By Rita McInerney

Sister Peter Claver, the former Hannah Elizabeth Fahy of St. Mary’s parish in Rome, celebrated her 60th anniversary as a Missionary Servant of the Most Blessed Trinity on Sunday, June 8, at the motherhouse in Philadelphia.

She was among nine sisters celebrating jubilees. The Mass of Thanksgiving for them was celebrated by Father Conrad Schmitt, S.T., custodian general of the order, with several priests as concelebrants. Earlier, during the spring regional meeting, Sister Claver was one of three diamond jubilarians honored at Blessed Trinity Shrine Retreat Cenacle at Holy Trinity, Ala.

Sister Claver, a member of a pioneer family in the archdiocese, entered the order in 1926 at Holy Trinity, where the community was founded in the early 1900s by a Vincentian priest, Father Thomas Augustine Judge, and Mother Boniface Keasey. As a young southern woman she was eager to dedicate her life to serving the poor and the abandoned, both spiritually and materially. She served in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, and also in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Her ministry today is centered in Philadelphia where she works with and for prison inmates and ex-offenders.

The Fahys have lived in Rome since before the Civil War. Her grandmother fled to Atlanta from Rome and was there during Sherman’s siege. More recent generations of the family lived in a large Victorian house built about 1890 on Third Avenue and operated a dry goods store on Broad Street.

An experience in a House of Prayer in New York in 1970 led her to open a prayer center in Erie, Pa. Later, in 1976, she established a House of Prayer in her hometown, across the street from the family home.

“We had morning and evening prayer, Scripture reading and prayer groups. The house was open to people who wanted to pray.” She also went about and gave talks to interested groups, Sister Peter Claver said in a telephone conversation with the Georgia Bulletin.

Two volunteers, Fay Key who came from Swainsboro, Ga., and Betty Greene, from Bethlehem, Pa., served with her. Fay Key was later to be the catalyst for three houses of hospitality for battered women and children in Rome. Mrs. Green remained at the Rome House of Prayer for a year after Sister Claver returned to the motherhouse in 1979.

There she was assigned to the ministry of prayer group. This led to her becoming a volunteer in prison ministry under the umbrella of the archdiocesan criminal justice department. She visits men in prison several times a week and has been instrumental in establishing a hospitality house for ex-offenders where they are helped to regain their dignity and worth as children of God.

“I really needed someone to listen to me and Sister Peter Claver did. She accepts me, and somehow, you know she cares about you and loves you,” one inmate said of her.

Another facet of her prison ministry is the St. Dismas Association which meets monthly to hold a prayer hour for the prison ministry and give personal service to ex-offenders.

This past spring she was honored at the annual recognition dinner for prison volunteers for her dedication and outstanding service to the staff and inmates of Philadelphia prisons.

She indirectly was the first contribution to the Catholic Worker movement. A priest she had known in Alabama was giving a mission in New Jersey and asked her for a dollar for the new Catholic group. He gave it to Dorothy Day in Sister Peter Claver’s name. Later, she went over to the Catholic Worker house in New York City and introduced herself to Miss Day. That was in 1933. A close friendship developed between the two women who had dedicated their lives to helping the poor and helpless.

“Dorothy was a pilgrim, always on the go. She visited me all over, in Mobile and Gadsden. I was with her when she visited the monks in Conyers. She traveled a lot and would visit her friends. We would sit and talk.” They also corresponded regularly. “I sent her letters and papers, all of her letters to me, to the archives at Marquette University.”

She was the one who put Miss Day in touch with Father John Hugo, in Pittsburgh, who became her spiritual advisor. The priest, sister said, was killed in an automobile accident last October. She has given numerous talks about Miss Day since her death in 1980 and is mentioned numerous times in William Miller’s authorized biography of the woman many people pray will someday join the ranks of American saints.

Sister Peter Claver’s nephew and Godchild, Father Joseph A. Fahy, C.P., who works with the Hispanic apostolate in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, said she frequently receives calls from persons looking for information about her beloved friend.

A friend, Father Anthony Curran, of Corpus Christi parish, who describes sister as “86 going on 37,” celebrated a jubilee Mass for her on June 11 at the motherhouse in Philadelphia. He was pastor of St. Mary’s in Rome when the house of prayer was opened and is a longtime admirer of the Fahys as a strong southern Catholic family.

Sister Peter Claver is one of 14 children born to Thomas and Sarah Jonas Fahy. Three died in infancy. A brother, the late Charles Fahy, was solicitor general under Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. A reading room in the Georgetown University Law Center is named for him.

A sister, the late Agnes Fahy, was a friend and co-worker of Margaret Mitchell at the Atlanta Journal, before going to New York City to work. Another sister Sarah Fahy, now 93 and living in Washington D.C., was active with the Catholic Colored Clinic in the 1840’s. This later became Holy Family Hospital operated by the Medical Mission Sisters. It is now Southwest Hospital.

Sister Claver was honored in May, 1983 at the reunion Mass of the Class of 1923 at Trinity College in Washington, D.C. She received the Julie Billiart Medal named for the foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur given each year to a Trinity alumnae. She was honored as a crusader for the underprivileged, a missionary, and a woman of faith.