Episode 22 - Sister Mary Jo McDonald

Welcome to Mining City Reflections. In this third part of our series, we shift to the oral histories of women currently living in Butte. I’m your host Marian Jensen.

Efforts to reclaim Butte’s landscape from the 20th century ravages of mining have continued in the 21st century. In this episode we’ll hear the story of one of the community’s most ardent advocates for environmental reclamation, Sister Mary Jo McDonald. She is a member of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, a group whose influence on Butte women as been noted in previous podcasts. Her oral history was taken in 2020 by Aubrey Jaap, Assistant Director of the Butte Archives, and Community Radio station manager, Clark Grant.

Born in Butte and raised in the company smelter town of nearby Anaconda, Sister Mary Jo developed an early understanding of the plight of those living in a mining culture. As an adult she has become a champion of the poor, and an activist in environmental reclamation and health issues related to the mining industry. In her ministry of Superfund, her calling has has followed the edict to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

“People here deserve a healthy environment to raise children here.”

Born in 1941 to Josephine Bechtold and Leo McDonald, Sister Mary Jo and her two brothers, one older and one younger, grew up playing softball and riding bicycles in the streets of Anaconda across the way from St. Paul’s Catholic grade school. Her mother was educated as a teacher, but stayed at home until the children were grown, her father a telephone lineman. Sister Mary Jo called her childhood idyllic.

While her father’s socialist political leanings and his role as president of the local chapter of the electricians’ union provided one model, it was her mother’s concern for the poor that set the stage for Sister Mary Jo’s vocation.

“There were times my mother would give me an envelope and ask me to take it to a neighbor, but she never said what it was and I never asked what it was. If she asked you to do something you did it. So I took it to the neighbors, but growing up later and having a little more wisdom I understood what she was doing. We were not a wealthy family, but we always made due and my dad was never on strike. Smelter-men: strikes. She was sending money to that family to help them with their groceries. And never signed it.”

Sister Mary Jo’s decision to enter the convent was party orchestrated by Father McCoy, the principle at Anaconda Central High School. When he heard the girls’ softball team was recruiting Mary Jo to join them at Montana State, he called her into his office and proclaimed

“No respectful Catholic girl graduating from Central would be going to a public school.”

While Mary Jo was not convinced, he got her to apply to St. Mary’s College, and she was awarded a scholarship which set her on the path to a life of discipleship. Her parents remained skeptical about her joining the convent, but after only one semester, Sister Mary Jo knew this was her calling.

“I think meeting the sisters that were their at the college. How they viewed life and how they interacted with us and how they were involved outside the college in the Leavenworth community and helping individuals with needs. And how they really paid attention to their students, it really mattered whether people were doing well or not. It was how they lived their life and the example they set.”

Following the rule of St. Vincent de Paul, ministering to the poor and vulnerable, the Sisters of Charity wear modern dress so they can be part of the community with the poor and concentrate on social justice issues.

Sister Mary Jo’s simple description of life as a contemporary nun demonstrates why her ministry commands a formidable presence in the community.

“We have a prayer life. We have a mission. We have vows: poverty, chastity and obedience. We are free to interact in the communities in the best way we can. So Vincent’s whole emphasis is to pay attention to the poor, the poor are your masters. You’ll reach out to them and especially the most vulnerable amongst you.”

Initially her mission led a teaching career that took her across five states over nearly 20 years. Not only did she teach elementary school and junior high, and act as principle, she also addressed racial discrimination in Kansas during the era of civil rights.

“We were involved a lot in fair housing pushes and marches. Teaching our children to stand up for their rights, etc.”

Eventually Sister Mary Jo returned to Butte to be nearer her aging parents. In 1982 she went to St. Ann’s Church to begin a 34 year mission in parish work. Here Sister Mary Jo ’s environmental activism took hold, starting innocently enough in a prayer group whose elderly members complained of having to haul jugs of water due to a boil-or-buy water order issued in the late 1980’s by the Butte Water Company.

“I said, well I think we need to get a class action lawsuit together… And I’m thinking… Are you sure you said that?”

The 1990 lawsuit against Montana Resources founder Dennis Washington, one of the country wealthiest industrialists, and the Butte Water Company, which he also owned, was settled in 1996. As a result, Butte regained its water company and modern water infrastructure as well as acquiring the Silver Lake water system. Not that the city was happy about it, at one time referring to the plaintiffs as ‘a group of sheep being led by a goat.”

“I have to tell you, there were days I would wake up and think - I should not have done this. Because it wasn’t… I really didn’t care because what are you going to do to a nun? I mean truly, y’know? The community will support what I do as long as I’m sensible. Some days they wondered.”

In 2010 Sister Mary Jo became a party in a second lawsuit over Butte water, this time as a member of the Silver Bow Creek Headwaters Coalition. The group brought suit over the name of upper Silver Bow Creek to force the state and the Environmental Protection Agency to provide an adequate clean up.

Sister Mary Jo’s courage to take on the great and mighty has made her a legend in the community but for her, it’s a simple matter.

“I guess if you’re in the court, you’re there for a reason and you’re gonna testify. And you’ve prepared, and you’ve also prepared with your attorney. It’s not that you’re programming yourself that it’s our way or the highway but, we try to speak the truth. So when you take the oath, the oath is that I will speak the truth to you. This is my truth and this is the truth our group has and this is the truth we see and this is the truth we’re looking for. So it becomes a little simpler in some ways to sit on that chair and to take that oath, answer the questions from the judge or the other attorneys or whomever is asking the questions. It’s always looking for truth and speaking the truth. When I answer questions I try to pause a little bit so I can collect my thoughts and then speak.”

The coalition won its lawsuit in August in 2015.

For many in the community, Sister Mary Jo’s attendance at any meeting about the city’s Superfund negotiations is a necessity. Some might wonder about the connection or motivation for a member of a religious community. But for her, that the very reason she should be there.

“The Gospel message is: be just, be fair, be honest and have integrity about the Earth and where you live.”

Since her retirement in 2017, Sister Mary Jo has been serving on the Butte Natural Resource Damage Council that oversees $30 million in Restoration funds. Needless to say her reputation for speaking up about what’s right for Butte and not being afraid to ask hard questions precedes her.

While Sister Mary Jo has retired from parish work, she has not retired from Butte. She now spends more time working on the city’s Superfund Decree to ensure Butte finally gets a fair shake.

“Butte has been held captive by the companies. When you stop and think about it, Butte never gained anything from those companies. Everything went out. William Clark - Las Vegas, New York. They all took everything out of here and took it to another area. So Butte has never gotten a fair shake. Our miners had to mine for low wages, they had to fight for everything they got. For benefits, for wages, to protect their people. Little stores in Butte suffered greatly during strikes because they kept the people fed and some of them closed because of it. But they cared enough about their neighbors to feed them. And they knew they would not get payed back. Sometimes they would get a nickel on a dime and people tried the best they could, but they didn’t have anything. So, and the loss of life in the mines… Big, big problem for our miners. And what kind of benefits did their families get? Not much. So yes, I think because Butte’s kind had that idea that we’re owned by the company so we can’t fight too hard, y’know? So we need to somehow, and the younger generations will do this, we need somehow to come to the realization that nobody owns us… Nobody owns us.”

Eventually Sister Mary Jo will return to the Mother House in Leavenworth along with eleven other sisters who celebrated sixty years in the order this year. About her return, she has this to say:

“I’m going to end up in Leavenworth, Kansas and I know ARCO would prefer it would be in the pen there. But fortunately that’s across the highway from our convent.”