delivered
me out of the convent and out of bondage and
darkness. The Lord laid the burden upon my
heart to give this testimony that others might
know what cloistered convents are. And so,
as you listen carefully this afternoon, I
trust I will not say one thing that will leave
any feeling in your heart whatsoever that
I don’t carry a burden for the Roman Catholic
people. I don’t like the things they do,
I don’t agree with the things that they teach,
but I covet their soul for Jesus. I’m interested
in their souls. I believe Jesus went to Calvary.
He died that you and I might know Him. And
their souls are just as precious as your soul
and my soul. So I’m interested.
First of all, as we slip into this testimony,
having been born in Roman Catholicism, not
knowing anything else, not knowing the word
of God because we didn’t have a Bible in
our home, we had never heard anything about
this wonderful plan of salvation. And so,
naturally, I grew up in that Roman Catholic
home as a child, knowing only the catechism,
knowing only the teaching of the Roman Catholic
Church. And, because I loved the Lord, and
because I wanted to do something for Him,
I wanted to give Him my life. I didn’t know
of any other way for a Roman Catholic girl
to give her life to God other than entering
a convent, and through going to the confessional
box where, naturally, I’m under the influence
of my father-confessor, the Roman Catholic
priest, his influence over my life.
One day I made up my mind through his influence
and one of my teachers in the parochial school
that I wanted to be a little sister. At that
time I thought of being a sister of the open
order, but as I went on into this, up until
the time I took my white veil, sixteen and
a half years of age, everything was beautiful.
I really didn’t have any fear in my heart
whatsoever. Everything that was taught to
me was seemingly along the line that I had
been taught in the church before I entered
the convent. And so one day, after having
been, uh, after making up my mind to enter
a convent, I remember that particular day,
two of the sisters came home with me from
school. They were my teachers. And when we
arrived at my father’s home that afternoon
our Father-confessor was in the home likewise.
I often say when I was a little girl children
were seen and not heard. You didn’t talk
when you was a child, at least in my family,
in my home unless you were spoken to. And
I remember I listened to them carry on a conversation,
and then I moved over close enough to my father
to I asked him if I could say something.
And that was a bit out of the ordinary. And
he permitted me to talk and I said, “Dad,
I want to go into a convent.” And I will tell
you that priest took it up quickly. He had
already been influencing me. My father broke
down and began to cry, not because he’s sad,
but he’s very happy. My mother came over
and took me in her arms and she, too, wept
tears. She’s very happy. Those were not tears
of sadness because to think her little girl
was giving her life to the convent to pray
for lost humanity. And naturally my family
were very thrilled about it, and I was too.
But, anyway I didn’t go for a year after
that and then the time come when I got myself
ready and my mother prepared things for me.
And so I entered the convent.
They took me and we didn’t have a place close
enough to my father and mother’s home so
I think they took me around a thousand miles
away from home where I entered a convent boarding
school. I lacked about 3 months being 13 years
of age. Just a little girl. I look back on
it now and I think, “My!” Homesick? I was
so homesick, why my mother and daddy, they
stayed three days with me and when they left
I became so homesick! Naturally. And why shouldn’t
I? Just a baby away from home. When I was
a little girl, you know I never spent a night
away from my mother, and I surely had never
gone any place without my family. And naturally
there was a close tie in our family and I
was very lonely and very homesick. But I’ll
never forget that after Mother told me good-bye
and I knew they were travelling a long distance
away from me, and I had never realized in
my heart, “I’ll never see them again!” Naturally
I hadn’t planned it like that because I had
planned to be a sister of the open order.
But, if you’ll listen carefully to this portion
of the testimony, then you’ll understand
just why I’m saying some of the things I
say. Now oftentimes we say that the priest
selects his material through the confessional
box, because at seven years of age I went
to confessional. Seven years of age I would
always, when I came into the church, first
I’d slip over to the feet of the crucifix,
or rather to the Virgin Mary, and then over
at the feet of the crucifix and I’d ask the
Virgin Mary to help me make a good confession,
because I was a child and my heart was honest.
And I knew the priest had taught us to always
make a good confession. Keep nothing back.
Tell everything if I expected absolution from
any sin that I might have committed. And so
I would ask the Virgin Mary to help me make
a good confession. I would ask then Jesus
to help me make a good confession. And you
know, I’ll assure you, after I’d lived in
the convent for a short period of time now I had to go on with my
schooling. I had just finished the eighth
grade and they promised to give me a high
school education and some college education.
But, I didn’t get much college, I got mostly
just high school training. And they gave that
to me alright. I took it under some terrible
difficulties and strains and all of that.
It was terribly difficult. But they gave it
to me for which I appreciate very very much.
But I’ll assure you that after they put me
through the crucial training that we must
go through just to become a little novitiate
entering a convent. The training is really,
it’s outstanding as far as a nun is concerned
and you know what it’s all about after you’ve
been in there a little while.
So now I’ve entered the convent and for just
a few minutes I want to tell you just how
we lived, what we eat, how we sleep. If I
take you into the convent and tell you those
things you’ll understand a little bit more
about my testimony. At first as I entered
the convent as a small child I went on to
school, but I was being trained. But the day
came when I was fourteen and a half. The mother
came to me and she began to tell me about
the White Veil. And I didn’t know too much
about it, but in taking the white veil they
told me that I would be becoming the spouse
or bride of Jesus Christ. There would be a
ceremony and I would be dressed in a wedding
garment. And on this particular morning they
told me at nine o’clock they would dress
me up in a wedding garment. Now you’re wondering
where that come from and how they get the
wedding clothes for the little nuns? The mother
superior sits down and writes a letter to
my father and tells him how much money she
wants. And then whatever she asks, my father
sends it. The little buying sister goes out
and buys the material and the wedding gown
is made by the nuns of the cloister. I’m
still Open Order now. And of course whatever
she asked, now you say, “Did they spend all
the money for the wedding gown?” Well, of
course we don’t know these things in the
very beginning of our testimony, but after
we live in a convent for a little while we
learned to know they could ask my father for
a hundred dollars and he’d send it. They
wouldn’t but maybe a third of that for the
wedding garment. They would keep the rest
of it and my father would never know the difference.
Neither did I until I lived in the convent
for a period of time and I had to make some
of the wedding clothes and then I knew the
value of them and what they cost. And I knew
the of money that came in because I was one
of the older nuns. Well, alright, the time
came, of course, when I walked down that aisle
and I was dressed in a wedding garment. Now
you know in the convent I used to walk the
fourteen stations of the cross- the fourteen
steps that Jesus carried the cross to Calvary.
But after I had made up my mind to take the
white veil, never again did I walk. I wanted
to be worthy. I wanted to be holy enough to
become the spouse or the bride of Jesus Christ.
And so I would get down on my knees and crawl
the fourteen stations. Quite a distance, but
I crawled them every Friday morning. I felt
it would make me holy. I felt it would drawl
me closer to God. It would make me worthy
of the step that I was going to take. And
that’s what I wanted more than anything else
in the world. I would like to impress upon
your heart, every little girl that enters
the convent that I know anything about. That
child has a desire to live for God. That child
has a desire to give her heart, mind, and
soul to God. Now many, many people make this
remark and we hear it from various types of
folk who say only bad women go into convents.
That isn’t true. There are movie stars who
go into convents. They’ve lived out in the
world, and no doubt they are sinners and all
of that. But they go in when they are women.
They know what they are doing. And they go
in only because the Roman Catholic Church
is going to receive, not only thousands, but
yea it will run up into the millions of dollars.
They don’t mind who they take in if they
can get a lot of money out of that individual.
But the ordinary little girl that goes in
as a child, she’s just a child and she goes
in there with a heart and mind and soul just
as clean as any child could be. I say that
because sometimes you hear a lot of things
that are really not true. Now after we become
the spouse of Jesus Christ, I want you to
listen carefully to this and then you can
follow me into the rest of the testimony.
We are now looked upon as married women. We
are looked upon as married women. We are the
spouse or the bride of Jesus Christ. Now the
priest teaches every little girl that will
take the white veil, they’ll become the bride
of Christ. He teaches her to believe that
her family will be saved. It doesn’t make
any difference how many banks they’ve robbed,
how many stores they’ve robbed. It doesn’t
make any difference how they drink and smoke
and carouse and live out in this sinful world
and do all the things that sinners do. It
doesn’t make a bit of difference. Still our
family will be saved if we continue to live
in the convent and give our lives to the convent
or to the church we can rest assured that
every member of our immediate family will
be saved. And you know there are many little
children that are influenced and enticed to
go into convents because we realize it is
the salvation for our families. And sometimes,
even (in) Roman Catholic families, the children
grow up and leave the Roman Catholic Church
and go out into the deepest of sin. And so,
every little girl that enters the convent
is hoping by her sacrificing so much, home
and loved ones, mother and daddy, everything
that a child loves, her family will be saved
regardless of what sins they commit. And of
course we are children and our minds are immature
and we don’t know any better. And it’s so
easy to instill things like this into the
hearts and minds of little children and the
priest is- he’s really good at it. And, of
course, we look upon our priest, our father-confessor,
I looked upon him as God. He’s the only God
I knew anything about, and to me he was infallible.
I didn’t think he could sin. I didn’t think
that he would lie. I didn’t think that he
ever made a mistake. I looked upon him as
the holiest of holy because I didn’t know
a God, but I did know the Roman Catholic Priest,
and to me, I looked to him for everything
that I asked of God, so to speak. I believed
the priest could give it to me. And so the
day comes when all of us now, as we’re going
in (I want you to listen carefully) after
taking the white veil things are beautiful.
I’m sixteen and a half years of age. Everyone’s
good to me and I’m living in the convent
and I haven’t seen anything yet because no
little girl, we’re not subject to a Roman
Catholic Priest until we are 21 years of age,
and as we give you this next vow then you’ll
understand we don’t know about this. This
is kept from the little sisters until we’ve
taken our black veils and then it’s too late.
I don’t carry the key to those double doors
and there’s no way for me to come out. The
priest will tell all over the whole United
States and other countries that sisters, or
nuns rather, can walk out of convents when
they want to. I spent 22 years there. I did
everything there was to do to get out. I’ve
carried tablespoons with me into the dungeons
and tried to dig down into that dirt, because
there’s no floors in those places, but I’ve
never yet found myself digging far enough
to get out of a convent with a tablespoon
and that’s about the only instrument. Because
when we’re using the spade, and we do have
to do hard heavy work, when we use a spade
we’re being guarded. We’re being watched
by two older nuns and they’re going to report
on us and I’ll assure you’re not going to
try to dig out with a spade. You wouldn’t
get very far anyway because they made or built
those convents so little nuns can NOT escape.
That was their purpose in building them as
they build them. And there’s no way for us
to get out unless God makes a way. But I believe
God’s making a way for numbers of little
girls after they come out of the convent.
Alright, now when the time comes, I think
I was 18 when the mother began talking to
me, now I planned to come out, see, after
my white veil. I wanted to be a little nursing
sister in the Roman church, but the mother
superior, I suppose she was watching my life,
I supposed she realized I had much endurance.
I had a strong body and I believe the woman
was watching me because one day she asked
me to come into her office and she began to
tell me, “Charlotte, you have a strong body.”
And she said, “I believe you have the possibilities
of making a good nun, a cloistered nun. I
believe you’re the type that’d be willing
to give up home, give up Mother and Daddy,
give up everything you love out in the world,
and the world (so to speak) and hide yourself
behind convent doors, because I believe you’re
the kind that would hide back there and be
willing to sacrifice and live in crucial poverty
that you might pray for lost humanity.”
She said, “I believe you’re the kind that’d
be willing to suffer.”
We are taught to believe as nuns that we suffer
our loved ones and your loved ones that are
already in a priest’s purgatory will be delivered
from purgatory sooner because of our suffering.
She knew I was willing to suffer. I didn’t
murmur. I didn’t complain. She knew all of
that and she’s watching my life and that’s
the reason she began to tell me about the
black veil. And then of course, you know I
didn’t know too much about a cloistered nun.
I didn’t know their lives. I didn’t know
how they live. I didn’t know what they’ve
done. But you know, this woman proceeded to
tell me- now you hear a lot of people try
to tell me in the various places where we
travel and go, I hear a lot of Roman Catholics
try to tell me “I’ve been in so many cloisters.
I know all about them.” But you know a Roman
Catholic can lie to you and they don’t have
to go to confession and tell the priest about
the lie that they’ve told because they’re
lying to protect their faith. They can tell
any lie they want to to protect their faith
and never go the confessional box and tell
the priest about it. They can do more than
that. They can steal up to 40 dollars and
they don’t have to tell the priest about
it. They don’t have to say one word about
it in the confessional box. They’re taught
that. Every Roman Catholic knows it and every
Roman Catholic (you’d be horrified if you
know how many of them) steal up to that amount.
And many of them lie. We’ve dealt with them.
I’ve dealt with hundreds and hundreds of
them. I’ve seen good many of them fall in
at the altar and cry out to God to save them.
And, you know, before they’re saved they
look into my face and hold my hand and lie
to me. But after God gets a hold of their
heart then they want to make right what they’ve
told me because they realize that they’ve
lied about it. But as long as they’re Roman
Catholic they’re permitted to lie. And it’s
the saddest thing. You can’t expect them
to know God because God does not condone sin.
I don’t care who you are. I don’t believe
God condones sin and I don’t believe He’s
going to condone it in the Roman Catholic
people, even though they are being misled
and they’re being blinded and being led in
the way that’s going to lead them into a
Devil’s hell. I believe that will all of
my heart because I’ve lived in a convent.
I know something about how those people live
and what they do.
Now the day comes. She told me, “Charlotte,
you have to be willing to spill your blood
as Jesus shed his upon Calvary.” She said,
“You’ll have to be willing to do penance,
heavy penance.” She said, “You’ll have to
be willing to live in crucial poverty.”
Now already I’m living in a bit of poverty,
but I thought that was going to make me holy
and draw me close to God and would make me
a better nun. And so I’m willing to live
in that poverty. And then, on this particular
morning, she told me what I would be wearing.
She said, “You’ll spend nine hours in a casket”
and she explained a number of things to me.
That’s the most I knew about it and I didn’t
find that out until I’d taken my white veil.
And so, on this particular morning I’m 21
years of age. But 60 days previous to my being
21 years of age, I’m going to sign some papers
that they’ve placed in front of me. And those
papers are this: I’m going to sign away every
bit of inheritance that I might have received
from my family after their death. Of course
I signed that over to the Roman Catholic Church.
And oftentimes I say the Roman Catholic priests
are enticing girls, not only their background,
not only their strong bodies, their strong
minds, and strong wills, but he’s enticing
girls where mothers and fathers have much
property and they are comfortably fixed with
the material things of this life. Why? Because
when that child enters the convent, they’re
going to get a portion of her money, of her
father’s money and I often say that even
salvation in the Roman Catholic Church is
going to cost you plenty of money. More than
you know anything about. And so they don’t
mind commercializing off of that child and
the inheritance that would have come to her.
And so on this particular morning I told the
mother superior, “Give me a little while to
think it over.” She didn’t make me do it.
No one did. But I thought it over for a couple
years and then one day I told her, “I think
I’m going to hide away behind the convent
doors because I believe I could give more
time to God. I could pray more.”
I believed I could be in a position where
I could inflict more pain upon my body because
we are taught to believe that God smiles down
out of heaven as we do penance, whatever the
suffering might be. And I didn’t know any
better because I often say, “If you could
only look into the hearts of little nuns,
if you are a Christian you would immediately
cry out before God in behalf of those little
girls,” because to me we are heathens. It
doesn’t make any difference, the amount of
education we have. We are still heathens.
We know nothing about this lovely Christ,
nothing about the plan of salvation. And we’re
living as hermits in the convent.
And so on this particular morning I come walking
down an aisle again. And may I say the morning
before, I can’t go into it too deeply because
I never would be able to cover enough of it
so you could understand it, but this morning
I’m walking down that aisle, but I don’t
have a wedding garment on. I have a funeral
shroud. It’s made of dark red velvet and
it’s way down to the floor. And I’m walking
down that aisle. I know what I’m going to
do. The casket is already made by the nuns
of the cloister of very rough boards. It is
sitting right out here and I know when I come
down there I’ll step in that casket and lay
my body down and I’m going to spend nine
hours in there. And two little nuns will come
and cover me up with a heavy black cloth we
called a heavy drape mortel and you know it’s
so heavily incensed that I feel like I’ve
smothered to death. And I have to stay there.
Now I know when I come out of that casket
I’ll never leave the convent again. I know
I’ll never see my mother and father again.
I’ll never go home again. I’ll always live
behind convent doors and when I die my body
will be buried there. They told me that, so
I knew it even before I done it. It’s a great
price to pay, then to find out that convents
are not religious orders as we were taught
and as we were trained. It’s quite a disappointment
to a young girl that’s given her life to
God, and willing to give up so much and sacrifice
so much. I’ll assure you, it was a disappointment.
And so after I spent those nine hours- you’ll
say, “What’d you do while you lay in that
casket?”
What do you think I did? I spilled every tear
in my body. I remembered every lovely thing
my mother done for me. I remembered her voice.
I remembered the gathering around the table.
I remembered the times when she would pray
with us. I remembered the things that she
said to me. I remembered what a marvelous
cook she was. Everything as a little girl
growing up in that home, I remembered it.
Laying in that casket, knowing I’ll never
hear her voice again and I’ll never see her
face again. I’ll never put my feet under
her table again and enjoy her good cooking.
I knew all that and so maybe for four hours
I spilled all the tears in my body because
it was so hard and I knew I’d get homesick.
I knew I’d want to see her someday, but I
gave it all up. What for? For the love of
God, I thought. I didn’t know any better.
And I’ll assure you those were nine long
hours. And then I seemingly got a hold of
myself and I thought this, “Charlotte, now
you’re going to make the best Carmelite nun!”
Because everything I’ve done, even (now) that
I’m out of the convent, I do give my best.
I try to give everything that I have regardless
what I might do. And so I did in the convent.
I gave the best that I had. And I wanted to
be the best nun that I could possibly be.
And the mother superior knew that and, don’t
worry, the priest knew all about that too.
Now I realized after I walk out of that casket
or come out of it they’re going to take me
like this, over here, and right back here
there’s a room. We call it the mother superior’s
room. Now I’ve never been in that particular
room, so I don’t know what she has in there.
But, you know, when I walk in there this time
the mother superior sits me down in a straight
backed, hard-bottomed chair and immediately
then I’m going to take three vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience. And you know, as
I take those vows she opens a little place
in the lobe of my ear and she takes out a
portion of blood because I must sign every
vow in my own blood. And after that happens
I’m going to take the vow of poverty. Now
when I sign that vow I sign it thus and I’m
willing to live in crucial poverty the balance
of my life, as long as I live. And what that
poverty is like, of course we [the nuns undergoing
initiation] don’t know. And then my next vow,
I’m going to vow of chastity. And you know
this vow, of course you know what it means.
I’m taught to believe that I’m married to
Jesus Christ. I’m his bride. I’ll always remain
a virgin. I’ll never legally marry again in
this world because I have become the spouse
or the bride of Jesus Christ. After the bishop
married me to Christ he placed the ring on
my finger and that meant I’m sealed to Christ.
I’m married to him and I accepted it because
I didn’t know any better. And now here I am
taking a vow that I would always remain a
virgin because I’m the bride of Christ. And
I want you to listen carefully. And then,
of course my last vow- of obedience. Now when
we signed that vow, I’ll assure you already
I know what obedience means. I’m living in
a convent and there they demand absolute obedience.
You don’t get by with anything, not even for
two minutes. I mean you don’t get by with
it. You have to realize what obedience means
and they demand it and you learn to know it
and you’re much wiser the more quickly you
learn it and you obey it and you give them
absolute obedience.
Alright, now what does it mean to assign vows
like this? Let me tell you this. It means
more than you folk will ever know because
most people that I know anything about, they
know very little about obedience. Oh in a
sense, yes, but you’ll never know what a little
nun knows about obedience, I’ll assure you
that one thing unless you lived in the convent.
Alright, that particular vow, when I signed
it in my own blood, it done something to me
because after I signed those vows do you realize
that I’ve signed away everything that I have?
My human rights. I have become a mechanical
human being now. I can’t sit down until they
tell me to. I don’t dare to get up until they
tell me to. I can’t lie down until they tell
me to and neither do I dare to get up. I cannot
eat until they tell me to. And what I see,
I don’t see. What I hear, I don’t hear. What
I feel, I don’t feel. I’ve become a mechanical
human being, but you’re not aware of that
until you have signed all these vows. Then
you realize, “Here I am, a mechanical human
being.” And of course I belonged to Rome now,
I’ll assure you that right now.
Alright, after these particular vows we become
forgotten women of the convent. In just a
short while you’ll understand what I’m talking
about. Now immediately after I’ve taken those
vows then the mother superior is going to
give me- take away from me, my name and give
me the name of a patron saint. And she teaches
me to believe that whatever happens to me
in the convent I can pray to that patron saint
and she will intercede and get my prayers
through to God because I’m not holy enough
to stand in the presence of God. It is no
wonder the dear little nuns can never get
close enough to God. We’ve always been taught
that we’ll never be holy enough to stand in
his presence and we always have to go through
somebody else in order to get a prayer through
to God. And we believe it because we don’t
know any better. And so now, all identification
of who Charlotte was is going to be put away.
It’ll be taken away from me, and if you would
come into the convent and call for my family
name, they’d tell you there isn’t such a person
there. I don’t exist, even though I’m right
there, because I’m writing under another name.
Now the mother superior is going to cut every
bit of hair off of my head, and when she cuts
it with the scissors she puts the clippers
on it. And I mean there’s nothing left. I
don’t have one speck of hair left on my head.
And of course if you could be a nun then you’d
understand the heavy headgear that we have
to wear- it’d be so cumbersome to have hair
and so cumbersome to take care of it. We don’t
have any ways of taking care of it in the
convent. There are no combs in the convent.
And so you can imagine how hard it would be
for us to take care of a head of hair. It’s
not necessary that we have a comb after they’ve
finished with it. Alright, now this is my
black veil, these are my perpetual vows, we’ll
call them. I’m there and I’m going to stay
there.
Now, you know, up until this time, once a
month I received a letter from my family and
I wrote a letter out of the convent once a
month to my family, even though when I’d write
that letter I had no doubt they marked out
a lot of it because when I would receive a
letter from my family there was so much of
it blacked out until there was no sense to
the letter and, oh, I’d weep over those black
marks. I was wondering what my mother was
trying to say to me. Don’t worry. You’ll never
get to know what she wanted to say to you
because they have blacked it out. And so they
break your heart many, many times and you’re
lonely anyway because you have no friends
in the convent. I’ll assure you, even though
there was 180 on my particular wing, not one
of those nuns was my friend and neither was
I friend to them because we are not allowed
to be friends in the convent we are all policemen
or detectives watching each other. That’s
so we’ll tell. And the little nun that finds
something to tell on the other nun, she stands
in good favor with the mother superior. And
then the mother teaches that nun to believe
(that) when she stands in good favor with
the mother superior she is standing in good
favor with God. And so that little nun, of
course, will want that and she’ll tell a lot
of things, maybe that are not even true, on
the other little nuns.
Alright. Now after all of this has transpired
and all of this has happened everything I
have is gone. I’ve sold my soul for a mess
of theological pottage, because not only are
we destroyed in our bodies. Many of us in
our minds. And many of us, if we die in the
convent, we’ve lost our souls. And so it’s
a serious thing and I’ll surely covet your
prayers for little cloistered nuns behind
convent doors. They’ll never hear this gospel.
They’ll never know the Christ that you folk
know tonight or today. They’ll never pray
to him as you people pray to him. They’ll
never feel his blessings as you people feel
them. And so put them on your hearts and pray
for them. They surely need much prayer.
Alright Now As I walk into this room and all
of this is transpiring, now, bless your hearts,
I don’t know what’s going to be in the next
room after this has transpired and I have
taken the vows that I will always remain a
virgin, I’ll never legally marry in this world
because I’m the spouse of Christ. And then,
after this, the mother superior leads me out
into another room or, rather, she opens the
door and I’m to be sent into that room. And
when I walk out in that room I see something
I have never seen before. I see a Roman Catholic
priest dressed in a holy habit. And he walks
over to me and he locks his arm in my arm
which he has never done in the first part
of my convent life. I never had a priest to
insult me in any way. I never had one of them
to be even unkind to me in the first part
of my convent experience. But here he is now,
and of course I didn’t understand what it
was all about and I didn’t know what in the
world the man really expected of me. And,
you know, I pulled from him because I felt
highly insulted. And I pulled from him and
I said, “Shame on ya (you)!” And I made him very
angry for a minute and he said, uh, immediately
the mother superior must have heard my voice
because she came out immediately and she said,
“Oh,” (and they called me by my church name)
she said, “After you’ve been in the convent
a little while you won’t feel this way. The
rest of us felt the same way you do and you
know the priest’s body is sanctified, and
therefore it is not a sin for us to give the
priests our bodies.”
In other words, they teach every little nun
this: “As the Holy Ghost placed the germ in
Mary’s womb, Jesus Christ was born. So the
Priest, is the Holy Ghost and therefore it
isn’t sin to bear his (priest) children.”
And let me tell you, that’s what they come
to the convent for. No other purpose in
all of this world do priests come into the
convent but to rob those precious little girls
of their virtue. And I’ll assure you, we’ll
be telling you a little later in the testimony
what they really do after they come in under
those particular deals. But may I say now
every bridge has been burned out from under
me. There’s no way back. I can’t get out of
the convent even though I’ve pled. Oh, how
I pled with that priest! “Send for my father,
I want to go home! I don’t want to go any
farther.” And let me tell you, that’s when
you stand alone. You don’t know who to turn
to and you’re a victim of circumstances and
you’ll live in the convent because there is
no other way to get out of the convent. And
I’ll assure you, I stayed in the convent until
God made a way for me to come out.
And so, after all of this, my mail was stopped.
I’ll never receive another bit of mail from
my family. Never another letter. I belong
to the pope. I belong to Rome. And then, after
all of this, the mother superior after taking
these particular vows and the priest has invited
me to go to the bridal chamber. You say, “Did
you go?” No. Definitely not. I didn’t enter
the convent to be a bad woman. It would have
been much easier to have stayed out of the
convent to be a bad woman. You wouldn’t go
into the convent and live in the poverty we
live in and to suffer as we suffered to be
a bad woman. No girl would do that and it
would have been much easier to stay out of
the convent if I wanted to be a bad woman,
but I went there to give my life and heart
to God and that was the only purpose I had
in going there. And here this priest is, and
of course I didn’t go to the bridal chamber
with him. I had a strong body then. One of
us would have been wounded because I would
have fought until the last drop of blood.
And you know it made them very, very angry
I’ll assure you because I didn’t go to the
bridal chamber with him.
Now I’m going to have to go to penance the
next morning and of course this will be a
heavier penance because of what I done already.
And when the mother superior says, “We’re
going to do penance,” the next morning I’m
going to be initiated as a Carmelite nun.
And I remember when she walked me down into
that particular place it was a dark room.
Remember, I lived above, one the first floor
until my black veil. After the black veil
they take me one story under the ground. And
I lived from there on, until God delivered
me, under the ground. I didn’t live in the
top part of this building at all. You know,
as we walked into this room it’s dark and
it’s very cold. And when we walked in we came
from back there somewhere and we come walking
to the front and I walked alongside the mother
superior and when we got near the front I
saw those little candles burning. Anywhere
in the convent you’ll find the seven candles
burning. And when I came a little closer I
saw the candles but I couldn’t see anything
else and I wondered, “What’s she going to
do to me?” That’s the thing in our hearts
and we can’t get away from it because we have
fear.
And when I come a little closer I saw something
lying on a board there. And you know when
I came real close then I realized, here’s
a little nun lying on that board. I’ll call
it a cooling board because it was that. And
just as long as her body. And there she was
and when I could see where the candles flickered
down on her face I realized, “That child is
dead!” And oh, I wanted so much to say, “How
did she die? Why is she here? How long do
you keep her here?” But you remember I signed
away every human right and so I can’t say
one word, but I stood looking. And the mother
superior said, “You stand vigil over this
dead body for one hour.” And at the end of
the hour a little bell is tapped and another
nun will come to relieve me. And may I say
I was advised every so many minutes I have
to walk out in the front of that little body
and sprinkle holy water and ashes over the
body and say, “Peace be unto you.”
And I did exactly what they told me to do.
Oh, it was a terrible feeling. I’m not afraid
of the dead. It’s the live people we have
to be very cautious about. And I wasn’t afraid
of that little dead nun, but oh, my heart
ached for her. And you know after the bell
tapped and I realized my hour is gone the
nun who comes to relieve us comes back here
somewhere and of course she walks on her tiptoes.
No noise is made in the convent and they don’t
speak, they just touch you. And, of course,
my being down there with that little dead
nun I was full of fear. Well that girl laid
a hand on my shoulder, I let out a scream,
a horrible scream from fear, just fear. I
didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t break that
rule on purpose, but I was scared.
And immediately, of course I had to come before
the mother superior and that’s when I first
learned to know, one of the first times about
a dungeon. They didn’t tell me there were
dungeons in the convent. And she put me in
such a dirty dark place with no floor in it
for three days and nights. And I didn’t get
any food and any water, and I’ll assure you,
I didn’t scream any more. I tried so hard
not to break the rules of screaming because
there is a dungeon and I know they’ll put
you in it. And let me tell you right now,
it’s not a nice place to be. After you’ve
been in one of those places, you’ll know what
it feels like.
Alright, now, I’ll say this now before I go
any further, that popery is a masterpiece
of Satan. I said it’s a masterpiece of Satan
with his lying wonders and his traditions
and his deceptions. It’s a terrible thing
when you know about it.
And so, as I come down into this room and
she took me and let me look at this little
girl, and that particular, we call it a penance
is over. Now the very next morning she said
again to me, “Charlotte, you’re going to do
penance.” (Not the next morning, it was three
days afterwards because I spent three days
and nights in the dungeon). So the fourth,
fifth morning, whichever it was she said,
“You’re going to do penance.”
She took me down into another room. Not the
same room. And when we come walking down this
time I could see that big piece of wood but
I didn’t know what it was. And when I came
a little closer there was a cross. It was
made of heavy timber. I might say it was eight
or ten feet high. Very heavy. And that cross
was sitting on an incline like that. And she
had me walk over here at the base of the cross
and she said, “Now strip your clothes off.”
And I took my clothes off down to my waistline.
Then she made me drape my body over the foot
of that cross and she pulled my hands underneath
and bound them to my feet. That’s where I’m
going to spill my blood. She had not told
me how, and neither could I ask how I would
spill it. She gave two little nuns that came
with her, a flagellation whip. I might call
it a bamboo pole. It’s about this long, it’s
about that big around, and it has six straps
on it about this long. On the end of either
(each) of those straps there’s a crossed piece
of sharp metal. And those little nuns, each
was given one of those whips and they stood
on either side of the cross. At the same time
those girls began whipping my body. And I
mean when that metal hit my body it would
break the hide of course. It would cut into
the flesh and I spilled blood. It was running
down to the floor. That’s my flagellation
whipping. That is where I spill my blood as
Jesus did upon Calvary. And of course I’m
human, it wounded, it hurt! It was very painful.
After the whipping is over, they don’t bathe
my body. They put my clothing back on my body
and I have to go the rest of the day. When
the night comes and I stand in front of my
cell there, after we have to stand there to
undress with our backs to each other, then
when I went in, oh, I couldn’t sleep that
night! I wasn’t a bit sleepy because I couldn’t
take off all my clothes. They had dried in
those wounds and it was terrible. I didn’t
take them off for several nights. And I’ll
assure you that when I came before my food
I didn’t want my cup of black coffee.
In the morning we get a cup of black coffee
they serve in a tin cup and we can have no
milk or no sugar of any type and we have one
slice of bread. That’s made by the nuns of
the cloister. They weigh it. It weighs four
ounces [113.4 g.]. That’s all I get for breakfast.
And then, of course, in the evening I get
a bowl of soup, and that’s fresh vegetables
cooked together (there’s no seasoning in the
soup whatsoever) and a half a slice of bread
and three times a week they give me a half
a glass of skim milk. That consists of my
food 365 days in the year. And I began losing
weight very rapidly, I’ll assure you, because
I didn’t have enough food to eat. I don’t
know the day that I went to bed without a
hungry stomach. Sometimes it would be so hungry
I couldn’t sleep. The pain was gnawing. You
can’t hardly stand it and you know you’re
only going to get that one slice of bread
the next morning. That doesn’t fill you up.
And of course, we have to work hard all day
long. And I’ll assure you, those little nuns,
and I covet your prayers for them, they need
your prayers in more ways than one because
you’ll go to bed with a full stomach tonight
and you’re very comfortable right now. But
I’ll assure you, there’s not one of them that’s
comfortable. They’re hungry, and they’re sick,
and they’re wounded, and they’re hurt. They’re
heartsick and homesick and discouraged and,
worst of all seemingly, they have no hope.
No hope. You and I are looking forward to
the day when we’re going to see Jesus. They
have no hope whatsoever and I surely hope
you don’t forget to pray for them. Alright
that was terrible. I’ll assure you.
Then in a few mornings after this, the mother
superior is taking me back for another initiation.
And when I go into the penance chamber this
morning we come from a place up here and we’re
going to walk along like that clear to the
back. And you know, it was quite a ways back
there and I went through- part of it’s a tunnel.
And then I come out into a room and I’ll walk
through that railing. When I get way back
there I see those candles burning and I see
something else. There’s ropes hanging down
from the ceiling and, oh, I’m so scared! I
wonder what the ropes are for and what she’s
going to do. After these two penances, you
began to have a lot of fear in your heart.
And so I can’t say anything and I walk back
there and, you know, I saw the ropes then
real plain. What they’re doing hanging down
from that ceiling?
Then she tells me, “You go over there against
the wall.” About that close from the wall
and I have to stand sideways like this. Then
she asks me to put up both of my thumbs and
I did. And then she pulled one rope down and
there’s a metal band fastened securely and
she fastens that around the joint of my thumb.
Then the other one comes down and fastens
around this thumb. And there I’m standing
like this, facing the wall and then, you know,
she comes over here to the end and there’s
a, uh, whatever you want to call it. She starts
winding, and I start moving! And she’s taking
me right up in the air. And, you know, when
she gets me so just my toes are on the floor,
just on my tiptoes, she fastens it. And there
I hang. And all the weight of my body is on
my thumbs and on my toes. Not a word is said.
No one speaks a word. And she walks out of
that room and locks the door. If you know
what it means to hear a key lock in a door
and know that I’m strung up there like that!
You’ll never know unless you’re a nun. And
when that woman walked out I didn’t know how
long I’ll stay there, how long that woman
would leave me there. And, you know, they
didn’t come to give me food. They brought
me no water. And I thought, “Is this it? Am
I going to die back here just like this?”
And within a few hours, you can imagine, I’m
still a human being, my muscles began to scream
out with the pain. I was suffering. And woman
let me hang. Nobody came near. And what good
would it do for me to cry? You can spill every
tear in your body. Nobody will hear you. There’s
nobody there to care how many tears you spill.
And so I just hung there. And finally I began
to, seemingly, I felt like I couldn’t stand
it. I’ll surely die if they don’t come and
get me quickly! And I felt as if I was beginning
to swell.
I don’t know how long went by and she opened
the door one morning and she had something
for me to eat and the water was in a pan.
And it was potatoes, and those potatoes were
not good to eat. They were in a pan. And there’s
a shelf over there on the wall that she can
adjust to the height of the nun. And you know,
she pulled it up. Now (recall) I’m not against
the wall. I’m about this far from it. But
you get that food. She puts it there and says,
“This is your food.” And she walks out.
Now, how am I going to get it? She didn’t
let my hands down. But this is what you’ll
learn and you’ll struggle to get it. I’m hungry.
I’m so thirsty I feel like I’m going mad.
And to get it, I discovered that this hand
goes high and this one will come down a little
bit. And that’ll keep on going higher as I
lean I have to reach higher with this one.
This one (the other) will automatically let
down. And to get that water and that food
I mean I had to get it like the dogs and cats.
And I lapped as much of it as I could because
I am so thirsty. And get those potatoes? I
tried as hard as I could because I’m hungry!
I mean I’m hungry! And I got as much of it
as I could, naturally. But I was hungry! That’s
the way she fed me for a while, and then she
released the bonds on my hands and on my feet-
(I shouldn’t have said on my feet). She didn’t
release the bonds. She let me hang there for
nine days and nine nights. (I almost got it
mixed up with one of the other penances I
want to give to you). I hung nine days and
nine nights in this position and, may I say,
the time come when I was so swollen here (and
naturally I could see myself puffing out here)
I felt like my eyes were coming out of my
head. I felt like my arms were apart. I could
see on them right there they were two or three
size their normal size. I felt like I was
that way all over my body and I was like a
boil. I was in real suffering.
And then on the ninth day she comes in and
she releases the bonds from my hands and my
body and lets me down on the floor. Now I
go down, I can’t walk. I’ll assure you I didn’t
walk. I didn’t walk for a long time. But you
know what? There’s two little nuns, they carry
me out. One gets under my feet, one gets under
my shoulders and they carry me in to the infirmary
and they lay me on a slab of wood, and there
they cut the clothing from my body. And let
me tell you right now, nobody but God will
ever know! I’m covered with vermin and filth.
Why? I’m hanging there in my own human filth.
There are no toilet facilities [in the penance
chamber]. Right behind me is a stool and they
had running water in it and the lid is down
and they have sharp nails driven through that
lid. If I break my ropes and fall on that,
I would suffer terribly! And this is the life
of a little nun behind cloister doors after
they’ve already deceived us, disillusioned
us, and got us back there, then this is the
life that we’re living and these are the things
that we’re going to have to do. And I’ll assure
you, it isn’t anything funny.
And then I remember as I lived on in that
place, oh let me tell you! In the morning
we have to get up out of our beds at 4:30
in the morning. The mother superior taps a
bell and that means five minutes to dress
and may I say to you folk, it’s not five a
half minutes. You better get that clothing
on in five minutes. I failed one time and
I had to be punished severely, but I never
failed again in all the years in the convent.
And you know, when we are finished dressing,
then we’re going to start marching. And we
march by the mother superior and that mother
superior’s going to appoint us to an office
duty every morning. It might be scrubbing.
It might be ironing. It might washing. It
might be doing some hard work. But I have
to work one hour, then we’ll go in and gather
around the table and we’ll find, sitting in
front of us, our tin cup full of coffee and
our slice of bread.
And then, of course, we have hard work to
do. We have, I think there was 12 tubs in
the convent that I lived in, and we washed
on the old-fashioned washboard. We have the
old flat iron that you heat on the stove.
And you know, it wouldn’t be so bad if we
just had our own clothing in the convent,
but the priests bring great bundles of clothing
and put them in there because they can get
them done for nothing. And we have to do that
clothing on top of it. We work very, very
hard, and they [the nuns] are not able to
work because they don’t have enough food to
eat, food to keep body, mind, and soul together.
And these little girls are living under those
particular circumstances. Well, I say we’re
women without a country, and I mean just exactly
what I say, women without a country. Now we
belong to the pope. Anything they want to
inflict upon my body they can do it. And all
the howling I do, if I should howl, it wouldn’t
make any difference because nobody’s going
to hear me, and they have no idea that I’ll
ever leave the convent. The plan is I’ll die
there and be buried there.
Now you say, “Charlotte, can you go into the
convent?” Any one of you folk can go into
an open order convent or a closed convent
into the speak room, and there is an outside
chapel that you can walk into, of any that
I know anything about. But don’t you just
go in there and wander around to have some
place to go, because you might meet something
you’re not expecting. If you go in there,
you go prepared to take food to some little
girl that’s in there, and be sure that you
know who you’re taking it to. And when you
go, as you walk up toward the front of the
building like this, you’ll see a bell, and
you’ll know what to do because it’ll tell
you. And you press a button there and there’ll
be a gate swing out. It has about three shelves
on it. And, of course you’ve brought something
for someone that you know in the convent.
It might be the mother coming to visit her
daughter. And you know, when that bell is
tapped the mother superior is back here behind
a big black rail. Now that’s a big iron gate
there’s heavy folds of black material clear
across there and you can’t go back there.
You’ll never see the mother superior, but
she’ll answer you behind the black veil. And
you might say, “I’ve brought some homemade
candy for my daughter,” and you might ask the
mother superior to let you speak to her. You
can’t see here, but you can speak to her.
You know, the mother will call that lovely
little girl and call her out on the other
side of the rail. You can’t see her. And you
know what? The mother will speak to her and
say, “Honey, are you happy here?”
And that little nun will say, “Mother, I am
very happy.”
You say, “Why did she say that?” Well, bless
your heart! Don’t you know that the mother
superior is standing there and if we didn’t
say that, after our mother is gone, then only
God knows what the mother superior will do
to the little nun, and so we must lie to our
mother. Then the mother will say, “Do you
have plenty to eat?” And that little nun will
answer and say, “We have plenty to eat.” But,
I’ll tell you, that mother will go home. She’ll
prepare a lovely meal for the rest of the
family, but if she could look in and see our
table and see what her little girl is eating,
if she could look into her little girl’s eyes
after she’s been there for four years. There’s
a baby Jesus and there’s a crucifix, and then
we have a prayer board. And by the way, I’ll
assure you folk, you’ll never want to lean
on our prayer board. We lean on it every day
if we are able to walk under our own power.
It is a board about this high from the ground
and there are two leaning up like this one.
And this one is about this wide and I’m going
to drop my knees down on it and there are
sharp wires coming up through that board.
And then, this one up here, I’ll prostrate
my arms on. There’s going to be sharp wires.
After all, I told you we were going to suffer.
We were going to do penance, and this is a
part of my suffering. As I kneel on that prayer
board I’m praying for lost humanity and I’m
believing, as I suffer, that my grandmother
will be released from a priest’s purgatory
sooner because of my suffering. And I’ll kneel
there longer sometimes. It’s terrible. We
don’t know any better, so we’ll do that because
that’s all that little nun does know, and
we believe it.
And there we are, and we are locked in our
cells. Every night the key is turned in those
doors. We can’t get up and come out of there.
Then, more than that, seven minutes of twelve
(We go to bed at 9:30. The lights are out),
seven minutes of twelve there’s two little
nuns appointed to unlock every door. Every
little nun again gets on her feet, dresses
in full dress, goes into the inner chapel
and there we again pray one hour for lost
humanity. We don’t get very much sleep. That’s
why. And we don’t get enough food and we work
hard and we suffer much. That’s why our bodies
are so broken. That’s why we seemingly don’t
have enough strength to carry on after we’ve
lived there.
But, I’d like to say this before I go on any
farther. Now I did those very things. We are
taught to believe that as we spill our own
blood (now we must do this), as I whip my
body, if I torment it or torture it in any
way that I spill blood, I’m taught to believe
that I’ll have 100 less days to spend in purgatory.
Now you know we have no hope. Those little
nuns don’t look forward to anything. You may
think they do, but we don’t. Why? After you
live in a convent 10 years, I began to realize
the Virgin Mary is just a piece of metal.
She’s a statue. I began to realize St. Peter’s
just a statue. I began to realize that the
statue of Jesus is just a piece of metal.
In other words we come to the place to believe
that our God is a dead god. And I’ll assure
you, after you live in a convent long enough,
not at first, oh no, but after we’ve suffered
enough, after we’ve fallen down at the feet
of those statues and spilled our tears on
them and have begged them to intercede and
get a prayer through to God and years go by
with no answer from them whatsoever. A parent
won’t even know when they’re dead. So who’s
going to pray us out of purgatory? Or, rather,
buy us out of purgatory?
No, we realize after we’re in there for a
period of time that there is no purgatory.
Of course, you know there isn’t and I know
there isn’t, and there is no purgatory. The
only purgatory the Roman Catholic people have
is the priest’s pocket, and they’re filling
his pockets with coins in order to pray for
the dead. And may I say there are thousands
and thousands of Roman Catholics in the month
of November, may I say to you, in the United
States two years ago in the month of November
the Roman Catholic priests prayed masses for
the dead of the Roman Catholic people of this
country in one month collected 22 million
dollars for masses said for dead Roman Catholics.
That’s just a little idea or sample of what’s
going on in this country, and still there
are thousands of mothers that will work their
fingers to the bone to go over there and give
the priest another five dollars to say a mass
for loved one that is in purgatory, because
that mother believes there is a purgatory.
In the convent they have a painting of purgatory,
and there’s nothing in the room but just that
painting. And you know, every Friday we have
to walk around that painting. And when we
walk around it, I would you could look at
the little nuns faces. What do I see? The
painting, as you would walk around it, looks
like its a big deep hole out there and there
are people down in there, and the flames of
fire are lapping around the bodies of those
people, and their hands are outstretched like
this, and the mother will say to the little
nuns, “You better go and put another penance
on your body. Those people are begging to
get out of that fire.”
And because we’re heathens, we don’t know
any better. I might go someplace in the convent
and maybe I’ll burn my body real bad. Maybe
I’ll torture some way and spill some more
blood, because as I suffer I believe that
they’re going to get out of that place where
a priest puts them. And there are millions
of people so to speak, in purgatory that your
priests have put there and when he know that
it is the biggest fraud in the world. He knows
there’s not a bit of truth to it. And, bless
your heart, I often say if you take purgatory
and mass away from the Roman Catholic Church
and you’ll rob her of nine-tenths of her living.
She’ll starve to death if you would take it
away from her. She commercializes, not only
off of the living, but off of the dead. And
on and on it goes.
Alright. It doesn’t bother a mother superior
to take one of those dear little girls, and
may I say, you know, when the priests come
into the convent they come as our father-confessors.
Once a month we go to confession, and (we
don’t want to go, don’t you worry!) I’ve many
a time got in the back row. I didn’t want
to go in there. I know who’s out there. One
of them, (I may not know the particular man,
but I know he’s a priest), and I know those
priests. I certainly have seen them enough.
I’ve lived there long enough. I certainly
have had contact with every one of them. And
I’ll assure you this one thing, I don’t trust
one single one of those in the convent. Now,
we’re not telling you about all the priests.
I don’t know all the priests. I’m just talking
about the convent in my personal testimony
about convent life, and you know we know something
about what’s out in that room. Here we are.
We know we’re going to confession today. It
may take all day long. And here he comes,
and I have never seen a Roman Catholic priest
come into the convent that I was in without
intoxicating liquor under his belt. And I
say a man or a woman, regardless of who you
may be, when you get liquor under your belt,
you are not a man, neither are you a woman.
You become an animal and a beast. And so we
have a beast sitting out there. There’s a
straight-backed, hard-bottomed chair. No other
furniture but the crucifix and the Virgin
Mary, but here he is sitting on that chair
right out there in the middle of that room.
Now here a little girl has to walk out there
alone, and she has to kneel down. Think of
it! Why bless your heart, I really sometimes,
I’m saved now, I’m out of the convent and
I now look back at that Roman Catholic priest
and I often say, “I’m sure he was a twin brother
to the devil because he’s full of sin. He’s
full of vice. He’s full of corruption.”
And we go out there and we kneel down at his
knees. Now you are a lucky girl if you get
away from that man without being destroyed.
Why, he’s drunk. He’s just a beast. He’s not
a man. Oh, he has a holy habit on. He’s an
ordained Roman Catholic priest, and so I’ll
assure you, we don’t like to go to confession,
but we must go once a month. And those little
girls can’t help themselves, and nobody comes
out into that room but the priest and I until
it’s all over, and then we can come back and
the next one will have to come. And I’ll assure
you, we don’t appreciate that day. And those
little girls don’t know any better. They don’t
know anything about the plan of salvation.
They don’t know that Jesus went to Calvary
and died for them. They don’t know that he
shed his blood for them. Those little girls
know nothing about it, because to me, I’ll
repeat again, the Bible was a hidden book
to every one of those little girls.
And so now they can do things like this. Now
if a Roman Catholic priest comes into the
convent, he may go to the mother superior
and ask her to permit him to go into the cell
where one of the nuns are. And you know, that
mother with her carnal mind and her carnal
heart, and she’s very hard and very carnal,
and she is the mother many times of many illegitimate
children, they belong to the priest. And you
know, she’ll take that priest, and he drinking,
she knows it. They bring liquor in with them.
Sometimes some of the nuns will drink with
them, and the mother usually drinks with them.
(And it’s really a terrible place, it is,
not a religious order. It does not live up
to that name whatsoever). But here she brings
that priest into one of our cells. Now, I
wonder if you realize how serious it is. That
Roman Catholic priest, he has liquor under
his belt. We know that. But he has a big strong
body. He’s had three square meals of food
every day of his life. He can eat all the
food that he wants. But you know, there’s
a little nun that may have a broken body,
and she may not have very much strength. And
what did he come into that cell for? For nothing
other than to destroy that little nun.
I often say I wish the government could walk
into a convent just about the time one of
those priests are let into a cell. The mother
will turn a key in the lock and you’re locked
in there with that priest. Now we have no
way to defend ourselves, and I often say
(I had to nurse those little girls. I’m an R.N. [Registered Nurse]
I got my nurse’s training by going through
the tunnel over to the hospital as I lived
in an open order convent). But may I say that
after that priest is taken out of there, if
you could look upon the body of that little
nun, she looks like something you’d throw
out in a hog pen and a half dozen old sows
had just mauled that child’s body. And this
is convent life! I can understand why your
priests are calling over the phone every day
or two and screaming their heads off because
I’m in this city giving this testimony. But
may I say to you, I don’t mind if they continue
to scream. I don’t mind what they do. I’m
not one bit afraid of them. I’ll continue
to give this testimony. As long as God gives
me strength, I’ll be giving this testimony
regardless of your priests or your bishops
in this country. I know what I’m doing. I
know what I’m saying, and I’m not afraid of
anybody in all of this world. I’m a child
of God, and I believe God won’t let anybody
put a hand on me until my work is finished,
and then I often say, I don’t care what you
do to my body after I leave this body. I’m
sure I don’t mind. So I will continue to give
this testimony, regardless of what your priests
think about it, because I think God saved
me to pull the cover off of convents. I believe
He saved me to uncloak those places that are
riding under the cloak of religion. I believe
that with all of my heart. I’ll assure you
I do.
Now, if I refuse to give my body (you know
we are supposed to give our body voluntarily
to those priests. Many times the nuns are
overpowered), but if I refuse to give my body
voluntarily to them, then you know he becomes
very angry and he goes immediately to the
mother superior. Then when two carnal minds
come together, they can invent things that
you and I- we don’t have enough evil in our
heart to invent things like that. We don’t
have enough sin in our lives to even think
of such terrible things. And when those two
carnal minds come together, the next time,
I want you to know, they’re all ready. Now
the mother superior might say to me in a day
or two, “Now, we’re going to do penance.”
Now the penance that they’ll inflict on me
is something that the mother superior and
the priest has invented and it might be very,
very cruel. They might take me down into one
of the dirty dungeons (and there’s no floors
in those places), and you know they have a
place down there, there are rods about three
feet long. They have them burrowed down into
cement and at the top of it there’s a ring
about this big sticking out of the ground.
They have some leather straps fastened there.
And when they take me down there, they put
either foot through those rings and then they
strap my ankles securely. Now I’m standing
[balanced above the floor] with my feet in
those rings.
Alright. They’re going out of there, and they’re
going to leave me locked up in that place
by myself. And it’s a dirty place. Why I might
stand there for two or three hours, if I have
strength enough in my body. But what do you
think’s going to happen to me then? I can’t
stand any longer. Sometimes we faint. Sometimes
we just become exhausted and we go down. But
when I go down, it flips my ankles over like
that and I can’t do anything about it. I don’t
have what it takes for me to get up. I may
have to lie in that position for two or three
days and no one will come near. They won’t
give me a bite of food. They won’t bring me
one drop of water, but I must stay there.
And the next thing you feel is the bugs crawling
over my body and the mice running over me,
and I still have to stay there. I can understand
why they don’t want me to uncover. They don’t
want the world to know these things are going
on. No priest in this country wants it. And
if he doesn’t want the world to know it, he
better be pretty careful that nobody ever
gets out of a convent after they’ve spent
a few years back there.
But may I say again to you that my God is
greater than all the outside forces. My God
can reach his hand over there into those convents
in this country or any other country and make
a way for a girl to come out and he won’t
have to ask the bishops to help Him. He won’t
have to ask the priests to help Him, but God
can make a way for us to come out. I’ll assure
you that.
Well on it goes. Then sometimes the priest
come and they get angry at us because we refuse
to sin with them voluntarily. And you know,
after all, the nuns’ bodies are broken after
we’re there awhile. And many, many the time,
to have him strike you in the mouth is a terrible
thing. I’ve had my front teeth knocked out.
I know what it’s all about. And then they
get you down on the floor and then kick you
in the stomach. Many of those precious little
girls have babies under their heart, and it
doesn’t bother a priest to kick you in the
stomach with a baby under your heart. He doesn’t
mind. The baby is going to be killed anyway
because those babies are going to be born
in the convent. Why wouldn’t babies be born
when you run places like this under the cloak
of religion? The world thinks it’s a religious
orders, and there are babies born in there.
And most of the babies are premature. Many
of them are abnormal. Very, very seldom do
we ever see a normal baby.
You say, “Sister Charlotte, do you dare to
say that?” I most definitely do dare to say
it, and I intend to keep on saying it. Why?
I’ve delivered those babies with these hands,
and what I’ve seen with my eyes and I’ve done
with my hands, I just challenge the whole
world to say it isn’t true. And the only way
they can ever prove it isn’t true, they’ll
have to open every convent door. If they ever
serve a summons on me and call me into court,
I’ll assure you this one thing: convents are
coming open and then the world will know what
convents really are. And they’ll have to open
them to vindicate my testimony, because I
know what I’ll do if they ever serve a summons
on me. I’ve been before the highest laws we
have in the United States. I know what I’m
doing. I know what I can say, and I’m not
one bit afraid to say it because I’ve been
a part of this. I’ve been connected with this
system 22 years behind convent doors, and
it is a terrible thing.
When that dear little nun is looking forward
to that day when her precious baby will be
born, most of you dear mothers, oh, you have
everything ready. The beautiful nursery! All
the baby’s beautiful clothes are made. Everything
is lovely! You’re looking forward to that
precious little immortal soul that’s going
to be born into your home, and everything
is ready. Oh I wish you could see that little
nun. She’s not looking forward to that. There
won’t ever be a blanket around his body. They’ll
never even bathe that baby’s body, but he can only
live four or five hours. And then the mother
superior will take that baby and put her fingers
in its nostrils, cover its mouth and snuff
its little life out.
And why do they build these lime pits in the
convent? What is the reason for building them
if it isn’t to kill the babies? And that baby
will be taken into the lime pit and chemical
lime will be put over its body. And that’s
the end of babies. Oh, when I think about
it! That’s why I try to challenge people.
Pray! If you know how to pray, if you know
how to contact God, pray and ask God to deliver
the girls behind convent doors. In other words,
pray that God will make a way for every convent
in the United States to be opened, and let
the government go in. And when the government
goes in, you won’t have to worry. The convents
will be opened. The nuns will be taken out,
and [the convents] will be closed up just
as they opened the convents in old Mexico
in 1934. There are no convents in old Mexico.
Every cloister is open and they found all
of the corruption back there. The lime pit.
If any of you are taking a vacation, go over
into old Mexico. The government owns them.
They’re public museums. Go through the convents.
Look with your own eyes. Touch with your own
hands, and then come home and see if you believe
my testimony. It’ll still every bit of red
blood in you veins. I mean it’ll do something
to you that nothing else has ever been able
to do. Go through them and look at them. Go
into the dungeons. Go into the tunnels. Go
through the lime pit and look at the skulls,
rooms of skulls over there, and then ask the
guide where they come from. And go and see
all the devices of torture they placed upon
the bodies of the little nuns. Go into their
cells and look at their beds and see for yourself.
Oh yes, you can go. It’ll cost you twenty-five
cents to go through each one of them. You
look at those things and see them for yourself,
and then come home and maybe it will give
you a greater burden to pray for little girls
that have been enticed behind convent doors
by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.
I wonder how you would feel if this was your
child. And remember, I have a mother and daddy,
or had one, and they loved me just as much
as you love your children. And when they let
me go into the convent I’m sure my mother
and daddy didn’t expect these things to happen
because they didn’t know. They never dreamed
a convent was like this. But, you know, I
wonder how you’d feel if you could walk in
someday and out there in this particular room,
that floor is built for this purpose. There’s
a partition right out there, and there’s just
a little thing they can touch. It automatically
opens, and, you know, there’s a deep hole
underneath that floor and this little nun
has done something. I can’t tell you what
she’s done because I wasn’t there when she
done it, but she’s done something, and to
them it’s very serious. And when they bring
her, they bring here to this particular place.
Her little hands and feet are going to be
bound securely. They’re going to drop her
in that horrible, horrible pit, and then they’re
going to put the boards back down. Oh, there’s
plenty of chemical and lime down there. But
you know, they don’t do that. Six little nuns
have to walk around that [open] hole. We’ll
chant as we walk around that hole. We don’t
want any evil spirits to come out into the
convent, so we sprinkle holy water over that
hole. We may walk for six hours and then they’ll
appoint six more nuns, and on and on it goes
until we hear the last moan.
And that’s the end of the little nun they
placed down there. No, she’ll never be delivered
from the convent, but does it bother you to
know that that little nun will die and be
lost? Does that bother you? It bothers me
because I didn’t know Jesus I couldn’t tell
her about God. I didn’t know him myself. But
it bothers me very, very much, but God will
not hold me accountable. Her blood will not
be on my hands because I didn’t know the Lord
and I couldn’t tell her about him. And so,
on it goes, and I wonder how you see it.
Here we are, a body of those little nuns.
On this particular morning, the mother superior
might say this, “We’re all going to be lined
up here.” And I don’t know what she’s lining
me up for. And then, you know, there might
be ten others, there might be 15 others, and
then she’ll tell us all to strip and we have
to take every stitch of our clothing off.
We’re certainly not anything beautiful to
look at. Ours eyes are back in our head. Our
cheeks are fallen in. Our bodies are wasted.
God only knows what we look like, because
I never saw myself in 22 years. I didn’t know
I had gray hair. I didn’t know I had lines
in my face. I didn’t know how old I was- I
only found that out about six years ago. You
know nothing about what you look like.
And here we are, lined up, and here comes
two or three Roman Catholic priests with liquor
under their belts, and there they’re going
to march in front of those nude girls and
choose the girl they want to take to the cell
with them. These are convents, cloistered
convents, not open orders. The priest can
do anything he wants to and hide behind the
cloak of religion. Then that same Roman Catholic
priest will go back into the Roman Catholic
churches and there he’ll say mass, and there
he’ll go into the confessional box and make
those poor people believe he can give them
absolution from their sins when he’s full
of sin. When he’s full of corruption and vice,
still he acts as their God. What a terrible
thing it is. And on it goes.
Well, I lived there. Now all the time these
things are going on, what do you think is
happening inside of Charlotte? God love your
hearts! I didn’t know people could hold so
much hatred and bitterness. And it went on
and on. I was filled with bitterness and hatred,
and I mean it continued to build. I began
in my heart to think, “When I can get the
mother superior in a certain place, I’ll kill
her.” Isn’t it awful to get murder in our
hearts? I didn’t go into the convent with
a heart like that nor a mind like that, but
I began to plan murder in the convent, how
I could kill her, and how I could kill a Roman
Catholic priest. And on and on it goes. And
oh, I’ll tell you, every time she’d inflict
something awful on my body, that I’d have
to suffer so terribly, when I could think
sensibly again, then I would begin to plan.
How I could kill that woman. And on it goes.
Well, after all you can’t help it. For instance,
I wonder how you would feel.
The mother superior, here she is, and she’s
going to sit me down in a chair. And you know,
that chair is straight-backed, hard-bottomed
and I don’t have any hair. She’s going to
take everything off my head. And you know
she’s going to put my hands like this. They’d
be out here in stocks, and I going to have
to bend my head over like that in order to
put the stocks across my neck, and I’m fastened
securely, and over my head there is a faucet
of water, and you know, there is a faucet
of water just above my head and my head’s
over. Now that mother’s going to turn that
water on. Just a drop, and the drop will come
about this fast. It’ll hit me right there
on the back of my head, and you know, I can’t
move either way. I sat there. One hour, two
hours, three hours, four hours. What do you
think’s going on? I’m sitting there. I can’t
move. I do everything to get away from that
drop of water in the same spot on my head.
Why, God love your heart, if you could look
in you’d see us frothing at the mouth. You’d
see those little girls. They’re trying so
hard to move to get away from that water,
and they let us stay there sometimes ten hours.
All day long. Many, many times a little nun
cracks up completely. She goes stark raving
mad under this particular penance.
What in the world do they do with her? I’ll
tell you in a few minutes. Don’t you worry.
They have a place for us after we go mad in
the convent. They take care of us. They have
places for the little nuns. There’s places
built down there for us.
Well, on it goes. Well, you know, these things
went on and went on and went on. And it was
terrible. But, you know, I began to plan and
plan and plan. After she has done something
like that to me it’s terrible.
One day the mother superior took violently
ill. You say, “Who would take her place?”
There are about three, sometimes they have
four older nuns, and they always pick the
one that’s hard. The one that seemingly is
carnal. That one that has no conscience to
be a mother superior, and she works under
this one. One day if something happens to
the main mother superior, another one will
take her place. And on it goes. But, you know,
this particular day they sent word to me.
“The mother superior,” I was to come into
her room, “she’s very sick.” And quicker than
lightning I began to think, “If I got in
that mother superior’s room! I know what I’ll
do.” You know, after all, I’m a sinner. I’m
a nun, but I’m a sinner, and I don’t know
God, and I have a lot of hatred in my heart,
and I walk in that room. They have called
in an outside Roman Catholic doctor. She’s
a very sick woman, and he has left all orders,
and they have left the medicine and everything.
Now I’m supposed to take care of her, and
that was wonderful. I do take care of her.
All day long I did what they told me to do,
what I’m supposed to do. And those particular
tablets. I knew what they were and what they
would do, and I knew what she was taking them for.
But anyway, all day long I gave her, her medicine.
I done everything I’m supposed to. All evening long
Why? I want to be sure what I’m doing.
When I do it, I have to be careful. And you
know I waited until one o’clock in the morning.
Why? Because every night those little nuns
have to be gotten out of bed and go chant from
twelve to one. Seven minutes of twelve, until
one. I thought I’ll wait until all the nuns
go back to bed then I’m going to do something.
And, bless your hearts, after they were all
back in their beds, I’ll tell you what I did.
I took five or six of those tables. I was
only supposed to take one in a half a glass
of water every so often and give it to her.
But, because of the type they were and what
type of tablet it was, I knew what it would
do. I put six of them in a glass of water
and stirred them up, and I gave them to her.
I knew she would go into convulsions. It would
twist her completely out of shape. I knew
that woman would suffer a million deaths within
25 minutes. I knew that, and I thought, “I’m
going to watch her suffer because she has
punished us. She has hurt us so many thousands
of times. I’ll watch her suffer.”
Isn’t it terrible to think a child can live
in a place like that long enough until she
has the same kind of a heart almost the mother
superior has. But that’s what comes when sin
gets into your life. And so I waited. You
know, I gave them to her, and something happened
to me. I got scared, and I began to look at
that woman as she began to change color, and
I couldn’t find her pulse. I couldn’t find
her respiration. I was frightened, and I thought,
“Oh! What shall I do? If they find her dead,
only God knows what they’ll do to me.”
I’ll tell you what I did. I got that stomach
pump and pumped as quickly as I could. I pumped
that woman’s stomach. I massaged that woman.
I done everything there was to do, and oh,
thank God, she didn’t die. I said I thank
God. But, you know, I sat down by the bed
and held her hand and watched her carefully
until the respiration came back normal, until
her pulse was normal and I felt she would
live.
And I thought of another thing. I’ll do this
then! I saw where her keys were hid right
there in her shelf in her own room. So they’re
on a big chain, or a big ring, and I thought,
“I’m going to take those keys. I’m going down
into that dungeon.” When I say down this is
two stories under the ground. “I’m going someplace
where she’s always warned us.” It’s a solid
wall like that, and clear to the back end
of that wall there’s one door, and it’s heavy,
and it’s always locked, and I’ve heard her
tell me scores of times (and I’m sure she
has [told] the others), “Don’t ever try to
go through that door.”
What in the world is over there, and why did
she tell us that? We can’t get through it.
It’s locked! But, you know, I wondered what
was back there because when they had me in
the dungeon a long time once, I heard screams
under the ground. I heard such blood-curdling
screams, and I knew there was some girls locked
up somewhere, and so I’m going through there
if I find the key. And so I got her keys and
I went into that particular place. And when
I got back there, it took a while to do it,
I want you to know, to find the key, but oh,
it unlocked that door! I walked through that
door, and I walked into a hall. The hall,
I would say, is maybe five feet wide, maybe
wider than that. That’s just a guess. Anyway,
on the other side of the hall there were a
number of cells over there. Small rooms, and
they had real heavy doors, and in those cells
were little nuns. And when I went up to the
first one, near the top of the door there’s
a little place about this long, about that
wide, and it has iron bars going across there.
And I looked right into the face of a little
nun that I knew, one that I had sat across
the table from, one that I had prayed with
in the chapel. I knew that girl, and here
she is. They had chains and a lock chained
around either of her wrists and around her
waistline! I said, “When did you have something to eat last?”
And no answer.
“How long have you been here?”
No answer.
I went down to the second, the third, the
fourth, the fifth, and the stench was getting
so bad I couldn’t stand it. And you know,
those little girls would not talk. Why? I
lived in the convent, you know, a long time.
I don’t care if I was two miles under the
convent, way back there we were working back
there and we’d whisper. The next day I’d have
to suffer because the convents are wired and
the mother superior can hear every voice,
every whisper, and then somebody tells, and
you’re in some serious trouble. And those
nuns have been there long enough. What have
they done? I don’t know, but those nuns are
supposed to have cracked up mentally and so
they have to put them in those chains. And
when they die, they can’t fall down to the
floor. They just drop in those chains and
slump. When they go in there, they don’t give
them any more food, no more water. That’s
a slow death. And so, as I saw all of that
I became so sick from the terrible stench,
because many of them are already dead. I don’t
know how long they’ve been dead.
I came out of there and walked back up to
this room where the mother superior was, and
she was lying there sleeping. And I watched
her there carefully, and she slept until the
next day, long, long hours and didn’t waken.
And when she did, she said, “I’ve had a long
sleep.” And I said, “Yes.” They let me take
care of her for three days, and you know,
the third day- I don’t know. You say, “Did
she ever find out you was down there?” Well
not yet. I hope she didn’t while I was there.
But anyway, after three days they put me out
in the kitchen. In other words, when we go
to the kitchen, six of us go for a six weeks
period. And this particular time they put
me out in the kitchen with five other little
nuns. What am I there for? I’m doing the kitchen
work. I’m going to do all of the cooking that’s
done out there and take care of the work in
the kitchen. And so, when I when out in the
kitchen, we have a long table back here, and
it’s a work table, and our vegetables will
be prepared for the soup, and that’s what
we were doing, all six of us. And something
happened. Our kitchen is a very large room,
and a very long room, not as wide as it is
long, and over at one end of it you will find
over here there’s stair steps leading, about
four of them leading down. Then there’s a
landing right there. Over there is a big heavy
outside door, but here there is a landing.
Our garbage cans sit there, and right here
is a stairway, a cement one, leading down
one story under the ground. Now, I’m up on
the first floor in this kitchen.
Alright, now as I’m in there and we’re in
there working something happened. Somebody
touched the garbage can. You know, all my
convent life we are taught never to break
silence. We don’t dare to make noises in the
convent. We are punished for them. And when
something touched the garbage can that’s a
noise. Who in the world-? There’s six of us
and we’re all together. Who is touching the
garbage can? I wheeled around. They wheeled
around, and we saw a man, and you know, that
man was picking up the full can and leaving
an empty one. I’ve never seen that before.
I’ve been in that convent for years, and in
the kitchen, but I never saw anything like
that happen. I believe God had his hand on
me. With all my heart I believe it. And you
say, “What happened?” Well, we turned around
quickly because to us it’s a mortal sin to
look upon a man other than a Roman Catholic
priest. And I mean we turned around quickly
and went to our work. But, you know, I thought,
“If that man comes back again to get another
full can, I’m going to give him a note and
I’m going to ask him if I can run out with
him.”
But, I didn’t do that, but do you know what
I did? When we run out of something in the
kitchen there’s a pencil hanging up there
on a chain, and bless your heart, I have to
(or whoever it is that runs out), you have
to write it on a tab, and of course I stole
a piece of paper off of a sack, and I thought,
“I’ll carry that little piece of paper in
my skirt pocket, and every time I can get
a hold of that pencil I’m going to write a
word or two on that note.” And that’s what
I did. It took quite a while to do it, but
oh, I watched that garbage can! Every time
I could take the garbage down there I did
it. And you know, when it was just about full,
and I thought, “The next evening, it’ll be
full when we put all the garbage in it.”
And so, that afternoon I broke my crucifix,
and I laid it up on a shelf, and I had a hard
time doing it because they’re watching me.
But I did it, and I laid it up on a shelf,
and I did that to have a way to get back to
have a way to get back to that room, of course.
And when our dinner work is over, our supper
dishes, everybody has to go out at the same
time and we march by the mother superior.
And, you know, when I marched by, I stopped
and said, “May I speak to you?” And I did,
and I said, “Mother Superior I broke my crucifix
and I left it in the kitchen. May I go for
it?” (And of course no nun goes without her crucifix).
And she said, “How did you break it?” I lied
to her. Everything she asked me, I lied to
her. You say, “Why did you lie?” She lies
to us, and we’re all sinners, so we all lie,
and it doesn’t make any difference in there.
And so we lied, and I lied to her, and then
finally she said, “You go get the crucifix
and come right back.” And that’s all I wanted
anyway. I have to have a reason. You can’t
go back to the kitchen after you’ve left it.
So I didn’t go for the crucifix, but she thought
I did, and I run for this tin can. Why? That
night when I put my garbage in there I put
a note right on top of that garbage and left
the lid off, which I was not supposed to do.
And, you know, I said on the note to the garbage
man, “If you get this, won’t you please help
me out? Won’t you do something to help the
little nuns out?” I told him about those 19
cells down there and those 19 nuns in them.
I told him about some of the babies that had
been killed. I told him some other little
nuns that are locked up in the dungeon and
they’re bound with chains. I told him a-plenty,
and I said, “Won’t you help us? If you will,
please leave a note under the empty can.”
That’s what I went back for.
And when I lifted up the can and found a note,
you don’t know how I felt. I froze to the
floor. I was so scared I didn’t know what
to do. I picked that piece of paper up and
I read, and this is what that man said, “I’m
leaving that door unlocked and I’ll leave
the big iron gate unlocked. You come out.”
Oh, let me tell you. That’s almost more than
you’d ever- I never dreamed I’d get out of
a convent. I never thought of ever getting
out. I wanted out, but you say oh yes, when
I could collect myself I reached over and
turned the knob, and do you know, it opened!
I walked out of that convent and I slammed
it through. I was sure the lock was on it,
and I got out to the big iron gate but, oh,
he had me trapped. That iron gate was just
as locked as it was ever locked! You don’t
know what it done to me to stand looking at
the iron gate. I’m locked out of the convent.
I have no right out there. You can’t imagine.
I don’t know if I grew old right there. I
don’t know. I know I’ve suffered enough because
I’m scared half to death. And what will I
do if I go back there and pound on that door?
What will they do with me? And, oh, the fear
that grips your heart. And you say, “What
did you do?”
I didn’t have any shoes and stockings on.
I had worn those out years ago. When I think
of the Roman Catholic Church being the richest
church in the world and they let those little
nuns go winter and summer without any shoes
and without any hose, living in crucial poverty,
I wonder how they can do it! Hungry as we
are, their priests are all nice and fat. The
little nuns are so hungry, I wonder how they
do it sometimes. You say, “What did you do,
Charlotte?” Well, I’ll tell you, I just took
a hold of that big iron gate, and I tried
to climb it. That’s all there was for me to
do. And up about a foot and a half from the
top there’s a ledge about six inches wide.
I thought if I could get high enough to get
my knee on the ledge I’m safe. And I did.
I got one knee on the ledge, but by this time
I don’t have any strength left either. And
you know, I thought, “What’ll I do? I’ll put
one foot over, then I’ll get the other over.”
Then I realized I have three skirts on. My
skirts are gathered on a belt and they’re
clear down to my ankles. My veil, of course
is down to my knees in front and that long
in the back. How will I ever get over those
sharp points? And I thought, “I can’t go down,
I don’t have strength enough, so I’ll have
to jump.” And if I jump I’ll break every bone
because I was a broken body, of course. And
so I thought, “What’ll I do?” Well I pulled
all of my clothing up around my body and held
them with one hand, and then I thought, “I’ll
have to jump.”
And you know, they have a buzzer in the convent,
and when a little nun tries to escape and
they [go to] catch her they put a buzzer on.
And, oh, the priests tell you they don’t come
to the convent, I wish you could see the priests
then. You’ll find a good many of them there,
and they immediately are after that nun. They
don’t want her out. If she comes out of that
convent, she’s going to give a testimony someday,
and it’ll pull the cloak off of convents.
And I’ll assure you they don’t intend for
us to get out.
And so, as I let loose of that top of that
gate and I made that jump, I just didn’t make
it. My clothing caught on top of those points
and I hung there, but I let loose. And I often
say I don’t know what I looked like. I didn’t
know I had gray hair, but I’ve often said,
“Maybe my hair turned gray there.” Maybe you’ll
never know what I suffered hanging there on
top of that gate, knowing that buzzer could
go on any minute and then what would they
do to me? I was scared. So I thought I’d try
to wiggle my body and to force swing it if
I can get back far enough to grab the gate
with one hand maybe I can help myself. And
I did. And then with the other hand I tried
to pry the snappers loose on my skirt, and
that let me fall between them. Do you know
what happened to me? I hit the ground. I was
out. I was unconscious for a while. I don’t
know how long though, we have no way to tell.
But when I came to, I had a shoulder broken
and my arm was broken right in here. The bone
had snapped right through my flesh because
I didn’t have any meat on me.
And I thought, “What’ll I do?” And I realized
I’m on the outside. “Where am I going?” Where
do you think you’d go? I’m not in the United
States. I’m in another country and I don’t
know a thing about that country. When they
took me over there I was so heavily veiled
and they took me from that particular train
to the convent, I was so heavily veiled I
couldn’t see anything. And I don’t know where
I am. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know
if I have any people. I don’t know if I know
anybody in the world. And I’m a pauper. I
don’t have any money, and I’m hungry, and
my body’s broken, and I’m hurt now. Where
do you think you’d go? I tell you. It’s something
to think about. I just started away. But get
away from the convent! And I did. I started
moving away.
All the leaves were falling and they made
so much noise! And I was scared, and I kept
on moving, and finally dark overtook me, or
rather, there’s no twilight in that part of
the country- it just drops off into darkness.
And, you know, I saw this little building
beside the road. I thought, “I’ll crawl in
it.” It was a doghouse or maybe a chicken
coop or something. But it’s dirty and I crawled
in there because I was shaking and scared.
And I lay in there a little while to get a
hold of myself, and I thought, “I’ll have
to travel, it’s dark. It’s safer for me.”
So I got out and I traveled that night and
the next day. I hid behind pieces of board
and tin that was piled up against an old building.
And all day long, imagine, hiding in that
hot place! And hungry as I was, with broken
bones, do you realize what it was all about?
No. You will never know. But I do.
And then, you know, when night came again
I have to go because I’m going to get away
from the convent. I’m afraid to rap on somebody’s
door. Remember, I’m scared. I don’t know,
I might rap on a Roman Catholic’s door. They’ll
immediately notify the priests and I’ll be
taken back to the convent. And I’d rather
they kill me than take me back. And so I didn’t
[knock], but I went on and on and on. And
then the next day I hid out in an old truss
bag. And then, that afternoon on the third
day, I was scared then because this arm was
swollen as tight as it could swell and I was
having to carry it in the other hand.
And all my fingers began to turn blue, and I realized
gangrene poisoning was setting in. And, you
know, there’s nobody to do anything for you.
And I realized I’m going to die just like
a rat beside the road. That’s a terrible feeling,
and I thought, “What’ll I do? I’ll just get
out and go [die] a little sooner. I’ll just
have to rap on somebody’s door.” And that’s what I did.
I remember as I walked (I don’t know how far)
I saw this lamp. It was an old fashioned lamp,
burning. Very poor house, no paint on it,
and I knew those were poor people. So I walked
up to the screen door and I rapped on it,
and a tall man came to the door. He was rather
old. And I said, “Please, may I have a drink
of water.” And you know, that old man didn’t
answer me, but he walked back in the house,
and he called his wife. And, God bless her
heart, she’s like most old-fashioned mothers.
She came to the door, and she didn’t say,
“Who are you and what do you want?” Thank
God there are a lot of good people in this
world. That dear little woman just pushed
that door open and said, “Won’t you come in
and sit down?” Do you know that’s the most
beautiful music I ever heard in my life?
I should say I’ll come in and sit down! And
she pulled out a chair, and I sat down on
it. I’m glad to sit down.
And you know, she’s poor. There’re no rugs
on the floor of any type, red-checkered tablecloth
on the table, a little old stove over there
in the corner, and there was a fire in it.
And that woman put some milk in a pan and
heated it and brought it over to me. And,
you know, I’m hungry. I don’t have any manners.
I forgot how to act. I forgot a lot of things
in 22 years. And I grabbed that glass of milk
before she ever sat it down, and I gobbled
it down. I’m so hungry, I felt like I’m, going
stark mad. And I took it instantly, and the
moment it touched my stomach, of course I
couldn’t retain it. I lost it. I haven’t had
any whole milk in 22 years. You could understand
why I couldn’t take it. And she knew what
to do. She went out into the kitchen and she
heated some water, or rather over to the stove
and heated some water. And bless her heart,
she put some sugar in that water, and she
brought it over to me, and she sat down and
gave it to me from a spoon. I took every bit
of it. Oh, it was good! It was nourishing.
And then the daddy walked over by me and he
said, “Now tell us who you are and where you
come from,” I began to cry. I was scared then.
I said, “I’ve run away from the convent and
I’m not going back.” And he said, “What happened
to you?” And my hand was laying upon the table.
And I said, “Well, I tried to get over the
gate and I fell, and I’m hurt.”
And you know he said, “We’ll have to call a doctor and bless her sweet life.” Then really became hysterical. I got up from the table, I was going to run back outside,
and they wouldn’t let me. He said, “Wait a
minute. We’re not going to hurt you. You’re
hurt. You have to have help.”
I said, “I don’t have any money, and I don’t
have any people, and I can’t pay a doctor
bill.” I was just in a terrible mess if you
want to know it. And that man said to me,
“I’m going after a doctor.” He said, “And
he’s not a Roman Catholic, and neither am I.”
And that dear man didn’t have a car, but
he hitched up a horse and buggy and he drove
nine miles to get a doctor. The doctor came
out in his car, and when he got to the place,
he got there ahead of the man. And when the
doctor walked in and walked around me, he
just kept walking around me and he was swearing.
(Maybe he didn’t realize it was a terrible
effect upon me). When he stopped and looked
at me, of course he was mad. He was mad. Why
was he mad? He was mad because he was looking
at something that was supposed to be a human
being, and I didn’t even look like a human
being I was in such a horrible condition.
But finally he calmed down and he came over
to me and he said, “I’ll have to take you
to the hospital tonight.” Oh, I became hysterical.
I said, “I don’t want to go. Please don’t
make me go!” Then he sat down carefully and
took my hand and he began to say, “I’m not
going to hurt you. You have to have help,
and I want to help you.”
That doctor took me into the hospital that
night and that’s where I learned how much
I weighed. He weighed me and I weighed exactly
89 pounds [40.4 kg]. I weigh 178 [80.7 kg] right now.
And they, you know, they took me into
surgery, and of course they tried to get the
swelling and the inflammation out of my hand
and arm [so] that they might do something
for me. It took about 12 or 13 days. By this
time it started to knit and they had to break
it all over again and put it in a cast. I
did a lot of suffering.
Well, you know, one day a way was made for
me to be released from the hospital. Who did
they release me to? I begged to go out to
those old people to stay with them, and they
let me go, because they had been good to me
and I trusted them. And the doctor wanted
to take me out to his home. I was in that
hospital three and a half months. And they
took me out there [to the old folks] and I
stayed for a period of time. And then one
day this same doctor, he wrote a letter and,
do you know what he sent in that letter? He
sent a check. He told the people to go and
buy me a suitcase and get me some clothing.
He was coming for me on a certain day. He had
told me, “I’m going to find your people for you.”
You know that doctor is a stranger to
me, but oh, how I thank God that he has men
and women across this world and those men
and women are not so selfish that they won’t
use some of the money that God has allowed
them to have to help that one that’s less
fortunate than they. Here, he spent a lot
of money on me. I was in that hospital three
and a half months, and I mean there was a
lot of money spent on me, but he paid the
bills. How I appreciate it! And you know,
that dear doctor, oh they took me, bought
my clothing for me, bought my suitcase and
everything was ready and the day came when
he come, and you know, that doctor took me
to the train. And he put me on a train in
care of somebody, of course. He had found
my people for me. I was on buses and trains
and boats for a long time, and one day, after
he had gotten my visa for me to get back into
the United States, and I was always in the
charge of somebody because they didn’t trust
me to travel alone because of having to live
under the ground so long.
And one day they called the name of a town
where I was, or where my mother and daddy
lived. And you know I knew where mother and
daddy lived and I got off of that train and
I run down to their home, five blocks from
that depot, just a very small town. And when
I rang the bell, my daddy come to the door,
and you know, I looked at his face, I didn’t
know him. And because I didn’t know him I
said, “Do you know where my father lives?”
And he said, “Who are you, and what’s your
name?”
And I said my name, and I didn’t give him
my church name, I gave him my family name.
And that man looked at me, and of course it
was his name, and he said, “Hooky, is this you?”
My father didn’t know me, of course
it was my dad, and that dear old man opened
the door then and invited me in, and I said,
“Dad, is Mother alive?” because I didn’t know
about her. And he took me back in to see her
and there she was. Seven and a half years
she’s laid there, an invalid. A horrible,
horrible invalid. And of course she didn’t
know me and I didn’t know her.
Well, you know, that very night I took violently
sick and they put me back in another hospital
for another three months, but my father paid
all of those bills. He reimbursed the doctor
and paid the doctor in another country and
paid the old people. He reimbursed them all.
All of that was wonderful, and then, you know,
one day after my body was strong enough since
I’m here in the United States (oh, it took
a long time, several years), I’m a nurse,
and I took the examination to nurse. And do
you know what God did? He let a woman come
into that particular hospital. It was a Roman
Catholic hospital.
This woman was a Church of God minister. She
came in, and I thought, “How strange!”
Just across the Mississippi River is two magnificent
Protestant hospitals, and she lives in one
of those cities. Right there, three cities
joined together. And why in the world did
she come over here to this Roman Catholic
hospital? Why? I believe God had his hand
on it all the time. You know that woman came
in and the doctor said, “I want you to start
her case,” and I went into that room to prepare that woman
for the operating table, and I heard her pray,
and I want you to know, I became that woman’s
private nurse. Her special nurse.
After she left the hospital she went home,
and I became her special nurse in the home,
and that woman asked if I wouldn’t go to church
with her. And you know I lived in her home
long enough to hear her pray. I lived in that
home long enough to read the Bible to her
because I’m her nurse and I did what she told
me to. I had never read a Bible before in
all of my life and she’d have to find the
scriptures, and then I’d read them to her.
And, you know, as I read the word of God,
then God began to get a hold of me. And finally
she said, “Won’t you go to church with me,”
and I went to church with that woman, and
I sat back there and I heard the gospel for
the first time in my life. And you know, I’ll
tell you, I went through four nights, and
it was really beautiful. I’ve never heard
anything like this. And all the time she was
telling me about the plan of salvation, telling
me about God, and that I needed God, and I
needed to be saved. And, of course, I was believing her.
Do you know what I’d do every night? I go
from church with that woman, and I’d say,
“You go to bed, but let me go to the basement.”
I’d lay my Bible down on the chair, and there
I’d challenge God, and I’d say, “God, did
you hear what the preacher said? Did you hear it, God?”
And then I would tell God everything
I could remember that the preacher said.
I said, “God, you heard every word, didn’t you?
Now, if you are God and the Bible is the word
of God, God you’re real! I want what those
people have. But, if you’re not God, and the
word of God is not your word, then God, please
don’t give to me what those people have.”
Let me tell you, I challenged God. I put him
to a test. God’s not going to give you anything
that’s not of God. Don’t you worry.
And every night I continued to do that, four
or five nights. And I didn’t eat either.
I couldn’t sleep and I had lost my appetite
and I was losing a lot of weight. It was terrific!
But you know, one night I come back to church
and out of a clear blue sky, right in the
middle of that man’s service I just got out
of my seat, and with both hands straight up
in the air I come running right straight down
an aisle like that. And I fell in at that
altar and I cried out, “My God, forgive me
for all my sins!” I was a sinner. I mean God
met me there. Praise his wonderful name. There
was a pool of water on that floor. I was sorry
for everything that I had did in that convent.
I stole potato peelings. I stole bread.
I told lies. I called the mother superior names
under my breath. And I want you to know, God
met me down there and he forgave me of every
sin that there was in my life. And how I thank
and praise him for it! Praise his wonderful
name! God has been very good to me. Very good to me.
A few nights after that, I went back to church.
God healed me with the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
May I say to you, God means more to
me than all the material wealth you have in
this city. I’d rather have Jesus than anything
you might have, because I’ve found him to
be the best friend I’ve ever known. I can
tell him anything I want to tell him, and
he won’t call you up and tell you what I’ve
told him. I can sit at his feet and tell him
every day of my life, “Jesus, I love you!
Jesus, I love you!” And every secret of my
heart, I can pour out to him. And I don’t
worry about him calling you up and telling
you what I told him. He’s the best friend
you ever had. He’s able to save you.
He’s able to deliver you. He’s able to loose you
from the things of this world and set you
free to know him. Praise his name. I have
a wonderful God. I love him supremely.
I’d rather have Jesus than anything that you might
have. God is real in my life. Really wonderful,
how God delivered me out of the convent. Pray
for me. I need much prayer. I’ll be going
places where it’s predominantly Roman Catholic.
I’ll have to suffer much, but I’m willing
to suffer for Jesus that I might tell someone
about him and give my testimonies that other
little girls might be spared from convents.
So pray for me, won’t you? God bless you!
End
