My travels to Newport, Rhode Island

Artistic Collaborators

Sister Olive Frances, CSJB & Sister Mary Veronica, CSM

Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament with angel frontal 

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St. John the Evangelist Newport, RI

It is a rare opportunity for the historian to discover a single connection between archival collections and even more rare to discover connections in two collections pointing to the same place! But that is exactly what happened to me when I visited St. John the Evangelist Church in Newport, RI.

As many of you know, I have been an Associate of the Community of St. John Baptist, an order of Anglican/Episcopal nuns in Mendham, NJ for nearly 40 years. The Community is fortunate to have a large archive of historic photographs and a couple have always intrigued me. One of the photos is of an interior of a church chapel showing an altar with a beautiful frontal decorated with angels. The angels were familiar as similar ones are embroidered on a spectacular Requiem cope owned by the Community. A notation on the back one of the photos said “Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, St. John’s Church, Newport.”

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I was finally able to travel up to Newport, RI to see the actual frontal in person. Seeing the frontal in person was a moving experience and I was glad that it had survived over one hundred years in the church where it has been designed for.

Archival photo of the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the collection of the Community of St. John Baptist

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The Church Work Room Community of St. John Baptist Mendham, NJ

The other photo that had always intrigued me was of a nun (most likely Sr. Olive Frances) thoughtfully working at a table in the Church Workroom in Mendham, N.J. Inked on the bottom of the photo is “A. Corner. of. the Ch. Wk. Rm." Behind her is a large painting of angels, a framed photo and a framed angel embroidery. I recognized the framed angel embroidery practice piece as it was still carefully stored away in one of the church work room drawers. Taking out a magnifying lens to get a closer look revealed that the framed photo to the left of Sr. Olive Frances was actually the same one in the Community archive.

And as for the large painting, that was a bit more of a puzzle as it was no longer on the wall of the Church Workroom. Several months later, I was up on the third floor attic area of the Convent and I happened to look up into the eaves and saw a large flat panel. Getting some help to get it down, I uncovered the package and saw a large canvas with seven beautifully painted cutout paper angels looking at me! It was a full-scale model for the St. John the Evangelist’s Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament’s frontal. It was in surprising excellent condition, so I carefully dusted it, photographed it and wrapped it up again with a big label indicating what was inside the package. 

But Mendham held one more small surprise. Going through some bottom drawers, this time in the church work room, I discovered a small gouache of the angel frontal mounted on metallic paper. It is quite small, only 4” x 7” but a perfect miniature duplicate of St. John’s frontal. There were no notations to indicate why or what it was for. Its purpose other than to replicate the frontal’s design will, for now, remain a mystery.

Archival photo of CSJB Sister (Sr. Olive Frances?) in the Church Workroom, Mendham, NJ circa 1916

Painted canvas panel with applied paper angels used as a model for the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament frontal

Embroidered angel holding a symbol for Penance on the St. John the Evangelist's frontal

Practice embroidery with the angel holding a symbol for Penance (note that this angel shows some design changes from the final embroidery)

Painted paper cutout angel holding a symbol for Penance on the CSJB full-scale model

Gouache of the frontal mounted on metallic paper

Detail of the gouache showing the amazing detail of all the angels

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The Communion of Saints

However, St. John’s Church in Newport had one more connection for me to make. I have recently been doing archival research at the Community of St. Mary, Eastern Province in Greenwich, CT. Like the Community of St. John Baptist the Sisters were also very involved with producing beautiful vestments and ecclesiastical textiles. See my blog post from September 18, 2024 for more details. On my last visit I began to organize and document their extensive collection of embroidery patterns. But one item that I discovered had nothing to do with embroidery but everything to do with the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, particularly the painted reredos of the altar and most specifically the wood tracery framing.

Ella Sarah McCullough born July 20, 1874 in North Bennington, Vermont, was the daughter of Vermont Governor John McCullough and Eliza Park McCullough. A gifted artist from a very young age, Ella was raised in an atmosphere of material prosperity and social standing. Despite the disapproval of her family, Ella entered St. Mary's Episcopal Convent in Peekskill, New York, in 1903 and took the name Sister Mary Veronica. She was professed on April 25, 1906 and died December 23, 1965. 

During her lifetime, Sr. Mary Veronica completed numerous ecclesiastical commissions and the Chapel reredos at St. John’s was one of them. The subject is “The Communion of the Saints” with Christ in the center as the Great High Priest. Sr. Mary Veronica painted eighty-seven saints in total, each ascending the stairs of Heaven under a sky with hundreds of angels. Surrounding the painting are finely carved wooden Gothic tracery arches. And it was in the Community of St. Mary’s archives that I found the original patterns for these arches and noted in Sr. Mary Veronica’s hand was “Newport Altarpiece (Side panel)” and “Newport Altarpiece (Center panel).” 

A black and white photo in the archives of St. John the Evangelist Church shows the extraordinary details of Sr. Mary Veronica’s reredos painting. On the back is a label stating the title of the work as well as naming the Church’s architects Cram and Ferguson and simply mentions “Designed and executed in tempera by a Sister of the Community of St. Mary.” 

Paper pattern for side panel of chapel reredos wood tracery

Sr. Mary Veronica at her desk surrounded by some of her paintings

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My sincere gratitude and thanks goes to parishioners Amy Garrison and John Lord for their warm welcome and taking the time to show me all of St. John the Evangelist’s treasures. They are doing the challenging job of keeping the doors to their 130 year-old church open while making sure its history is preserved for future generations. 

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