CONVERSION | Why Did Hone and HvS Become Catholics? (Updated May 19, 2018)

"Evie Hone" by Hilda van Stockum. National
Gallery of Art. Used here by permission of the
Estate of Hilda van Stockum.

May 19, 2018 – My Sister Brigid Marlin Just Told Me:   Nano Reid, another art student in Dublin who went on to a successful career as an artist, was part of the religious discussion that carried HvS and Hone into the Catholic Church. In Reid's case, she remained in the Church of Ireland.

February 2019 – From James Robinson: "I have just read [your] rather interesting note about St John’s, Sandymount. Fr S.R.S.Colquhoun did not become a bishop, in fact he was prosecuted by the Church for High Church Practices. The Church of Ireland definitely did not want reunion with Rome. Many English Anglo-Catholics wanted this. St John's was a miniscule minority of High Church in a generally very low church protestant Church."

Mar 31, 2017: Thank you, James Robinson. I have made the corrections. (Fr Colquhoun must have been in Monsignor garb, not episcopal.) These comments help assemble the full story! I have added my email address at the end of this post.

I have previously noted on this blog site that my mother, Hilda van Stockum, in 1938 followed Evie Hone into the Roman Catholic Church, just as Evie Hone earlier followed Hilda van Stockum into the art world. (Evie asked Hilda, who was already an established artist, what she thought of her art and Hilda was enthusiastic about Evie's first stained-glass attempts and encouraged her to make this her career).

Evie and Hilda were introduced, says my eldest sister Olga, by Fr Colquhoun, as I noted in 2014. 

Now I have a better idea of what might have precipitated the formal conversion of both Evie Hone and Hilda van Stockum to the Roman Catholic Church. 

They must have been outraged at the witch-hunt of Fr Colquhoun for being too High Church for Church of Ireland members of his own St. John's congregation in Sandymount, Dublin.

My interpretation of what happened is that the two of them turned their back on the Church of Ireland and embraced what the witch-hunters most feared, namely an exit to the Church of Rome. HvS took her mother and her children, who would number six (five living as of May 19, 2018), with her...

References: Rev. S. R. S. Colquhoun, of St John's church, Sandymount, Dublin, was suspended. The Sandymount church had long been noted for Its High Church tendencies. Winnipeg Tribune — https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/37434158/ 

The formal name of the Sandymount church was Saint John the Evangelist, Sandymount, Dublin 4. St. John's is a Church of Ireland church. (My mother always told me I was named after St. John the Evangelist, not St. John the Baptist. She may have been naming me after this church!) https://www.facebook.com/Saint-John-the-Evangelist-Sandymount-Dublin-4-249177.

The case against the Read S.R.S. Colquhoun, incumbent since 1930 of St John's, Sandymount, Dublin, began with a petition started in 1934, the year Hilda van Stockum first became famous as a writer, winning one of the two Newbery Honor Roll awards that were given out in 1935 along with the Newbery Medal. It was also the year her first child, Olga E. Marlin, was born in New York City. The E initial in Olga's name is for Emily MacDonnell, HvS's Anglo-Irish grandmother. The Irish Protestant Churches in the Twentieth Century. https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0230288510 A. Megahey.

The vicar of St John's church in Sandymount, Dublin, the Rev SRS Colquhoun, was suspended for six months in 1937 for High Church Practices. (In 1937, that might have been the equivalent of being burned at the stake.) https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/october-30th-1937-1.670455?mode=amp

If you have another piece of this puzzle to add, I can be reached directly at jtmarlin[at]post.harvard.edu.🙏

Related Posts: "The Vocation of Women" http://hildavanstockum.blogspot.com/2012/03/hilda-van-stockum-and-vocation-of-women.html.

HvS NATIONALITY | What Was Her Citizenship? Religion? (Updated March 19, 2016)

Hilda van Stockum with Fr. Potter and the Catholic
prayer group that met in her Hertfordshire
home in the 1990s.

I just saw an Evi Q&A with this question, followed by a Wrong Answer, so I thought I should clear it up.

Was Hilda van Stockum Irish, Dutch, British, American, Canadian or What?

Hilda van Stockum was Dutch from her birth in Rotterdam in 1908 until her naturalization as an American citizen on May 5, 1936. (She married an American, E. R. "Spike" Marlin in Ireland in 1932, where she had been an art student.) Her naturalization certificate is shown below.

She was an American citizen from 1936 until 1995, the year after her husband died. When her husband was working for the United Nations, she and her children lived in Montreal, Canada; Blackrock and Dalkey, Dublin, Ireland; and Sceaux, outside Paris, France. She moved in 1973 with her husband to Berkhamsted, Herts., England to be near three of her daughters and their children. From 1995, after her husband died, to her death in 2006, she was a British citizen.

Naturalization of Hilda Gerarda van Stockum Marlin as an American citizen on May 5, 1936.
Image © by the Estate of Hilda van Stockum. Published here by permission of the estate.

Bottom line: She was Dutch for 26 years, American for 59 years, and British for 11 years. But she was married in Ireland, and spent more time at art school in Dublin than in art school in Holland, and she is considered an Irish artist more than a Dutch artist. It seems you are identified by the nationality of those who appreciate you most, which makes sense.

What religion was Hilda van Stockum before she became Roman Catholic?

She was brought up in Holland by two parents who were nominally Dutch Reformed Protestants, but neither of whom practiced their religion. Her mother was from an old Huguenot family in Holland but was more of a philosopher than a faithful member of a congregation; her father was a navy captain with unorthodox religious views. HvS was a member of the Church of Ireland during her early married years. She went to meetings of the Oxford Group with her husband, and wrote about her debt to the Group as well as its limitations from her perspective. Finally she converted to Roman Catholicism in 1939, when her eldest daughter Olga was five. A more complete story is here.