More than 30 years ago, five sisters of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ (ASC) were martyred while serving in Liberia — and a garden on the south side of Newman’s campus honors them today.
The Martyr’s Garden, taken care of by two ASC sisters, commemorates the lives of Sisters Barbara Ann Muttra, Kathleen McGuire, Agnes Mueller, Shirley Kolmer and Mary Joel Kolmer.
“The impact of the five sisters’ deaths really affected the congregation,” said Sister Barb Smith, one of the garden’s residential caretakers. “It was something that had never happened before.”
Their story
All five sisters were from the ASC center in Ruma, Illinois, and had traveled to Liberia in the 1980s to serve the Liberian people through teaching, health care and missionary work. In 1990, they left Liberia due to the worsening conflict of the First Liberian Civil War, and they returned just two years later to continue their service.
Muttra and Mary Joel Kolmer were killed on Oct. 20, 1992, after being ambushed while driving to take a worker home. Two days later, on Oct. 23, McGuire, Mueller and Shirley Kolmer were fatally shot at their convent.
Two young women studying to be sisters at the convent snuck away to tell the bishop what happened.
“The first time it was announced was on October the 31st. So, it took about a week before people even knew that this was what had happened,” Smith said.
Smith had met two of the five sisters, which made the news even harder.
“I met Shirley and Joelle,” she said. “Some sisters were in San Antonio at that time, and I was living in San Antonio. They came over to where we were living, and they spent the afternoon with us.”
Martyr’s Garden
The five sisters’ legacy and mission of service are honored at the Wichita ASC Center through the Martyr’s Garden — first, through the trees bordering the outer corners of the garden.
“The sisters’ favorite tree is the redwood tree,” Smith said. “So there are two different kinds of redwood trees.”
Alongside the trees are nine metal cylinders, taken from the stairwell of Newman’s former science building, the Heimerman Science Center. After the building was demolished and rebuilt in 2017, Sister Susan Wellby, Sister Edwina Pope and Newman alumnus Greg Lohkamp ‘81 built the first rendition of the garden, using the cylinders. Five of them sit in a line in the garden to represent the five sisters, while the other four sit in each corner of the garden, symbolizing the ASC expanding its residency across the four corners of the world.
“We’re an international community, so we’re in the east, west, north and south, ” Smith said. “Those are symbolic of us being all over the world.”
Keeping up with the garden
Although originally built in 2017, the garden fell into disrepair during the COVID-19 pandemic, until Smith and Sister Josefina Mendoza began tending to it.
“In May, I think I saw her out there,” Mendoza said. “So I went over there, and she was starting to clean it up and all that. I like to do gardening, so I said, ‘I’ll help you.’
They worked through hot weather and late evenings during the summer, pulling out the old foliage and planting perennial flowers.
“As I was helping Barb tilt the earth, pulling out the grass, I would reflect on how it must have been for the sisters to be in a country where they also wanted to help people,” she said. “They probably confronted a lot of difficult times and wanted to give up. I could imagine they felt supported by the people from Liberia, and so that’s why they kept going.”
Smith and Mendoza drive a golf cart full of gardening supplies from the ASC Center to the garden almost daily, sharing the story of the five sisters with Newman students passing by. Other visitors include a large number of butterflies, who have already taken to the garden’s flowers.
“The butterflies have been so abundant this year,” Smith said. “I mean, it’s just phenomenal to see how many butterflies there are.”
The feast day of the five sisters’ deaths was remembered on Oct. 23 this year with a Vespers service and a blessing of the garden by the Rev. Tom Welk, done in their honor.
Learn more about the Adorers of the Blood of Christ
The history of Newman University is inextricably intertwined with the history of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, the religious community which founded and sponsors the university.
