Sister Bernadette – mother figure to thousands of girls

Wendy Aqui, current principal of the school said that Sister Bernadette, who lives at the Sisters’ House on the grounds of the convent, still plays a role in the school.

“Sister is asked to address teachers now and then, and she stresses paying attention to the children in terms of loving them, and helping their spiritual growth. She is always still trying to encourage the girls to join the sisters as she believes that the sisters have to come from somewhere and Holy Name has that ability to produce the religious. Sister still works with the Legion of Mary every Thursday alongside one of the younger teachers, and invites children to come into the chapel every morning at 7.30 am to say the Rosary. We still get a lot of support from her although she finds walking a bit tedious now.”

When Sister Bernadette was appointed principal of the Convent School on January 1, 1961, she had been connected with the school from age six when her early education began. In 1946, Bernadette de la Bastide joined the sisters and took her first vows in 1948. “Bernsie” as the nun is fondly called by thousands of pupils whom she has ‘mothered’, retired in January 1982. Yet by September 1983, at age 61, the indefatigable nun was appointed principal of Holy Name Preparatory School, retiring finally in 1999.

In retirement, Sister Bernadette dedicated herself to the restoration of the Holy Name Chapel, which is still a work in progress. Says the current principal: “The ceiling has been beautifully restored with edges of real gold, but completion has been stalled through a leaking roof and it is a major issue to get up to it, also the floor is still to be tiled and the special coloured glass panes are still to be replaced.” The past pupils have helped but donations are still needed. The third of a family of eight, Sister Bernadette, whose youngest sibling is retired Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide, now President of the Caribbean Court of Justice, started a teaching career with just her school certificate, while studying for her A level exams part time; and in 1956 completed a London University external Bachelor of Arts degree in French, Spanish and Geography. In 1957 she was made Vice Principal of Holy Name, went to Oxford in September 1959 to pursue a Diploma in Education, returned home in 1960, and replaced the last of the foreign principals Sister Jeanne Emmanuel Barriere, in 1961.

Holy Name Convent was born in 1889 when the Dominican nuns moved with the girls of the St Dominic’s Orphanage from Belmont to the present site at what was then No 32 St Ann’s Road, now No 2 Queen’s Park East, into a college known as “Maison Bolivar”. Archbishop Patrick Vincent Flood wanted the co-operation of the Dominican Sisters, some of whom had long before come to Trinidad to take charge of the Leprosarium at Cocorite, to reorganise the orphanage in Belmont, which the nuns had run since February 24, 1876, but the sisters and girls needed a new place.

A Mrs Hannah Campbell bought the Maison Bolivar property and handed it over to the sisters with the sole condition that during their stay in Trinidad, some charitable work be carried out there. On March 21, 1890, the inauguration of Holy Name Convent took place and the senior girls of St Dominic’s Orphanage were housed there.

Repercussions from the eruption of Mount Pelee volcano in Martinique, in May 1902, resulted in Mr Soleau, a Frenchman, a friend and benefactor of the sisters, entrusting young Leonie Marie Raynaud, who had lost her parents and relatives in the eruption, to the care and protection of the sisters who undertook the responsibility for her education. Thus the first pupil of Holy Name Convent.

In a very short time word spread in Port of Spain and environs that the Dominican Sisters of Holy Name were giving private lessons to a young Martiniquan girl and several parents who wanted their daughters to obtain a French education, petitioned the sisters to start a private school. From ten pupils in 1904 to 22 in 1905 and 30 in 1908 came the private school started in 1902, but never registered until 1936. More than a century later there are about 800 pupils on the Holy Name compound where the still private infant school and now government assisted secondary school are both housed.