Baran-Unland: When Joliet Franciscans became parents to kids who needed them.

I was a new freelance features writer when I was sent to the former Guardian Angel Home building on Plainfield Road in Joliet to write a “Local Flavor” food column.

My assignment was to talk with Sister Armella Schuster, who worked in food service at the home from 1967 to 2000 and was known for her extraordinary cinnamon rolls.

Schuster claimed her rolls were larger than most commercial varieties – and contained more frosting, cinnamon and nuts, too. People happily bid on six dozen of them at the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate’s champagne brunch and silent auction.

Oh, and I was to ask her to share some of her recipes in the column, too. Schuster had plenty of recipes. She’d was responsible for feeding 84 orphans in the mid-1970s.

Schuster also had plenty of stories about the home’s apple orchard that supplied the apples for her pies and the little boy who polished the kitchen stainless steel equipment so well even the health inspector was impressed.

Many people today associate Guardian Angel Community Services, which celebrated its 125 anniversary on Oct. 19, with its Groundwork Domestic Abuse Program. But its first service was an orphanage started by the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate – or that people alive today benefited from that orphanage.

For instance, in 2018, I helped a Joliet woman in her 90s write a memoir as a gift to her family. She talked about the years she and her sisters spent at Guardian Angel after her mother died.

She recalled the dormitories, attending Mass, and the Victrolas inside each classroom. She learned how to study. Mostly she recalled how the Sisters paid attention to each individual orphan. Many of those orphans lacked that individual attention at home.

John Saragossa of Joliet, who was 85 when he died in 2020, also spent part of his childhood at Guardian Angel. In a 2020 Herald News story, Saragossa’s daughter Judy Griffin of Tennessee, said her father was just 6 years old when his mother died from cancer.

Consequently, Saragossa and three siblings went to live at Guardian Angel. Griffin said John found orphanage life hard -and left it when he was 14 – but he learned to read, was always thankful for it.

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But one former Joliet resident, Sal Di Leo, has show his appreciation in extraordinary ways. Di Leo said in a 2008 Herald-News story that the Sisters at the orphanage became his parents in 1963 when Di Leo’s mother left him and his siblings at the Guardian Angel Home.

Up until that point, Di Leo, the 11th of 12 children, had lived in chaos and fear.

In a 2014 Herald-News story, Di Leo recalled begging for food and how the other children at the former St. Bernard School in Joliet refused to sit by him because his stench was so bad. One sister at the school, Di Leo said, took pity on him and provided clean clothes and made sure he was bathed.

Di Leo said in the 2014 story that the Sisters’ mentorship and guidance shaped his value system, taught him how to tackle challenges and showed he had choices, even if that choice was to be happy or sad.

So Di Leo showed his appreciation by writing and self-publishing the book “Did I ever Thank You, Sister”?” and by starting the St. Francis Lodge in Minnesota.

Di Leo and his wife Beth created this retreat house in honor of the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate in Joliet, dedicated it to St. Francis of Assisi and then opened it up free of charge to men and women in religious life and people experiencing terminal illness.

Three Sisters with the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate in Joliet – Sister Albert Marie Papesh, Sister Therese Tusek and Sister Anne Wayrowski – attended the 15th anniversary of the lodge’s opening in 2014. It was also Papesh’s ninth retreat.

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“My story is pretty much about life: its challenges, obstacles, disillusionment, disappointment and finally redemption,” Di Leo said in 2008. “We all go through that in life and that’s what people share with me when they read the book. I guess if there’s a moral or message, the message is that we don’t just arrive in life on our own. A lot of good people help us along the way.”

Over time, the need for an actual orphanage decreased. But Guardian Angel Community Services still responds to the needs of the community.

The nonprofit currently offers adult protective services, the Exchange Club Center, foster care, Groundwork Domestic Violence Program, Hispanic Outreach Program, Partner Abuse Intervention Program, prevention education and professional training in the areas of domestic and sexual violence, the Sexual Assault Service Center and Suzy’s Caring Place, which provides housing and support to domestic violence survivors and their children.

So 125 years later, the agency is still helping to improve people’s lives. Now that’s something to celebrate.

For more information, visit gacsprograms.org.