by Sister Elizabeth Marie, C. S. J. $1.50 85 ACADEMY FOR A CENTURY SAINT JOSEPH'S ACADEMY ACADEMY for a Century A History of Saint Joseph's Academy Located in Saint Paul, Minnesota by SISTER ELIZABETH MARIE, C.S.J. Illustrations by SISTER AVILA, C.S.J. UBRARY OF ST. JOSEPH'S ACADEMY SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA THE NORTH CENTRAL PUBLISHING COMPANY ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA IMPRIMATUR 44 JOANNES GREGORIUS MURRAY Archiepiscopus Sancti Pauli Paulopoli die 7a Julii, 1951 Copyright 1951 by SAINT JOSEPH'S ACADEMY Dedicated to the Alumnae who have carried the spirit of the Academy to all parts of the world 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my sincere thanks to His Excellency, the Most Reverend John Gregory Murray, S.T.D., for his careful reading of the manuscript, for the inspiring introduction which he wrote and for his imprimatur; to Mother Eucharista for per- mission to publish this history of Saint Joseph's Academy; to Mother Clara for her critical reading of it; to Sister Avila for the illustrations; to Sister DeChantal, Sister Febronia, Miss Clara Glenn and the Minnesota Historical Society for their helpful research; and to Sister Constance Marie for proof reading. SISTER ELIZABETH MARIE, C.S.J. CONTENTS Introduction 3 Forehistory . 5 CHAPTER I The Log School on Bench Street . 8 CHAPTER II The Country School on Saint Anthony Hill . 15 CHAPTER HI The Expanding School on Nelson Avenue . 19 CHAPTER IV The Day School on Marshall Avenue . 28 CHAPTER V The Complete Academy . 50 Appendix . 81 ACADEMY FOR A CENTURY INTRODUCTION IN THIS modest booklet the author gives the reader a glimpse of various events in the century-long life of the oldest Catholic educational institution in the Province of Saint Paul. The contribution made to the young women who have been pupils of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet is beyond estimation in human terms inasmuch as the goal set for them- selves by the teachers is the cultivation of the soul in the know- ledge, love and service of God and man. Both the learned and the unlearned, young and old, teacher and pupil have this com- mon purpose in fulfilment of the design of God in inviting all of us to become His companions in time and eternity. In the endeavor to attain this end the primary emphasis in the process is placed on the formation of character. Our ultimate achievement in the estimation of our fellowmen as well as in the judgment of God is determined by what we are rather than by what we know. These principles of educational activity have dominated the daily lives of the Sisters of Saint Joseph in the service given on the staff of Saint Joseph's Academy with the result that the alumnae in their daily lives are the most competent exponents of the culture which has enriched the life of the Church and of human society in the Northwest. The limitations that the Sisters had to face and the obstacles they endeavored to overcome went into the formation of char- acter of the religious themselves as well as into the development 3 of the wisdom and fortitude of their intellectual offspring. Felicitations and appreciation of the service given to the ad- vancement of the kingdom of Christ in the souls of all who have come under the influence of the Sisters come spontaneously from all who have had the opportunity to observe the fruits of a century. July eighth, 1951. JOHN GREGORY MURRAY, Archbishop of Saint Paul. 4 FOREHISTORY FOUR CANONIZED saints and two very holy men had part in the first clothing of the Sisters of Saint Joseph which took place on the feast of Saint Teresa, October 15, 1650, in the chapel of a little orphan asylum of LePuy, in Velay, France, when several pious ladies who desired to unite the active and contemplative life became the nucleus of the Congregation. The Reverend Pierre Medaille, S. J., a famous missionary, while giving missions in various parts of France had met many young women who wished to be religious and, also, to exercise the works of charity; so he furnished the first postulants to the new institute and gave them their initial religious training. Hav- ing been brought up in the school of Saint Francis Regis, Father Medaille imitated his master by fostering pious confraternities of women. Msgr. Henry Couchon de Maupas du Tour, Bishop of Puy, gave the habit to this first group, called them Sisters of Saint Joseph, approved of their plan of combining the active and contemplative life, and with Father Medaille, formu- lated their first rules. The in- spiration of de Maupas' work was Saint Vincent de Paul who trained him to see the need of works of charity. The idea of religious women com- bining the active and con- 5 templative life originated with Saint Francis de Sales whose wish was frus- trated in his effort to extend the founda- tions of the Visitandines but was ful- filled by the Sisters of Saint Joseph. Saint Ignatius Loyola had his part in this foundation in that some of the rules were drawn from his constitutions. Louis XIV having confirmed by letters patent the first estab- lishments of the Congregation in Velay, the Sisters were asked for by Bishops in many dioceses in France. During the French Revolution their houses were pillaged, their records destroyed and many of the religious were thrown into prison. In 1793, Sister St. Julien Gamier and Sister Alexis Payrad suffered death for their faith. On June 16, 1794, Sister Anne Marie Gamier and Sister Marie Aubert were guillotined in a town of the Department of Haute-Loire. At Privas, August 5, 1794, Mother Ste. Croix Vincent, Sister Madeleine Senovert and Sister Marie Toussaint Demoulin were, also, executed. When the Church began to revive in France, the religious crept from their hiding places. Mother St. John Fontbonne, formerly superior of the house at Monistrol, who had been imprisoned at St. Didier, who had escaped by the fall of Robe- spierre and had been since living with her parents, became the foundress of the reunited Sisters of Saint Joseph. Of the reconstructed communities of Saint Joseph, one of those destined to greatest development was that of Lyons. It was from this house under the generalship of Mother St. John that the first six Sisters were sent to the United States in 1836. They made their first permanent settlement in America at Carondelet, Missouri, thus giving these Sisters of St. Joseph their title "of Carondelet." They had come at the request of Msgr. Joseph Rosati, first Bishop of Saint Louis, and at the pressing request 6 of the Countess de la Rochejaquelin, who having learned from the Propagation of the Faith of the great need of missions among the Indians and among the white settlers, gave her jewels to finance the expedition. From this foundation, numerous houses were established. The Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet now has five provinces: Saint Louis, Missouri; St. Paul, Minnesota; Troy, New York; Los Angeles, California; and Augusta, Geor- gia; with about 3500 religious engaged mainly in education and hospital work. 7 I. THE LOG SCHOOL on Bench Street, 1851-1863 ON THE NIGHT of November 2, 1851, the steamboat, Saint Paul, brought to the frontier village of that same name four Sisters of Saint Joseph. Six days earlier they had left Carondelet, Mis- souri, sent by Mother Celestine Pommerel who believed she was founding an Indian mission. They had arrived at the request of the Right Reverend Joseph Cretin, first Bishop of St. Paul, who had become acquainted with the work of the Sisters of Saint Joseph many years before when he was a young priest in the parish of Ferney, France. The four Sisters were Mother St. John Fournier and Sister Philomene Villaine who had come from France; Sister Scholastica Velasquez, a French and Spanish Creole; and Sister Francis Joseph Ivory whose home was in Loretto, Pennsylvania. At ten o'clock on the morning of November 3 when a French cleric came to conduct them to the home of Madame Eulalie Turpin, who was to give them hospitality for the day, they stepped from the boat into a small village of wigwams and log huts, surrounded by snow- covered bluffs and hugging 1-1.11 the edge of a river filled with floating ice — into a popula- tion of something over a thou- sand souls, mainly half-breed Indians and French-Cana- dians, with a sprinkling of Irish and Swiss. By evening _ their convent, which had pre- 8 viously been the Bishop's home and after that a seminary, was ready for them. It was a log shanty one and one-half stories high facing the river. It had two rooms on the ground floor — par- lor and refectory, an attic for a dormitory, and an annex which served as a kitchen. On Monday morning, one week after their arrival, the Sisters opened a school dedicated to Saint Joseph in the vestry of what had been Saint Paul's first Cathedral. It was a log church (located a little to the right of the convent) built by Father Lucien Galtier in 1841 of tamarack logs, and roofed with bark- covered slabs brought from Stillwater. School opened in the vestry of the church with two teachers — Sister Francis Joseph for English and Sister Philomene for French — and fourteen pupils. The first pupil registered was Lizzie Cox, who later became Mrs. E. L. Hannigan of Duluth. The first boarders were Mary Fridley, daughter of Major Fridley of the Indian Agency whose acquaintance the Sisters had made on the boat; and Martha Rice, a niece of the Honorable H.