Dear Reader:
Some books begin with a voice. This one begins with a prayer.
The Prayer Diaries of the St. Moritz Girls is a work of creative nonfiction tracing the lives of four generations of women in one Irish-American family — from a young girl shipped alone to America in 1930, to the granddaughter who inherits both her resilience and her ache. At the center of it all is a single leather-bound prayer diary, passed from hand to hand like a sacred torch, each woman writing into it the things she couldn’t say out loud: her fears, her loves, her losses, her negotiations with God.
The St. Moritz Girls are not saints. They are mill workers and mill escapers, mothers who tried and mothers who couldn’t, daughters who had to become mothers to their own mothers. They carry hats they can’t afford, plant lilac bushes everywhere they land, and pray with the stubborn ferocity of people who have been let down before and are still, somehow, asking.
Chapter Two belongs to Clara.
Not the Clara we will come to know in full — not yet. This is Clara at her most necessary: the woman who puts down her brandy, walks across town in the dark, and takes a child out of a dangerous place without asking anyone’s permission.
The chapter opens on a single night. A dim tenement on Main Street. A little girl huddled in the corner. And Clara — mill worker, hat collector, self-made survivor — doing what she has always done: deciding that someone needs saving, and that she is the one who will do it.
But this chapter is not only about the rescue. It is about what it costs to be the rescuer. As Clara climbs those creaking stairs with Nellie’s hand in hers, we learn who she is and what she has already survived: shipped to America at twelve, her father dead before they docked, working the mills since she was barely a girl. We meet Sister Brigid — the nun who taught her to read, whose elegant navy hat became Clara’s lifelong symbol of the life she longed for and could never quite reach. We feel the hollow left by her mother’s death across the ocean. And we understand, slowly, that Clara has been saving people since long before she had anything left to give.
The prayer diary entry that opens this chapter is one of the most tender in the book. Clara writes not as someone who trusts God easily, but as someone who is exhausted and asking anyway — for Nellie’s strength, for her own, for a guide on a road that keeps getting longer.
By the end of the chapter, Nellie is asleep in a small nook of Clara’s attic room, curled up like a kitten. Clara brushes a curl from her forehead and whispers a promise.
She means it. She’s just not sure she can keep it.
Diary Entry – 18 February 1948
Willimantic, Connecticut
Dearest Heavenly Father, I beseech you with all my heart to watch over Nellie, this child who has come under my care. She is young, but beauty is already upon her, and beauty can be a burden. I pray that you make her strong, Lord, that you bless her with toughness to face all that may come her way. But I ask thee, O Lord, to toughen her spirit as you have toughened mine, to grant her wisdom beyond her years and courage beyond her station. As I try to be a guide to her, be a guide to me, O Lord. For I am weary, and the road is long, but I shall endeavor to protect her as best I can. In Brigid’s sacred name, Your most humble servant, Clara
The second floor tenement on Main Street was dark when Clara burst through the door. The air smelled faintly of cigarettes, stale bread, and cheap whiskey, the familiar markers of her sister Trudy’s life. Clara’s eyes darted around the room until they landed on Nellie, huddled in the corner, her small body barely filling out the threadbare dress she wore. Without a word, Clara strode over, her voice low but sharp.
“Pack your things, Nellie,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “We’re leaving.”
Trudy stood from the chair, her movements slow and uneven. Her face was flushed, and her eyes carried the glassy sheen of drink. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Clara?” she slurred. “You can’t just come barging in here, telling me how to raise my daughter.”
Clara turned, her gaze steady and unyielding. “Oh, can’t I? When that man”—she pointed a rigid finger toward Bill, Trudy’s latest husband—“is looking at her in ways a man his age has no right to be looking at anyone but his wife?” She spat the last word with an edge, emphasizing the utter lack of respect Bill had ever shown for his marriage.
“Bullshit,” Bill muttered from the corner, his breath heavy with drink and smoke.”She loves me, don’t you, little girl,” he gestured towards Nellie who shrank further into the corner.
Trudy’s cheeks flared with anger, or maybe shame—it was hard to tell. “How dare you, Clara,” she said, her voice rising in pitch. “You think you know better than me? You’ve never even raised a child—”
“I’ve raised myself, and that’s more than you’ve done,” Clara snapped back. Her words cut through the room like a knife. “I’ve seen the way he looks at her, and I won’t stand for it. If you’re too blind to see it, then God help you, Trudy. But Nellie is coming with me.”
She grabbed a pillowcase off the bed, shook out the pillow, and began shoving clothes and belongings into it. The little girl didn’t move, didn’t speak—just watched with wide eyes, trembling as the argument unfolded. It certainly wasn’t the first time she’d seen her mother and Aunt fight, but this time was different. There was a finality to it, as though something was breaking that could never be fixed.
As Clara finished packing, she took Nellie’s hand and led her toward the door. “I’m taking her out of here,” she said, her voice quieter but no less firm. “I won’t let her grow up with that man pawing at her.”
Trudy’s voice wavered. “You’ll ruin her,” she spat, though the words came out hollow, as if even she didn’t believe them.
“No,” Clara replied softly, her eyes meeting Trudy’s for one last time. “I’m saving her.”
With that, she walked out the door, Nellie’s small hand still clutched in her own. The tenement behind them seemed to shrink into darkness, a place that had held too much sorrow and too little hope. As they stepped into the night, the cold air bit at their skin, but Clara’s grip was firm and steady.
It wasn’t the first time Clara had rescued someone, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. She had spent years trying to save herself, after all—starting when she was just a girl, only twelve, shipped off to America with her father, uncle, and cousin Ricky. Her father hadn’t even made it through the journey; he died a horrible, drawn out death aboard the ship, leaving Clara alone to navigate a world far crueler than she had ever imagined. Her uncle had done what he could to look out for her, but it was Cousin Ricky who breathed life into her when there was none to be found. With his toothy grin and easy laughter, Cousin Ricky kept her spirits up, even when the conditions on the ship seemed unbearable. It was Cousin Ricky’s laughter that Clara clung to in those first dark days at the Mills, working long hours with little rest, in those months before she had met her dearest Lei.
The Mills provided just enough—enough to send a few dollars back home to Ireland, enough to buy a new hat once a year, and later, enough to drink away the exhaustion. Hats were Clara’s indulgence, her link to a world of elegance she longed for but couldn’t touch. Every year, she’d choose a new one—something proper and refined, like the navy hat she had once seen Sister Brigid wear.
Brigid had been her mother’s dear friend, the one who had taught her to read at the abbey back in Cork. Brigid had been a beacon of elegance and kindness, always carrying herself with grace. Clara had only seen her without the habit once, wearing a simple yet sophisticated hat, navy and trim. That image had stayed with her, a symbol of the life she had wanted for herself. Class. Elegance. Things she couldn’t afford but studied, and envied, from afar.
In Willimantic, Clara became an observer of people– elegant women in particular—how they shopped, what they wore, the way they spoke. There was a woman from on up near the college, a lady she had nicknamed ‘Darlene,’ (cause it sounded like an elegant name) whom Clara had followed more than one Saturday from shop to shop.
Darlene’s every movement spoke of confidence and ease, a life where one didn’t have to scrape and save and beg. Clara had trailed behind her, watching from a distance, imagining what it would be like to step into that world and just buy what you want with ease.
But that wasn’t Clara’s fate. She lived like a pauper in the top-floor attic room of the same tenement, year after year sending as much money as she could back to Ireland. She had hoped to bring all her family over someday, to reunite the family one by one and start all anew. And she did good, bringing Cassidy, and then Trudy, and finally little Caelen. But the dream of having the whole family together shattered when she received the letter telling her that her mother had died before she could make the trip. The news ripped through her heart, leaving a hollow space that drink could only dull, never fill. Her mother had been the one who sent her to Brigid, who had fought so hard to keep the family together even when there was nothing left. Now, both of the anchors in her life—Brigid and her mother—were gone or at least permanently out of her reach.
Clara felt the familiar ache in her chest as she thought of her mother. It was her mother’s fierce love and Brigid’s kindness that had shaped the two tenets of her heart. She had lived for the memory of the two of them, and now she lived for Nellie, the pretty little girl who needed saving from a life that had offered her no kindness.
As they climbed the creaking stairs to the top floor of the tenement, Clara felt the weight of responsibility settle in her bones. She glanced down at Nellie, who was clutching her small bundle of belongings with both hands. The girl was beautiful, even at such a young age—golden curls framing her round face, eyes wide and blue like the sea on a clear day.
“Come on, love,” Clara said, opening the door to their small room. “This is home now.” It wasn’t much, but it was safe, and it was theirs.
She set Nellie’s things down and began to arrange the room as best she could. The little nook where Nellie would sleep was nothing more than a thin mattress pushed against the wall, but Clara did her best to make it feel like a space of her own.
Early on, Clara took it upon herself to teach Nellie to read, determined to pass down all that Sister Brigid had once taught her. They would sit together in the dim light of the evening, a Bible open between them. Clara’s voice was steady as she read aloud, tracing each word with her finger, showing Nellie how to sound out the letters and make sense of the passages. “Words are powerful, girl,” she would say, “They’re like tools, just as important as any skill you learn at the mill. With words, you can shape your own mind, make it sharp enough to cut through anything.”
One afternoon, Clara took Nellie to the big library at the college, a place she had visited only once before. The air inside was cool and smelled faintly of leather and ink, and the shelves seemed to stretch on forever, filled with more books than Nellie had ever imagined. “Anytime you want to come here and read, you go right ahead,” Clara said, her voice firm. “Don’t let anyone make you think you don’t belong. If you want to learn, then you have every right to.” It was a small but significant freedom, a way out of the narrow world the mills had tried to trap them in, and Clara made sure Nellie knew just how important it was to grasp it.
Clara glanced over at the prayer diary lying on the rickety table. She picked it up and flipped to a blank page. The ink seemed to flow slowly, as if even the pen knew the weight of the words it carried.
Clara set the pen down, a sigh escaping her lips. The prayer felt like both a plea and a confession, an acknowledgment of her own limitations. But it was all she could do. She glanced at Nellie, who had fallen asleep in the small nook, curled up like a kitten. With that, she poured herself the last of her brandy. She’d have to collect some bottles tomorrow to try and replace it.
Clara walked over, placing the Prayer Diary back on the table. She gently brushed a stray curl from Nellie’s forehead and whispered, “Sleep well, love. We’ll find a way. I promise.”