• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

o sing, my soul, St. Catherine's praises, Who for Christ did live and die! The students' saint our church proclaims her And exalts her name on high. Dear St. Catherine, guide our college, Bless our girls where e'er they roam; St. Seraphic, hear our pleading, Watch our ways, and guard our home. In lands where Fame's undying flow'rs Were worn by poet and by sage, She came endowed with rarest pow'rs, The saint and scholar of her age. COlLEGE OF ST. CATHERINE August-November, 1951 100 At ten o'clock on the morning of ing the cabin to be used as a Sisters' immediate needs of that small nucleus, November 3, 18S1, a Community of Chapel and, in the cholera epidemic of blessings which have marked especially four travelworn Sisters of St. Joseph 18S4, as a temporary hospital. Four the lives and work of the more than stepped from the gangplank of a Mis- years later the little log building was one thousand Sisters who in 19S1 sissippi river boat onto St. Paul soil. torn down, and although the actual make up the St. Paul Province of the They picked their way carefully logs were accidentally burned by a Sisters of St. Joseph. through a village of wigwams and log workman oblivious of their historic A placque on a boulder on Kellogg huts, hung up their heavy black capes value, the site of that first school-hos- Boulevard may recall the first Mission- in a small log cabin, and the following pital wherein was begun the work of ary work in the field of Christian edu- week opened their books and began to Catholic education and nursing in cation and care of the sick, but it teach school in what had been original- Minnesota is clearly marked today by would be difficult indeed to define the ly the vestry of the first Cathedral of a pair of placques mounted on either limits of the Sisters' influence in those St. Paul. One hundred years later, to side of a boulder on Kellogg Boulevard fields today. For since that November the very hour, hundreds of Sisters, between Cedar and Minnesota Streets, day when two teachers began to in- spiritual descendants of that same Com- St. Paul. struct fourteen pupils in a poorly-built munity, will gather at the St. Paul At the Centenary Mass on Novem- vestry, the Community, through prayer, Cathedral and at a Pontifical High ber 3, the Sisters of St. Joseph will foresight, and hard work, both mental Mass celebrated by His Excellency, the honor their beginnings in Minnesota, and physical, has established schools, Most Reverend John Gregory Murray, but they will do more than that. With hospitals, and other charitable .institu- will honor the Centenary of their Sis- their friends among the clergy and stu- tions throughout this section of the ters' arrival and of the beginnings of dent and alumnae groups, they will country. Catholic education in the northwest. thank God for the blessings He had be- Their faculty of two, their nursing The Sisters will remember the stories stowed on them, blessings far more staff of four, have become a group of they have heard about how it all start- abundant than those which met the almost IrOO women trained in religious ed, and they will thank God for the and professional ideals; their sprinkling very obvious part He has deigned to of fourteen students have become the play in their Community's progress. 'On Good Ground' countless men, women, and children That handful of Sisters, on disem- who, at one time or another through- barking from the St. Paul, which had Out November 3 out these hundred years, have been carried them from their small Mother- The University of Minnesota Press taught or nursed or sheltered in the house in Carondelet, Missouri, were announces it will publish ON GOOD Community's institutions - seven high giving themselves to real pioneer coun- GROUND The Story of the Sisters of schools, a conservatory, a college, and try. They had come as Religious from St. Joseph in St. Paul by Sister Helen five hospitals; or in the Diocesan in- the South, and there was here no real Angela Hurley in November. The stitutions in which the Sisters serve- convent; they had come to teach school, price will be $3.7S. Publication of the SI grade schools, four high schools, a and there was here no real school. As book will coincide with the observance seminary, two orphanages, and an in- they walked along over the frozen mud on November 3, 19S1 of the centennial fant home. paths, past groups of staring Indians, anniversary of the arrival of the first So it is in gratitude for the achieve- they surely envisioned being scalped or Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Paul. ment of a century that the Sisters will tomahawked or torn to shreds by one The Ioo-year history of the congre- assist at the Pontifical Mass on Satur- animal or another; and when they gation reflects much of the regional day morning. And in the hope that reached the story-and-a-half shanty that history of Minnesota and North Da- alumnae of The College of St. Cath- was to be their convent, they foresaw, kota where the sisters have carried on erine will join in their thanksgiving, too, all the cold and hunger and snow- their work. They came to St. Paul they extend to all members of the As- bound isolation that would accompany just two years after Minnesota became sociation an invitation to be present that Minnesota winter of 18S!. a territory when the region was still with them then. But with God's grace and their own an Indian frontier. Many significant Assisting His Excellency, Archbishop strong faith and love, they hung on. and colorful facts in the history of the Murray, will be the Very Reverend They took root and began to grow. diocese of St. Paul and the state of George E. Ryan, Archpriest; the Very And so did their work. When the Sis- Minnesota, until now hidden away in Reverend R. G. Bandas, S.T.M., and ters rang the school bell on that first various archives, are here published for the Very Reverend Louis J. McCarthy, Monday morning after their arrival, the first time. PhD., Deacons of Honor; the Very fourteen St. Paul children enrolled as Among the many foundations which :Reverend Gerald O'Keefe and the pupils in St. Joseph's School. There the author describes with lively realism, Reverend James Lavin, Deacon and were in the school two teachers; one humor, and pathos, The College of St. Subdeacon, respectively; the Reverend taught in English and one, in French. Catherine stands out in bold relief. It John P. Sankovitz and the Reverend· By the next September a two-story is the central part of a discerning char- Joseph E. Bender, Masters of Cere- brick school was ready for use, and in- acter-study of Mother Antonia Mc- monies. The Archbishop will also to it students and teachers moved, leav- (Continued on page IS) preach the sermon. Page T/lree Adult Classes Open; $81,506 Deposited by College Program Listed Adult Evening Classes at The Col- As Three Year Drive Ends lege of St. Catherine for 1951-1952 started September 25. Climaxing three years of work, $81,- The meeting was held in conjunc- The tentative program for this first 506,34 was turned over to the College tion with the All-Alumnae Reunion, quarter includes Christian Family Liv- Building Fund at the thirty-fourth an- June 9-IO. Lois Gruenenfelder, retiring ing, Religion Faculty; Ceramics, Peter nual business meeting of the Alumnae president, welcomed all alumnae, with Lupori; Contemporary World Affairs, Association, June 9. This brings to a a special greeting for the classes of History Faculty; The Modern Novel, close the direct fund drive; however 1921, 1931, 1941 and 1926 whose anni- Sister Mary William; and Meal Plan- fifty-six separate projects are still in- versary year it was. ning-Marketing, Sister James Agnes. complete. These include the cookbook, The place of the alumnae in the his- The second quarter, February 5-May the sale of '51 engagement calendars, tory of the Congregation of St. Joseph 29, will include Catholic Apologetics, record albums, magazines and many was cited by Mother Antonine in her Health Lectures, Interior Decoration, projects carried out by individual greeting. With the alumnae of all chapters. Musical Literature, and Social Psychol- classes back to participate in the cele- ogy with instructors to be arranged. bration of the Centennial of the congre- Classes are held on Tuesday and gation in Minnesota, Mother told them Thursday evenings in Mendel Hall. that they symbolized the achievement Registration blanks will be sent on re- Lupori Paintings of the past century, from the time that quest. the sisters came up the river to start For further information regarding Sold Through Bookstore the first Catholic schools and hospitals Saturday classes for adults or the in the terri tory. above-mentioned evening classes, please Mr. Peter Lupori, member of the The need of the college for its alum- write or call Sister Laurent, Director faculty of the Art Department at the nae was also brought out by Mother. of Adult Evening Classes at the col- College, and a well-known artist, in She pointed out that the financial status lege. response to numerous requests, has of the college depends on the alumnae. consented to do several tempera paint- Salaries and maintenance of buildings (ana Day Planned ings which will 'be available through run into hundreds of thousands of dol- the Book Store at the college.

Load more

  21

Copy Link