Rhoda Wise –Wife, Mother, Mystic, Stigmatic, and Catholic convert (1888-1948)
Rhoda Wise was born on February 22, 1888 and was the sixth child of Eli and Anna Greer (nee Anna Poulson). They eventually had eight children, five boys and three girls. She was born in Cadiz, Ohio, however when she was two they moved to Wheeling, West Virginia. Her father Eli worked in the family trade of bricklaying. Her mother was very patriotic and became involved with the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization which supported the veterans of the Civil War, even serving as a state and a national president for a time.
Her parents were staunchly Protestant and Rhoda grew up in the First Christian Church. There was a definite anti-Catholic bias in the family and among their friends. Rhoda often heard unkind remarks about Catholics and the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, she did have a few Catholic friends.
Incidentally, when she was sixteen, Rhoda had a small encounter with Catholicism. While she was in Wheeling Hospital for an appendicitis operation, she received a visit from a Catholic Sister who gave her a St. Benedict medal. Rhoda explained to Sister that because of her parents dislike for the Catholic Church she would never be allowed to wear it, so Sister put the small medal in Rhoda's locket. Deeply touched by the Sisters kindness, Rhoda kept that hidden medal for the rest of her life.
Rhoda married Ernest Wissmar, a young widower from Canton, Ohio, in November of 1915 and moved to Canton, Ohio Their marriage was not a happy one and ended tragically six months after it began. Ernest suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died at a home where he was doing plaster work on May 16, 1916, leaving Rhoda a widow at twenty eight. She met George Wise soon after Ernest's death and she married him on January 27, 1917. Although she loved him dearly, George was a drinking man