Breen Avenue girl 70 years a nun

There wasn't anything in the water on Breen Avenue to cause eight girls to become nuns. A higher power was involved.

"I think the Holy Spirit was with us on that street," said Sister Giacinta Basile, 89, a former Breen Avenue resident who last month celebrated 70 years with the Religious Teachers Filippini order.

The Institute of the Maestre Pie Filippini was founded in Italy 1692 by Lucy Filippini and Cardinal Mark Anthony Barbarigo. The first sisters of the order arrived in the United States in 1910 as the Religious Teachers Filippini. They came to Watertown in 1937 and opened the school at St. Anthony's in 1958, with five grades and 120 students. The last of the Religious Teachers Filippini in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg left in 1995 after being reassigned.

Sister Giacinta last week paid a one-day visit to her hometown of Watertown and to her cousins in the Scordo family.

Her father, Leo Basile, arrived in the United States from Italy around 1915. After living for a while in Syracuse, he moved to Watertown and married Maria F. Agnesina, also a native of Italy. Sister Giacinta was one of the couple's seven children born in the city and graduated from Watertown High School in 1939.

Sister Giacinta said it was an unusual childhood on Breen Avenue. Her family shared a house at 241 Breen Ave. with her mother's sister, Marriana, and husband, Vincenzo (Jimmy) Scordo, with each family having its own floor.

Sister Giacinta said there were several cousins in the household: 11 Scordo children on the first floor and seven Basile children on the second.

"It was wonderful," Sister Giacinta said Friday from her sister Josephine Basile's cottage along Oneida Lake in Brewerton. "I wish other people could have lived the life we did. It was simple and happy."

She said the household was so large the children rarely made visits to friends at other homes. "People would come to us," she said.

She added that the caretaking of animals like cows, goats and chickens at their Breen Avenue property made life more interesting and also kept them busy. The families had four acres of land to grow crops. The garden also was divided in half.

After she was invested a nun in 1940, Sister Giacinta earned her bachelor's degree from the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore and her master's from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. She taught at several Catholic schools and was a provincial counselor with the Religious Teachers Filippini in Rome for six years before accepting the position of principal at the Morristown, N.J., motherhouse, Villa Walsh, which is an exclusive private school, convent and infirmary, and the order's headquarters.

She is certified to teach French and English and to administrate. She is also co-author of the book "Forever Yes," about the order's foundress, St. Lucy Filippini, born in 1672.

Sister Giacinta is now pastoral minister for St. Mary of Mount Virgin parish, New Brunswick, N.J., and also serves as a moderator for the Filippini community associate program.

She said she wanted to be a nun ever since she was very young, even before the Religious Teachers Filippini arrived in Watertown.

She said her career has been blessed.

"If I had to do it all over gain, I would do it again," she said. "You follow Jesus and do whatever he wants you to do."

These days, among the highlights of her duties are the formal prayer sessions performed several times each day. "But we live in the presence of Christ all day long," she said.

One of Sister Giacinta's cousins, Lucia A. Scordo of Watertown, said she believes the Religious Teachers Filippini at St. Anthony's School inspired girls on Breen Avenue to enter the religious order. Sister Grace M. Scordo, Lucia's cousin, died in 2006. She also entered the Filippini order in 1940.

Miss Scordo said that at one time, the residents had hoped to formally recognize the Breen Avenue nun production.

"We sought to change the name from Breen Avenue to Sisters Avenue," she said. "But that didn't work out."

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Notes of congratulations on Sister Giacinta's 70th anniversary in the sisterhood can be sent to her at St. Mary of Mount Virgin Convent, New Brunswick, N.J. 08901.

A celebration will be held in September in New Brunswick to honor the 100 years the Religious Teachers Filippini have been in the United States.