Sister Stories
Sr. Teresa Laubender, “The Bicycle Sister”
July 10, 1917-December 15, 2007
Sister Teresa was 18 years old when she entered the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer. For 18 years Sr. Teresa did home nursing in Germany.
Sr. Teresa has memories of doing home nursing during the Second World War in Germany. She and two other sisters had two houses they shared. One of the houses was on a hill where they had their food, the other in the village where they stayed when doing night nursing. Since all of the doctors in the village were away fighting the war, the sisters would often be called on during the night to care for the people in place of the absent doctors. Sr. Teresa recalls a time when a doctor was back from the war, but requested that she fill in for him, taking care of his responsibilities while he went on vacation.
For ten years Sr. Teresa used a bicycle to get to the homes of her patients. The bicycle made it easy to reach patients far away, and Teresa was happy to ride it. People in the village began to call her the “Bicycle Sister.” The children liked her. They would ask her for a ride, and then tell their mothers that they got a ride from the “bicycle sister.” One time a mother came to the house, needing a sister to come to her home and remove glass splinters from her son’s arm. Another sister was going to go, but the mother said that her son wanted “bicycle sister” to take care of him, so Teresa went. She got all of the glass out and the boy healed.
During the war there were terrible times. Sr. Teresa recalls hiding under steps with two other sisters, while the bombs came down. The three of them put their heads close together so that if they were hit by a bomb they would all be together. She recalls going to a priest’s house, for safety while bombs came down quickly. They went to the priest’s house because they had no cellar, in their small cold house.
In 1952 when the Motherhouse in Germany asked for nurses who were willing to go to America Sr. Teresa volunteered. On April 28th she came to America with two other sisters, Sr. Margareta, a schoolteacher, and Sr. Irmina a kindergarten nurse who went home for vacation after ten years and never returned to the United States.
When Sr. Teresa was practicing nursing here, she was told that she needed to get an American nursing license, because her German license was not accepted. She had to travel to Harrisburg to take the practical exam. She passed the exam scoring 425 points, although she only needed 350 to pass. She attributes her high score to the amount of experience she had and to the training she received in Germany.
For 15 years Teresa worked at St. Joseph’s Manor as a nurse. She then spent three years working in the infirmary at the motherhouse. Sr. Kathryn asked Sr. Teresa to move to Drueding Center Infirmary in Philadelphia, where she would live and work for 15 years.
Sr. Teresa liked working at Drueding Center. The sisters often took in poor and homeless people some of whom did not receive social security. Sister Teresa enjoyed working with people in need, and felt that the residents were often very happy there. Everyday a priest would come to say Mass for the sisters and the people. The sisters were also very poor, but the Drueding Company provided the funds that supported the sisters and their work at the Drueding Infirmary. When Sister Teresa first worked at Drueding Center there were six sisters there. There was only one other sister working with Teresa when the Drueding Infirmary was closed.
When the Drueding Company closed their infirmary they gave the building to the sisters. There were meetings to decide what to do with the building. Under the leadership of Sr. Kathryn the Sisters opened Drueding Center-Project Rainbow to provide transitional housing for homeless mothers and their children.
When the infirmary was closed they no longer needed her nursing skills, so Sr. Teresa went to the Provincialate where she worked as the night nurse in the infirmary, caring for the older sisters. After a year and a half she got sick herself. When she recovered she worked in the dining room at the Provincialate for ten years. Through her eighties, Sr. Teresa kept busy by sorting the mail for the Provincialate and helping out wherever she could, always with that smile on her face. On December 15, 2007 Sister Teresa went home to her Lord and Redeemer, with that radiant smile still on her face.
In the News:
- Thank you for another successful ( tho' damp!) Oktoberfest. Check back soon for pictures and thank you's!
- Learn about the Sisters, our collaborators and our ministries.
- Advent Twilight Retreat. view the flyer
- Sr. Kathleen Mary Nealon made her Perpetual Profession of Vows. See photos from the ceremony and Read about her experience