A Founder’s Heart by Elaine Hirschenberger
Elaine Hirschenberger
Dorothy Bock
In the 1970s, a second wave of feminism was emerging in the United States as a powerful social movement. The feminist philosophy aligned well with my own inner spiritual work and personal awareness. It seemed the time was again ripe for women to exhibit leadership in the cause of women’s empowerment. After teaching in elementary and junior high schools, I joined the faculty at Driscoll High School in Addison, Illinois, working alongside several other Sisters of Saint Francis and the Christian Brothers. I truly enjoyed teaching English, art and drama there, and I felt like my skills were well aligned with both my personal interests and my education. Having recently moved out of a traditional convent, as part of the Rockford Province’s first experiment with small group living, I was very happy with both my new job and our pioneering role in community living. The six of us who chose to live together each worked in different types of ministries at different places. After a few years, Sister Dorothy Bock, another member of our small living group, also began teaching at Driscoll, so we eventually became work colleagues. While at that school, two things nudged me onto a new trajectory in response to the signs of the times. The first: Since the visionary author Alvin Toffler had just published his book, Future Shock, our principal organized an inservice day on the topic of “futures.” As a faculty, our task was to engage with small groups of other teachers to create concepts (“on paper”) that did not yet exist but that we thought should exist. Sister Dorothy and I were in the same work group that day. The mix of our emerging feminism, our experience in a communal living situation and the challenge of becoming more “out front” about our social values all came together during that inservice experience. We emerged with a plan to create a network of centers across the country, dedicated to women’s empowerment, creativity, leadership and service. A few days after that experience, in a table conversation at home, we began to explore the question: “Why don’t we just do that?” Our “lived reality” of being women in diverse occupations who all shared a common living space and purpose added to our fervor. What if we could create a community of lay women who would be strong supporters of one another in a manner similar to our community of sisters, who would exhibit an open and transformative energy, whose creativity in art and in life decisions would be actively nourished and who would welcome women of all spiritual traditions. Over the next few months, we formed a task force of SSSF members and other friends as we conceptualized what would eventually turn into a new format of a women’s center. One modification we
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made early on was to pare down the concept from creating a network of women’s centers to creating just one to start with -- and we set about exploring our options for a good location. While those plans were taking shape, a second event became a significant part of the process – one that initially felt like “a bump in the road.” Sister Lenora Maier, the new Rockford Provincial leader, asked if I would consider leaving Driscoll and moving to Rockford to become her Administrative Assistant and Province Communications Director. I was not happy with this request. I loved my living group and I loved my work at Driscoll. In prayer, though, I discovered there was a deep “yes” inside me. I now understand that the Divine (through Lenora) was asking me to embrace a future I had not envisioned. This was an important movement in my life that did not portend giving up a dream, but rather “re-locating” it! After moving to Rockford to work for the provincial team, I used many of my evenings and weekends exploring the city, meeting both civic and church women’s groups, and testing the waters with all of them, as I described what we were envisioning with Womanspace. Communication and connection with these groups was (and has always remained) critically important. As the vision became clearer, it was apparent that spirituality and the arts would be major components of our work and teaching, that inner growth and outer service to the community were part of the same cloth, that care for the soul and care for the earth were intimately connected. Every group I spoke to welcomed the idea enthusiastically, and it became clear that Rockford would be a wonderful location for the new ministry that would be born in 1975 – Womanspace. One other thread needs to be woven into this story of new birth and creation because it was critical piece in reading the signs of the times. During the SSSF General Assembly of 1973, the delegates had formulated two main goals for the entire congregation: 1) to work toward eliminating world hunger AND 2) to improve the status of women. The convergence of this second community direction, coupled with our personal passion and the exciting challenge of creating a new ministry cannot be overstated. Creating Womanspace seemed a hand-in-glove fit for this new ministry. It was our great pleasure to introduce the concept of Womanspace to the SSSF community during the Chapter of Mats, our Centennial Celebration, that was held at Alverno College in 1974.
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I have not missed the similarities between the creation of the Womanspace community by two young dedicated women who were 14 years apart in age (Dorothy was 47 and I was 33) and the story of Alexia and Alfons who were twelve years apart in age when they began the School Sisters of St. Francis. In the book, He Sent Two by Francis Rothluebber, the sheer grit and determination of Alexia and Alfons to envision and build a large community composed of women of faith seems analogous to the dream Dorothy and I had of a large interfaith group of women who would band together to create love, openness, power and service in one Midwest city 100 years later. We began Womanspace on a shoestring, with a small grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, and grew the organization as an independent entity ever since. One unique feature about Womanspace is that we have never had more money than we need. We have always had exactly what we need to do our work. Some might think that is naive; I prefer to think of it as Divine Providence affirming this work. Womanspace has responded to the needs of the times over five decades, working with issues from trafficking to time management; addictions to assertiveness; management
to
meditation,
environmental
conservation
to
extraordinary
compassion. Sometimes we bring in major national speakers for audiences of 500; sometimes we have intensely important sessions for only four people. We discover and sponsor local talent and we revel in unique programs and processes that are too unwieldy for others. We have created a retreat-like oasis within the city of Rockford on our 7-acre campus and we welcome visitors from everywhere who come to visit our gardens and our nationally-recognized labyrinth, the largest in northern Illinois, that was created in 2003. I am indeed proud of the way Womanspace has grown to be a respected and honored institution in Rockford. We have impacted and served over 50,000 women and their families in ways too numerous to recount. My “founder’s heart” is embedded in this physical and spiritual space. Every day, I thank God for all those who make Womanspace a place of great love, connection, empowerment and creativity. In its essence, the Womanspace community is itself a sacred ground for deepening and transformation. Sister Elaine Hirschenberger
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