On September 27, 1878, Mother Maddalena and her little Community began living in a small house, shortly after arriving in Omaha. One of the four rooms, only six feet wide, was set aside to be the oratory. A tiny altar was there, and a few small, unvarnished tin candlesticks completed the altar furniture. When three days after their occupation of the house the bishop visited them, he said: I believe St. Francis will not be able to complain of you. And he continued: I desire that you have the Blessed Sacrament. Mother Maddalena wrote: Imagine our contentment, but also our sorrow, because the little altar was made of the box which had served as a covering for the sewing machine shipped from New York, the frontal was a covering like one uses to cover horses in winter, the altar cloth was a novice veil, on which we had sewed some lace.