19 minute read
From the Leadership Circle
from 2022 Summer DOME
by ursulineslou
Rooted and Reaching
In reflecting on roots and reaching out, I am immediately drawn to the gospel and our charism. Our life must be centered on the life and teachings of Jesus if we are serious about reaching out to others in love, service, hospitality and compassion. Jesus invites us to be in an intimate relationship with Him and God—to be rooted in that relationship in order to reflect and reach out to others in sharing that love relationship.
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As Pope Francis said in his book, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future: “The firm center of Christianity is the essential proclamation, the kerygma. It means that God loved me and gave himself up for me. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His love on the Cross, are what calls us to be missionary disciples, inviting us to recognize each other as brothers and sisters of the larger human family, and especially of those who feel themselves orphans. As the Beatitudes and Matthew chapter 25 show us, the principle of salvation is fulfilled in the compassion we demonstrate.”
This is the gospel mandate—this is what we are invited to embrace and to ask of God, to allow this gift of love to take deep root in our hearts and reach out to others.
We, the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, express it a bit differently in our charism: “A contemplative love of God resulting in an openness and eagerness to serve the needs of others.” The awareness and intentionality of embracing God’s unconditional love, and abiding in that love, touches us at the deepest level and opens our hearts for the capacity to reach out and serve the needs of others. And the reaching out to others is beyond our comfort zone. So where is the need we are to serve and who are the people to whom we reach? The immigrant neighbor, the alienated family member, the friend struggling with cancer, the stranger in the homeless shelter, and many others who are in need and waiting for a response of love, compassion and generosity.
Throughout our history and the spread of our vow of teaching Christian living, we have been able to touch the lives of many persons and respond to their needs because of God’s fidelity and the support of many donors and friends. For all of us, it begins at our baptism, when God calls us into that deep relationship that needs to be nurtured to take root, thus branching out and touching the lives of others, no matter where and what the need is.
God be with you in love.
By 1858, the city of Louisville, established on the banks of the Ohio River, was rapidly expanding with many French, Irish and German immigrants who were eager to raise their children in the Catholic faith. That same year, Bishop Martin J. Spalding, of Louisville, sent Father Leander Streber, a native of Bavaria, back to his home country to recruit Sisters to teach children of German immigrants at the school at St. Martin Parish.
Enter Mother Salesia Reitmeier, a young and talented Ursuline Sister of Straubing, Bavaria, who answered the call to travel to Louisville, Kentucky, in the “New World.” Mother Salesia, age 26, was accompanied by two other Ursulines, Sister Pia Schoenhofer, also 26, and Sister Maximilian Zwinger, who was 50 years old.1
With the equivalent of $22.50 total for traveling expenses and seed money for a convent, Mother Salesia and her two companions arrived in Louisville on October 31, 1858. They made their home in a tiny frame house on East Campbell Street in Louisville, near St. Martin’s, and then set to work. Sister Pia, academic directress, applied for incorporation as an educational
Mother Salesia Reitmeier, Sister Pia Schoenhofer, Sister Maximilian Zwinger St. Martin of Tours School, 1889 Ursuline Sisters of Louisville Timeline
Ursuline Convent in Straubing, Bavaria, opens.
Angela Merici founds the Company of Saint Ursula in Brescia, Italy. The Louisville Ursulines receive “incorporation in perpetuity” as Ursuline Society and Academy of Education (USAE). The Sisters establish a new school in the parish of Sts. Peter and Paul in Cumberland, Maryland.
1691
The Sisters found Ursuline Academy of the Immaculate Conception on East Chestnut Street in Louisville.
A new convent and chapel are built at Chestnut and Shelby streets. Mother Salesia dies at age 36.
1859 1868
Sisters begin staffing schools in Illinois, spreading the mission of the Ursulines. 1872
1535 1858
Three Ursuline Sisters from Straubing arrive in Louisville to teach children of German immigrants at St. Martin of Tours school.
1864 1870 1874
Five Sisters were sent to staff Mount St. Joseph Academy in Daviess County, Kentucky.
institution. On January 12, 1864, the institute was incorporated in perpetuity, and was able to confer academic honors under the title, “Ursuline Society and Academy of Education.”
Within ten years, the Sisters had established a grade school for girls; a high school—Ursuline Academy of the Immaculate Conception (1859–1972) that took boarders; a training school for teachers; a novitiate, and built a small convent and chapel.2 All of this had been accomplished during the Civil War era, when food was scarce and prices were high, making it exceedingly difficult to maintain the boarding school.Sadly, Mother Salesia took ill from worry and shock over a wall collapse during the construction of a larger chapel, and died.3
At the time of Mother Salesia’s death in 1868, at age 36, the community numbered thirty professed Sisters, six novices and five postulants, and the Sisters oversaw five parochial schools and the academy. The early parochial schools they directed were St. Mary’s School (1861) on Eighth Street in West Louisville; Corpus Christi School (1864) in Newport, Kentucky; St. Aloysius in Covington, Kentucky (1866); St. Joseph School (1867) and St. Peter’s School (1868), in Louisville. These first few schools laid the foundation that would take the Ursulines of Louisville across the United States.
Mother Martina Nicklas, the second mother superior, continued
The Sisters purchase 10 acres of land on Workhouse Road (now Lexington Road). On October 4, the Sisters open the Academy of the Sacred Heart for grades 1-12 on the property. 1877
Sisters begin staffing schools in Missouri. 1883
New construction begins on Sacred Heart Academy following construction of Ursuline Academy in 1900. 1903
Sisters begin staffing schools in Ohio and West Virginia, and their ministry spread, even during World War I. 1915
1881
Sisters begin staffing schools in Tennessee, at the request of pastors in that state.
1895
Thirteen Louisville Ursulines establish an independent Ursuline foundation in Paola, Kansas.
1912
Louisville Ursulines in Daviess County establish an independent Ursuline foundation—the Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph.
1916
Sisters begin staffing schools in Nebraska under the leadership of Mother Angela Leininger.
Continued from page 5 the work of expansion for the community, both in novices and schools. Part of that expansion included Cumberland, Maryland, situated on the state border, 75 miles east of Morgantown, West Virginia. In 1869, correspondence between Father Cyril Knoll, O.C.C. and Mother Martina “eventually resulted in the establishment of an Ursuline school in the parish of Sts. Peter and Paul.” 4 Over 100 Ursulines of Louisville came from Cumberland, including Sisters Rita Dressman, Catherine Franze, Kathleen Neely and Mary Martha Staarman. Over 250 Ursulines ministered at Sts. Peter and Paul/St. John Neumann School between 1870 and 2000. Sister Rita Dressman was the last Ursuline to have served at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish (2007), and Sister Eileen Carney was the last Ursuline Sister to leave Cumberland, in 2010.
Requests continued to come in from pastors in several different states for these excellent teachers, and thus the Ursulines were sent. Other parish schools the Ursulines taught at during this period of expansion (1872-1886) included schools in Lafayette, Logansport, Madison and Peru, all in Indiana; and in Illinois the following towns: Germantown, Mascoutah, Columbia, Bloomington, Edwardsville, Metamora, El Paso, Peking, Minonk, Ottawa, Henry, and Lincoln. They also taught in East Liberty, Pennsylvania.5
Concurrently, Mother Martina authorized the purchase of land in 1877 on Workhouse Road (now Lexington Road). That same year, in a three-story mansion on the estate, the Sisters opened the Academy of the Sacred Heart, also known as Sacred Heart Academy (SHA), which was a coed school for students in grades one through twelve. Students attended from the
The Ursuline Motherhouse is completed on Cherokee Drive (now Lexington Road).
Sisters take care of soldiers at Camp Taylor during the flu epidemic. Sacred Heart Academy burns to the ground in April. No lives are lost.
1917
Sacred Heart Junior College opens on Lexington Road and later becomes Ursuline College. On the Lexington Road campus, Sisters house refugees from the Great Flood of the Ohio River, which occured during The Great Depression.
1921 1937
Straubing Ursulines Caecilia Staemmer and Seraphina Winkler flee political oppression in Germany and come to live with the Louisville Ursulines for several years. 1938
1918 1936
Sisters begin staffing schools in South Carolina under the leadership of Mother Petra Garthoeffner.
1938
South Carolina Ursulines join with Louisville.
1938
Sacred Heart Junior College expands to a four-year college for women renamed Ursuline College under the leadership of Mother Roberta Zehe.
1. Sister Mary Blanche Hirschbuehl with pupils at St. Boniface in Evansville,
Indiana, early 20th Century 2. Sacred Heart Convent, Conemaugh, Pennsylvania. Front Row: Unknown
Sister, Sisters Leonita Reichert and Mary Ellen Flynn. Back Row: Sisters
Margaret Larner, Antoinette Johmann, Florence Stanley, and Angelina Geis 3. Louisville Ursulines at Mount St. Joseph Academy, Daviess County, Kentucky 4. Sister Ruth Clemens (L) and Sister Dolores Ackermann (R) on a picnic in
Sidney, Nebraska surrounding countryside and paid a small tuition fee that, together with proceeds from selling farm products, gave the Sisters their only source of income. By 1887, all the boarding students from Ursuline Academy had moved to SHA, the new school “in the country” and Ursuline Academy enrolled only day students.
In 1874, Father Paul Joseph Volk established a new school, Mount St. Joseph Academy, near Owensboro, Kentucky, and asked for five Ursulines to staff it. Sisters Pia Schoenhofer, Xavier Wurm, Johanna Froeba, Martina Greineder and Margaret Allgeier were sent, and unknown to them at the time, this marked the beginning of a profound change in the community.6 Several years later, in 1912, after much emotional debate, these Sisters separated from the Louisville Ursulines to form their own autonomous community—The Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph.
In 1881, Sister Pia Schoenhofer was elected as the third mother superior of the community, which now numbered 108 members that served at 20 schools. During this time, there was much debt and financial hardship, but the Sisters persevered. 1883 marked the silver jubilee of the community, with three days of celebration. In 1884, Mother Pia chose to return to her homeland of Bavaria, and the direct link between Louisville and Bavaria was broken until the twentieth century, when the bonds were renewed.
In 1890, Sister Florence Meder became mother superior, and at the request of Bishop William George McCloskey, she withdrew teachers from other states to meet the needs of local schools in Louisville. In 1897, the Ursulines were asked to take charge of St. Joseph’s Orphanage (now St. Joseph Children’s Home), serving as both teachers and house parents there. Over 160 Ursuline Sisters of Louisville served at St. Joseph’s Orphanage for 113 years (1897-2010).
Another school the Ursulines took charge of was St. Boniface in Louisville, in 1898. The Sisters walked to the school from the convent
Continued from page 7 at Chestnut and Shelby streets. Many vocations came from this parish, and this commitment came full circle with the establishment of Nativity Academy at St. Boniface in 2003, with Sister Paula Kleine-Kracht as the first administrator.
At the start of the twentieth century, Mother Theodore Guethoff was busy with new construction in Louisville for Ursuline Academy and Sacred
Heart Academy. She received another call to staff a new school in Cumberland, Maryland. Saint Mary, a co-ed high school, had its largest enrollment of 420 students in the 1950s. In 1959, the pastor announced that the school would merge with Ursuline Academy at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, and it would be an all-girls school.
In addition to staffing the schools in Cumberland, the Sisters traveled to nearby towns in Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to teach catechism to children enrolled in public schools on Saturday mornings and during the summer months.
Starting in 1908, the Louisville Ursulines taught at St. Peter Claver parish school, in the Smoketown
In 1914, Mother Angela Leininger was elected superior of the Ursulines. A former directress of Sacred Heart Academy for fifteen years, she jumped at the request of Monsignor Anton Link of Nebraska for teachers. Sisters at this time were teaching in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, but Mother Angela was convinced that the educational ideal of Angela should be carried as far as possible, and thus the Ursulines went westward.
neighborhood of Louisville, teaching Black children at a time when their schooling was “separate but equal” under the law; but in reality, the schooling for most Black children was far from equal.
In 1914, Mother Angela Leininger was elected superior of the Ursulines. A former directress of Sacred Heart Academy for fifteen years, she jumped at the request of Monsignor Anton Link of Nebraska for teachers. Sisters at this time were teaching in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, but Mother Angela was convinced that the educational ideal of Angela should be carried as far as possible, and thus the Ursulines went westward.
The first missionaries to Nebraska left Louisville on December 28, 1915. Five Sisters, accompanied by Mother Angela, stepped off the train into 40 degrees below zero weather, a sharp contrast to the moderate climate in Louisville they had left behind! They lived in a two-story frame house that had no fuel, no furniture, nothing that resembled a convent. This did not stop these brave Sisters; they immediately started a boarding school and day school. When school began on January 10, 1916, they already had 48 pupils, 28 of whom were boarders.8
Tragically, back home in Louisville, a fire destroyed Sacred Heart Academy in 1918. Miraculously, no lives were lost, and the beautiful new chapel was untouched. Boarders and students had to study in St. Angela Hall, the original mansion on the property. The new Motherhouse was also used after the fire for students.
Mother Angela pushed on. She sent $6,000 to construct another boarding school in Nebraska and sent five more teachers to staff it. She also opened a boarding school in North Platte, and soon thereafter, the Louisville Ursulines staffed schools in the Nebraska cities of Rushville, South Sioux, Omaha, O’Connor and Sidney.
One of the Sisters called to South Sioux, Nebraska, was Sister Mary Claire Mountrey. She was called to leave at the last minute in September, 1918, due to another Sister’s illness. Traveling alone from Louisville by train, Sister Mary Claire left on a Thursday morning with a satchel full of sandwiches and “50 cents so that I could buy myself some coffee in Chicago.” After buying a ten-cent cup of coffee in Chicago, and waiting several hours, she got on a train for Sioux City. After several train delays, and buying a second cup of coffee in Manilla, Iowa, she arrived in Sioux City at 11 p.m. Friday night, rather than 2 p.m. as planned. Sister Mary Claire recalled, “And there I was. I was alone.” After sleeping in the station all night, then catching a
One of the Sisters called to South Sioux, Nebraska, was Sister Mary Claire Mountrey. She was called to leave at the last minute in September, 1918, due to another Sister’s illness. Traveling alone from Louisville by train, Sister Mary Claire left on a Thursday morning with a satchel full of sandwiches and “50 cents so that I could buy myself some coffee in Chicago.”
Rooted and Reaching, Part One: The Teaching Ministry of the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville from 1858 –1938
Continued from page 9
streetcar, she walked to the convent at St. Michael into Mother Angela’s arms on Saturday morning. Mother Angela had been sending telegraphs, frantic to find her. When recounting her story to Sr. Concetta Waller in 1982, she recalled, “I still had 30 cents in my pocket,” to which Sr. Concetta replied, “You did almost as well as Mother Salesia.” 9
The western missions were very fruitful in vocations and higher education for the Sisters. Being close to Creighton University, the Sisters were able to pursue advanced degrees there. This was very advantageous, as religious teaching orders began to be required to meet various state requirements to be certified. Mother Angela supported the Sisters in these endeavors.
Through the economic and societal changes of the 1920s and 1930s, the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville continued their teaching mission. In 1921, they founded
Schools that Ursulines served between 1858–1938
Name of School
City State Year Started St. Martin of Tours School Louisville KY 1858 Ursuline Academy Louisville KY 1859 St. Mary School Louisville KY 1861 Corpus ChriSt.i School Newport KY 1864 St. Aloysius School Covington KY 1866 St. Joseph School Louisville KY 1867 St. Peter School Louisville KY 1868 St. Boniface School Lafayette IN 1868 SS Peter & Paul School EaSt. Liberty PA 1869 St. Charles Borromeo School Peru IN 1870 St. Joseph School Logansport IN 1870 St. Anthony School Jeffersonville IN 1870 SS Peter & Paul School Cumberland MD 1870 St. Mary School Madison IN 1872 Holy Childhood Jesus School Mascoutah IL 1872 St. Boniface School Germantown IL 1873 St. Francis of Assisi School Dayton KY 1873 St. Joseph Academy Daviess Co. KY 1874 Immaculate Conception School Columbia IL 1875 Sacred Heart Academy Louisville KY 1877 St. Mary School Bloomington IL 1877 St. Boniface School Edwardsville IL 1878 St. Mary School Metamora IL 1878 St. Mary School St. Patrick School
Lincoln IL 1878 Lincoln IL 1878 St. Mary School El Paso IL 1879 SS Peter & Paul School HaubSt.adt IN 1879 St. CeleSt.ine School CeleSt.ine IN 1880 St. Vincent de Paul School Louisville KY 1880 St. Mary School Memphis TN 1881 Sacred Heart School Pekin IL 1881 St. Patrick School Minonk IL 1881 St. Boniface School Evansville IN 1881 St. Joseph School Owensboro KY 1881 St. Francis of Assisi School Ottawa IL 1882 Holy GhoSt. School St. Louis MO 1883 St. James School St. James IN 1884 Holy Trinity School Louisville KY 1885 St. Alphonsus School St. Joseph Daviess Co. KY 1885 St. Bernard School St. Louis MO 1886 St. Mary School St. Henry IL 1886 St. Joseph School Memphis TN 1887 St. Henry School St. Louis MO 1889 St. Michael School FroSt.burg MD 1891
Sacred Heart Junior College and Normal School, accredited by the University of Kentucky, to meet the demand for higher education for women. At that time, there were few institutions where women could earn a secondary degree, and it was a way to educate their own Sisters. In 1938, Sacred Heart Junior College was expanded to a four-year institution and renamed Ursuline College.
The Ursuline Sisters of Columbia, South Carolina, joined the Louisville Ursulines in 1938. The Louisville Ursulines had been teaching in South Carolina since 1936 and were connected with the Columbia Ursulines. The teaching mission and charism of the Louisville Ursulines was spreading across the United States and continued to grow in the upcoming decades.
Special thanks to Laurel Wilson for research for this article. Ursuline Sisters of Columbia, South Carolina. Front Row: Sister Frances Berberich, Mother Gertrude Myers, Mother Clare Agnes Maguire, Sister Benedicta Dougherty, Sister Dolores Fitzgerald. Back Row: Sister Rita Reilly, Sister Teresa O’Connell, Sister Eugenia O’Neill, and Sister Marianna Meyssen
1. Under His Mighty Power, p. 33 2. Under His Mighty Power, p. 39 3. Annals of the Ursuline Sisters of the Immaculate Conception,
Louisville, 1858-1914, p. 3 4. Under His Mighty Power, p. 43 5. Annals of the Ursuline Sisters of the Immaculate Conception,
Louisville, 1858-1914, p. 18 6. Under His Mighty Power, p. 44 7. DOME magazine, winter 2020, p. 5 8. Under His Mighty Power, p. 62 9. Oral History Interview of Sister
Claire Mountrey by Sister
Concetta Waller, March 4, 1982
Schools that Ursulines served between 1858–1938
Name of School City State Year Started
SS Peter & Paul/ Ursuline Academy Cumberland MD 1892 St. Patrick School Mount Savage MD 1896 St. Joseph Orphange/ Children’s Home Louisville KY 1897 St. Boniface School Louisville KY 1898 St. Anthony School Louisville KY 1899 St. George School Louisville KY 1899 St. Helen School Louisville KY 1902 St. SylveSt.er School Ottenheim KY 1903 St. Romuald School Hardinsburg KY 1903 St. Mary School Cumberland MD 1903 St. Elizabeth of Hungary School Louisville KY 1906 St. Leo the Great School Louisville KY 1906 St. Therese School Louisville KY 1907 St. Ann School Louisville KY 1907 St. Peter Claver School Louisville KY 1908 St. Mary High School Cumberland MD 1910 St. Francis of Assisi School Louisville KY 1911 St. Martin School Rome KY 1912 St. Augustine School New Straitsville OH 1915 St. Francis de Sales School Morgantown WV 1915 Sacred Heart School Conemaugh PA 1915 St. Patrick Academy Sidney NE 1916 St. Mary School Rushville NE 1916 St. Patrick School North Platte NE 1916 St. Aloysius School Louisville KY 1916 St. Ambrose School Seymour IN 1917 St. Joseph School Diamond IN 1918 St. Mary School Washington IN 1918 St. Michael School S. Sioux City NE 1918 St. Michael/St. Therese School Omaha NE 1918 St. Bartholomew School Columbus IN 1919 Blessed Sacrament School Omaha NE 1920 Sacred Heart Junior College/ Ursuline College Louisville KY 1921 St. Michael School Madison IN 1922 Sacred Heart Model School Louisville KY 1924 St. Rita School Louisville KY 1928 Catholic Schools Office Louisville KY 1932 Ursuline High School Columbia SC 1936 St. Peter School Columbia SC 1936 St. Joseph Academy O’Connor NE 1937 Holy Spirit School Louisville KY 1937 Our Mother of Sorrows School Louisville KY 1937
