GET CRACKING

A talk by Catherine DeHuek Doherty.





An interesting lady, who went from being a daughter of the Russian aristocracy to a nurse in WWI to a penniless refugee fleeing to Canada, who became wealth again giving talks on the pre WWI society in Russia, and then as a recruiter for others to give talks for the Chataqua organization.

While in Europe, she met the poet Tagore, and knowing of his religious poetry, asked him why he didn't become a Christian, and he answered: Well, Catherine, I'm waiting for you to become one first.

So in the early 1930's she left giving talks, arranaged for her son to be cared for by others, and started a ministry to the poor, first in Toronto, and later in Harlam, where she pioneered a Catholic interracial ministry called Friendship House.

She is mentioned in Thomas Merton's biography Seven Story Mountain, when he spent a short time working as a volunteer.

Later, she retired back to Canada with her second husband, fast talking Chicago Journalist and screenwriter Eddie Doherty, who met her while working on a story...

His biography of her starts with the word "Sex" (she is telling off a socialite complaining that her husband seeks out prostitutes, telling her off about her frigidity). Heh. Eddie did know how to get your attention... see: Tumbleweeds, which can be borrowed from Internet Archives.

A later biography is a bit of a haliography: it has more facts but is more flat.

One of her best books is the classic Poustinia, about Russian Spirituality of the hermit in the world. InternetArchives has that one to borrow too. (I brought the book with me to the Philippines).






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update
Canadian NatPost article on Madonna house.