Monica Baldwin (1893–1975)

Like the title implies, Monica Baldwin spent twenty-eight years of her life in a Roman Catholic convent. She had thought she wanted to give her life to God until one day...she didn't. So after twenty-eight years, she left. Just like that. The first order of business "on the outside" was for Baldwin to find suitable clothes for the outside world. The second critical task was to secure suitable employment. The first was easier than the second considering England was in the midst of World War II. Baldwin struggled as a gardener, a matron at a camp for female munitions workers, a canteen cook, and a librarian. At heart she was always a writer. I Leap Over the Wall was meant to be a journalistic memoir, contrasting and comparing the structured life of being a nun to the haphazardness of the outside. Readers get a sense of how structured Baldwin's life had been on the inside: the day to day duties of a novice and even the caste-like division of the monastic houses. Despite this structure, something she thought she needed, Baldwin knew from the very beginning that entering the convent was a mistake. It took her twenty-eight years to seek rescript from the Vatican.… (meer)

394. I Leap Over the Wall: Contrasts and Impressions After Twenty-Eight Years in a Convent, by Monica Baldwin (read 19 Nov 1951) I started this book in August, and after completing boot camp in the Navy finished it on 19 Nov 1951. It is a strange and most interesting book. I was most fascinated by the author's references to mystical writers and the means used by contemplatives to advance in holiness. I would like to read St John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, etc. I wonder if I would get anything out of them. All in all this book is more likely to foster vocations than imperil them, I am sure. It is disconnected, discursive as such a book must be if it is to appeal to much of an audience. I would have preferred not such a 'written-down' account of her convent life. But of course again she had her potential readers to consider.… (meer)

4525. The Called and the Chosen The Diary of Sister Ursula Auberon Enclosed Nun at the Abbaye De La Sainte Croix, Framleghen, by Monica Baldwin (read 12 Jan 2009) I was much impressed by Monica Baldwin's autobniography which I finished reading on Nov 19, 1951, and have never forgotten. When I learned she had written a novel, I knew I had to read it. It draws heavily on her own life. Sister Ursula at 17 enters a convent in Belgium, and the account of her time there is well-told, including her struggles with her vocation, and some of the successes of her life in the convent. She is transferred to a convent in England, and I was hoping the novel would end affirmatively. The book is well-written, and I found it often inspiring.… (meer)