Sarah came on the orphan train in 1909
Sister Mary James' story

By PETER FINNEY JR.
Clarion Herald, May 13, 1999

Their lives have been inextricably linked since 1909, when she arrived in New Orleans among the precious cargo of 60 babies and young children on an "orphan train” from New York.

Sarah Hunt, age 2, was wearing a white dress and bonnet as the specially equipped New York Central car pulled into Union Station on April 29, 1909. Administrators of the New York Foundling Asylum had pinned tag No. 59 on her dress, describing what was known of her family history-- Her mother had died in childbirth and her father had walked away, never having been heard from again-- and identifying the family in south Louisiana that was supposed to adopt her.  On the platform that day was Peter J. Fabacher, whose wife Josephine already was the mother of eight children and was seven months pregnant with their ninth child, a boy they would name Ignatius after a Jesuit saint.

Fabacher was greeting the train with his nephew, John Frey of Crowley, who had asked the New York orphanage for a 5-year-old boy that he hoped would become the heir to his rice plantation. As Frey searched the platform for the boy, someone thrust little Sarah into Fabacher's arms. It was only then that Fabacher noticed the tag on her dress. Sarah-- and not a 5-year-old boy-- had been ticketed for the Frey family.

As the story goes, Frey was extremely disappointed. He could not imagine what his wife would do with a baby girl, and he wanted to send Sarah back on the train to New York. But as Sarah draped her arms around Fabacher's neck, the restaurant owner took the plunge. "The more the merrier," he said, agreeing to take her into his uptown home.

God wrote the rest of the story.

Eighteen years later, Sarah entered the Dominican convent, one year before Ignatius joined the Jesuits at Grand Coteau. Two other siblings, Henrietta and Marie, joined the Ursulines and the Little Sisters of the Poor, giving the family four religious vocations among its 14 children. Henrietta and Marie are deceased.

But last week, Sarah Hunt (Sister Mary James) Fabacher, who will turn 92 this month, and Jesuit Father Ignatius Fabacher, who will be 90 in June, walked, side-by-side with the aid of aluminum walkers into the chapel for Mass at the Mary Joseph Residence for the Elderly.

There is an unmistakable and touching bond between "big" sister, who this year is celebrating the 70th year of her religious profession, and "little" brother. Father Fabacher lives at Mary Joseph and celebrates Mass as an assistant chaplain. Sister Mary James resides at the Dominican Motherhouse on Broadway. The two see each other once a week.

"Have you been a good girl?" Father Fabacher asked his sister as he planted a kiss on her cheek. Seeing a photographer in the room, he told her, "You've got to smile."

"Aw, shucks," she said. "Is it almost time for Mass?"

Just a week earlier, Father Fabacher had a mild heart attack, but he bounced back quickly. "I'm getting old," he said, smiling. "When you get to be 89 you'll see what I mean. She's kind of deaf and I'm getting deaf myself.

Father Fabacher has gently suggested that his big sister use both of her hearing aids, but sometimes she doesn't. So he communicates with her by writing out questions on sheets of paper, which she reads and responds to. 

"We talk about old times," he said. "I do most of the writing."

In an interview she videotaped a few years ago, Sister Mary James recalled growing up in the big Fabacher house on Broadway Street across from the Dominican Motherhouse.

 "Papa went after everything big, big," she said. "Mama used to tease him, 'You got a big family, a. big business, a big house.' Everything was big."

As an adopted child, Sister Mary James said her mother eased her acceptance into the family by teaching her older siblings to love her as one of their own. Her Aunt Mamie was a Dominican sister, and Sarah often could be found visiting her and the other the nuns across the street.

"I'd come over and the nuns would make over me," she said. "They'd think I was cute. I got to love the Sisters and I wanted to be a Sister. I dreamed about it, but I didn't think it was possible for me because I was just a little adopted child. But I realized it could be a dream come true."

Father Fabacher said his parents recited the rosary every night with the entire family. "It got humorous sometimes because we would say the rosary and my mother would see the younger children falling asleep, but papa kept right on going," Father Fabacher said. "He had a lot of intentions."

In her career as a teacher, Sister Mary James was revered for her feistiness in caring for underprivileged children, said Dan Bent, her nephew. She was assigned to teach in "the country" in Lizana, Mississippi, and Cottonport, Louisiana, from 1957-66, and she could not believe the level of poverty.

"She was always somewhat of a maverick," Bent said. "There was some kind of deal where the Dominican nuns went to Mississippi and would teach in the public schools. The community was too poor to hire teachers. So she would teach and, after hours, she would do religious education. But the community was so poor the kids came to school with no shoes."

At first, Sister Mary James thought her students were shoeless because it was still hot out. But when the winter came and the kids still came without shoes, she sprang into action.

"She went out to the highway in her habit and hitchhiked to New Orleans," Bent said. "She went to D.H. Holmes or Maison Blanche and told the secretary she wanted to see the president. The secretary asked if she had an appointment, and she said, 'No, honey, I don't need an appointment.' She finally was able to tell the president how poor the kids were, and she asked him to donate usable clothes. The man told her, 'I will fill any truck you can get. 'Well, she had a brother in the trucking business and he had an 18-wheeler. She drove back and delivered all those clothes."

Bent also remembers meeting a student at LSU who had grown up in Cottonport, and he asked if he had known anything about Sister Mary James. "We knew her, Dan," the student said. "My little brother is named after her."