More changes

Eventually, there were fewer than 40 ex-Pahiatua girls remaining at the hostel, and more and more young children of different nationalities came to stay for

St Anne's Hall, Newtown, Wellington, 9 March 1958. The Ursuline Sisters are farewelled and thanked for their years of dedication and service in the Polish Boys' and Girls' Hostels in Wellington before their recall to Poland. The Sisters are (l-r) Augustyna Sobczak, Imelda Tobolska, Marcina Maślak, Bernarda Brennan and Monika Alexandrowicz

page 335various reasons, plus children of former hostel girls and girls coming for long holidays from boarding schools. Young children required more individual attention and care, so Sister Alexandrowicz applied to her Superior in Poland for more Sisters. After months of waiting, on 8 August 1957, she received a reply – their Superior in Poland decided to recall the Ursuline Sisters to Poland.

There followed a sad and difficult period of finding new homes for the hostel children and preparing for departure – a painful wrench for the Sisters. Going home did not fill them with joy. Poland was in communist hands where convents were being closed, nuns persecuted and their schools secularised. But most of all, the Sisters in New Zealand had become part of the Pahiatua children's lives and vice versa. They were a valuable asset not only to the Polish people but to New Zealand, but would play only a minor part in Poland. The last of the older girls to leave the hostel were Ola Szulgan, who left in a wedding dress to marry Mieczysław Lis. Stefania Sondej (Manterys), who left at the same time, was her bridesmaid.