The day was set to celebrate Daryl’s Aunt – Sister Rose Catherine’s 100th birthday. But about a month ago she passed away, and then there was a discussion if the celebration should still happen. The decision was made to still have this special day because there were so many that couldn’t make it to the funeral, and we were one of those. We were in New York for Kyle’s Commencement and really couldn’t change our plans. So I was kind of glad that they kept the day for the celebration and was anxious to see where Sister spent most of her life.
Now do you remember how tired I was when I went to bed Saturday night and that I just crawled into bed with a towel on my hair? Yea, well… we knew that we literally had to be on the road at 6:30 to make it to the service on Sunday. And when the alarm went off, there was nooooo wayyy I was ready to get up. I mean, it was 5:30 am. So finally Daryl yelled up the steps to me that I might want to get up. He said it was 6:10. WHAT? Then I thought.. MY HAIR! But as I was grabbing my dress out of the closet, I did a quick check of my hair and guess what? It looked kind of good. Yea, who would have figured? So I quick went to the bathroom, grabbed my makeup, brushed my teeth, curled the front part of my hair, and walked out of the house at 6:24. Now granted I still needed to put my makeup on in the car mirror, but not bad for 14 minutes was it? And I didn’t even know what I was going to wear for a dress or shoes that day.
We made it to the St. Rose of Viterbo Convent that is the mother house of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. 
So I’ve been doing some checking on what a ‘mother house’ is. And it’s funny, because when I ask someone they try to act like they really know what they’re talking about.. but I find out pretty soon that they’re bluffing. So this is what it is : The motherhouse is the founding house of a religious order, or the convent where the mother superior lives. So my reference to it as the Mother Ship for Sisters.. just wasn’t too far off was it? We found a place to park and made our way inside and towards the Chapel. At this point I think my jaw dropped open. It was beautiful. The Chapel was so unbelievable that I told Daryl that it even looked fake. 
The pictures that I took do not do it justice and if you are ever in La Crosse Wisc, you will have to stop in to see for yourself.
We were trying to figure out how many people were actually in the Chapel for the service because the singing was so loud, and so we figured that there were people up in the balcony that surrounds the whole Chapel. But later we found out that the acoustics were just that good. Again, amazing. 
The service was dedicated to Daryl’s Aunt and about 1/2 of the people were there because of Sister. After brunch, Daryl’s cousin gave a short program on the history of Sister and the Kuehners. It was really nice and you could tell that he put a lot of time into preparing for it. The couple of things that I learned about Daryl’s side was that when the original Kuehners’ came to the United States they had to renounce France. Now the Kuehner’s are full blooded German so this sounds confusing. But they lived on the border of France in some disputed land and they spoke German and was also full blooded German. So once they landed, they had to renounce France not Germany. Another interesting story was one that was told was that when one time his one Aunt and Uncle went to a local dance hall where Lawrence Welk was performing, Lawrence wanted to dance with Daryl’s Aunt so Daryl’s Uncle went and conducted the band. I bet that story was told many times over the years! There are too many stories to write that we heard that day, but those two just stuck out for me.
Then Daryl was asked to sing a couple of songs that was from the time period that his Aunt was growing up, which was a hundred years ago. Now this gave him some trouble. It’s not so easy to find these really old songs on YouTube. But he was a trooper and made it through it. Everyone really enjoyed the songs and all that night I couldn’t get the song, ‘Oh Dem Golden Slippers!’ out of my head!
Right before we were going to head home, we got a tour of the small prayer room of Perpetual Adoration. Determined to establish perpetual adoration, the sisters tried it out, praying two at a time for two hours. They demonstrated they could do it, and on August 1, 1878, at 11 a.m., the congregation—then called the Sisters of St. Francis—began praying around the clock and soon thereafter became the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. This is the longest prayer in history.
What I found out after reading up on this Convent is that the Chapel is called the Mary of Angels. Mary of the Angels Chapel in La Crosse was named after a tiny church built in early times in the marshlands below the town of Assisi, Italy. Abandoned and in disrepair, the church, St. Mary of the Portiuncula, was given to Francis of Assisi by the Benedictines to use as a place of prayer and as headquarters for himself and his followers. The first congregation moved into this convent in 1871 and since then they also opened a hospital, orphanage, a shelter for troubled children, school, and I’m sure many more things. The Chapel is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Below is the picture of the Chapel that I found on the web. It’s really big!
I was so glad that we had a chance to see this unbelievable building not only for ourselves, but also to get to understand how Daryl’s Aunt lived her life for so many years here. Oh yea, check out what I also found there 