Untitled sketch. Includes canopy, throne, stools and a walnut platform. Canopy details include the Archdiocesan coat-of-arms, painted in color, gold leaf and velour drapery. Throne detail shows carvings on seat back and posts, and note a spring cushion of ""best quality leather""
Sketch of Chapel of the Immaculate Conception. Pillars, decorations, and Mary emerging from a cave, with another woman kneeling below. Chapel bears inscription,""Je suis l'immaculee conception,", and is marked ""traced"" by FAA (architect Frank A. Abrahamson) and dated.
Harold H. Crawford's architectural rendering is a presentation drawing of Olney Church in England. This student work was completed while Crawford was at the Harvard.
Early years in St. Cloud (1857-1863). The six Benedictine women (4 sisters and 2 candidates) arrived in St. Cloud from St. Marys, Pennsylvania, earlier than expected; no convent had been prepared for them. John Tenvoorde's boarding house and entertainment hall (on the far left) was rented for ten months as the first convent in the Midwest frontier. Describing this convent, Prior Demetrius di Marogna, OSB, pastor of the German settlers in St. Cloud, wrote: "The house has two rooms and a spacious refectory with a built-on kitchen and above the refectory, a long attic room where ten or twelve school children's beds can easily be placed. Well, garden, and cellar are in the enclosure. But the rent for the year is $250.00...that price is cheap for here." (McDonald, page29) ..In this temporary abode, the sisters took in 6 boarders, and taught music, art, needlework, English, German, and religion to Catholics and non-Catholics in the neighborhood. The following year they were able to move to the renovated St. Mary's Church and Convent (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives; McDonald, pages 27-34).
Early years in St. Joseph, Minnesota (1863-1880). This sketch of the layout of the first church/school/convent complex in St. Joseph was drawn in 1930 by Sister Paula Bechtold, OSB, from her memory of St. Joseph's Convent where she had lived as a young sister. This complex became the home of the Benedictine sisters when they moved from St. Cloud to St. Joseph in 1863. Gradually a small campus to the west of the complex developed -- consisting of laundry, bakery, summer house, chicken coop, barn, woodshed, and a well. Though the primary purpose of the sisters' coming to St. Joseph was to teach the children of the parish, the site served well as the beginnings of St. Benedict's Convent which continued to flourish in St. Joseph. Varied projects were begun in this simple convent complex: the school (the beginnings of the academy), care of orphans, and the Industrial School for Indian girls. In 1886, the old complex of log church and school was completely destroyed by fire. Although new housing had to be found for the orphans and the Industrial School, a new convent/academy had already been built in 1881-1882. With the completion of that new building, the name was changed from St. Joseph's Convent to St. Benedict's Convent (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives; McDonald, pages 59-62, 70-72, 120-122).