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Honoring the 1930s
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1934 TIN G 85
Benedictines establish Marmion Academy: “A School of the Lord’s Service” In 1933, when the local bishop, the Most Reverend Edward Hoban, was looking for a religious community to staff the Fox Valley Catholic High School for Boys on Lake Street in Aurora, he turned to the Benedictines of St. Meinrad Abbey. Abbot Ignatius Esser and the monks of St. Meinrad Abbey decided on April 20, 1933 to accept Bishop Hoban’s offer to take over the Aurora school. At that time the school’s name was changed to “Marmion Academy” in honor of the late Abbot Columba Marmion, O.S.B., of Maredsous Abbey, Belgium. On September 12, 1933, the new Marmion Academy welcomed its first students for classes at the Lake Street Campus (pictured right). Formerly under the Augustinian Friars as Fox Valley School for Boys, Benedictine monks from St. Meinrad Abbey and Jasper Academy in Indiana took over administration of the school in the academic year 1933-34. As this was the heart of the Great Depression, many families struggled to provide for the tuition ($5 at the time) and uniforms at the Academy, the monks decided to partner with the U.S. Government to establish a military training which would in exchange provide instructors and uniforms for all students. To reflect the military addition, Headmaster Norbert Spitzmesser OSB changed the name of the school to Marmion Military Academy much to the chagrin of Abbot Ignatius Esser OSB who advocated that the name be simplified to Marmion stating that “Marmion is a wonderful name all by itself…Why shouldn’t the little name Marmion stand for a big thing in time?”
3The Marmion faculty and
student body in its first year, 1933-1934.