In late 1979 the Diocese of Cleveland Latin American Mission Team (CLAM Team), serving in parishes in El Salvador since 1964, answered Monseñor Romero’s request to help with the exploding population of refugees fleeing the violence of the war in the country-side.

Sr. Christine Rody, SC, set-up a camp for survivors of a village massacre. Sr. Dorothy Kazel, OSU, and Jean Donovan, Maryknoll lay missioner, helped to ferry refugees from outlying camps to the safer camps closer to San Salvador. They took some of them even further in toward safety – to Fr. Ken Myers.

Fr. Ken took in the orphaned and abandoned small children at his parish at Zaragoza. The “Casa Comunal” he built to house them (one large room attached to the parish hall) eventually became the COAR of today.

Dorothy had lived at Zaragoza until safety dictated she move to Cleveland’s parish at La Libertad. But she continued to visit her old parish and help Ken.

>> Inside the Casa Comunal. The child in the foreground, like children in most pictures from the early days, has had her head shaved to treat lice.

 

On December 2, 1980, Sr. Dorothy and Jean Donovan went to the airport to pick-up two Maryknoll sisters who also worked with refugees, Ita Ford and Maura Clark. Because of their work with refugees, all four North American churchwomen were abducted by the army, tortured, and murdered. Their bodies were found two days later. The murders shocked the country and the world.