Schools in north-central Minnesota (1871-1909). Melrose was settled at a ford in the river on the stagecoach trail between the Red River Valley and St. Cloud. It got its spurt of growth in 1871 as the terminus of the west-bound railroad, making it a marketing center. Melrose (named after Melissa Rose, the daughter of one of the early settlers) soon developed into a strong Catholic community eager to establish its own parish. In 1880, St. Boniface School (parish/district) was built and the Benedictine sisters responded to the pastor's invitation to teach there. By 1894, four sisters were teaching 170 pupils, despite the fact that at first they suffered from the usual prejudice of German communities regarding public versus parochial schools. In subsequent years, the enrollment peaked at 325 pupils even though the Irish parishioners established their own grade/high school and enrolled as many as 166 pupils. When St. Boniface and St. Patrick parishes merged in 1958, the parish and school were renamed St. Mary's School which reached a peak enrollment of 481 (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
Early ventures in St. Joseph, Minnesota (1880-1890). In the early years, an academy was geared to primary school education and only gradually developed into a secondary school. This photo shows the wide age-range of students attending St. Benedict's Academy before the 1900s. This range of ages may account for the family (community) spirit that developed in the school. It was customary to refer to the younger girls as "minims." The prefect with this group is Sister Ernesta Kranz; the child in the sailor suit is identified as Alice O'Niel (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
Early years in St. Joseph, Minnesota (1863-1880). Mother Aloysia (Helen) Bath, the first American-born prioress of St. Benedict's Convent, was born in Addison, WI in 1849. Helen entered the community of the Sisters of St. Agnes in Baron, WI, in 1864 and was given the name Sister Agatha. She transferred to the community in St. Joseph, MN in 1871, changed her name to Aloysia, and professed vows there in 1875. Two years later, she was appointed prioress of the community in St. Joseph by Abbot Rupert Seidenbusch, to fill out Mother Antonia Herman's term. Mother Aloysia resigned shortly before her term ended. However, nine years later, she was elected by the community to serve another term as prioress. Though of frail health, Mother Aloysia led the community in beginning the construction of a new convent and academy building in St. Joseph, in accepting four new schools in Minnesota, the American Indian mission in White Earth, MN, and a school in Bismarck. ND. She was an experienced teacher who had been in charge of several schools, including the large school in St. Joseph's Parish in Minneapolis. Mother Aloysia's greatest efforts were spent staffing schools in the face of school controversies and in developing a teacher-training program in the community so that young sisters would be sent out as certified teachers. Her contemplative spirit inspired the sisters to work for a balance in their work and prayer (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives; McDonald, pages 73-78, 89).
Early years in St. Joseph, Minnesota (1863-1880). Soon after Mother Antonia (Margarethe) Hermann was born in Baden, Germany, her family immigrated to America. In 1857, Margarethe joined the Benedictine Convent in Erie, Pennsylvania. Four years later, 1861, she was sent to found a new convent in Chicago and was appointed prioress there in 1862. In 1868 Abbot Rupert Seidenbusch, without consulting the sisters in St. Joseph, brought Mother Antonia to St. Benedict's Convent and appointed her as prioress of that community. However, after the completion of her first term as prioress, she was elected by the community in St. Joseph for a second term. Mother Antonia, an able leader, helped the community face the challenges of the early years in St. Joseph. She introduced record and bookkeeping practices which are included in the community's archival collection. Mother Antonia lost the favor of Abbot Alexius Edelbrock when she negotiated to have the sisters discontinue doing the laundry and sewing for the monks at St. John's Abbey. She chose to resign as prioress and returned to her former community in Chicago. Later, she transferred to the Benedictine community in Yankton, SD, where she volunteered her services in the Dakota missions (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives; McDonald, pages 65-73).
Expansion of Monastery (1880-1909). Mother Cecilia (Mary) Kapsner born in Prussia in 1859, came to America at age 15 with her family who settled in Pierz. Two years later, Mary entered St. Benedict's Convent and professed vows in 1878. In 1901 she was elected to serve as prioress, a position she held for three consecutive terms. Mother Cecilia was the first prioress whose background was similar to the majority of the members of St. Benedict's Convent as well as the people in the St. Joseph area. With keen perception and ready judgment she led the community through considerable building expansion. Especially noteworthy is the construction of the Sacred Heart Chapel and the Teresa Hall addition to the college, both having been in the planning stages as early as 1909 (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
Besides fostering the mission of education, especially the academy, in which the sisters of St. Benedict's Convent were engaged by 1880, Mother Scholastica Kerst is best known for fearlessly launching the community into the new field of health care. Under her leadership, St. Benedict's Convent flourished as did the hospitals in Bismarck, Duluth and St. Cloud. During her administration of nine years, the membership of the community increased from 57 to 164; the number of parochial schools staffed by the sisters had grown from 10 to 28; the orphanages, schools and hospitals became monuments of her enterprise and executive ability. Mother Scholastica had the spirit of the American frontier in her blood. Mother Scholastica (Catherine) Kerst was born in Prussia in 1847 and came to St. Paul, MN, with her parents in her infancy. She entered St. Gertrude's Convent, Shakopee, MN, in 1862, two days after its establishment. Bishop Thomas Grace, O.P., of St. Paul, required that she spend some of her formation period at St. Gertrude's founding motherhouse in St. Marys, PA. This experience in a well-established, older convent and her own flair for leadership and good business, gave her the impetus to request permission to establish a convent in St. Paul with four other sisters. Instead, church authorities advised her to transfer to St. Benedict's Convent, St. Joseph, MN, which she did in 1877. Three years later Abbot Alexius Edelbrock appointed her prioress of St. Benedict's Convent. [Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives ; McDonald, ppage93-95]
Family Films, Inc. (Holy Angels Church, St. Cloud, Minnesota)
Date Created:
1952 - 1954
Description:
The film "Mother's Day" explains the dedication of the month of May to Mary, the Mother of God. The celebration of Mothers' Day is based on pre-Christian observances. It shows the LeRoux family-Mary, Lea, Ginny and Cathy celebrating Mothers' Day. "Mothers' Day" is one of thirty-nine films in the "Christ in the Home" series created in the early 1950s by Family Films for a weekly television series for Channel 11 (WMIN-TV) in the Twin Cities. Each program is based on a feast day, special observance or noteworthy Sunday in the liturgical year. Family Films, Inc. was formed in 1952 and operated out of a studio in Holy Angels Church, St. Cloud, Minnesota. The production team includes Father Edward Ramacher, photography; Father Vincent Huebsch, sound; Father Gordon Mycue, program director; Arnie Pung, KFAN engineer; Dick and Don DeZurik, Cathedral High School students who help with tapes in the library; Sisters Marold Kornovich and Arlynn Haan, teachers at Saint Augustine School; Edmund Linnemann, organist.
Orgins of St. Benedict's Monastery (convent), St. Joseph, Minnesota. Mother Willibalda Scherbauer, OSB, led four sisters and two candidates, ranging in age from 18 to 26, from St. Marys, Pennslyvania, to the Midwest frontier (St. Cloud, Minnesota) in 1857. Mother Willibalda (Franciska) was born in Kastel, Bavaria in 1831. At an early age, her family took her to St. Walburg Convent in Eichstätt to be educated. There she professed her vows in 1851; four years later, she volunteered to join the sisters in America. Then in 1857, she volunteered to venture to the Northwest Territory and was appointed prioress of the St. Cloud community by Boniface Wimmer, OSB. Mother Willibalda was an accomplished musician of whom Jane Swisshelm, editor of a local newspaper, wrote, "The Lady Abbess is small, slight, delicate, graceful, and as accomplished a lady as you could meet in any circle...waking the first echoes of those broad prairies in a call (daily ringing of the church bell) to bow regularly at an altar of Christian worship..." (McDonald, page41). Mother Willibalda's able administration as leader gave the Benedictine sisters a firm monastic foundation, not only in St. Cloud, but also in St. Joseph, the nucleus of St. Benedict's Monastery. She is lovingly remembered for accepting Mother Benedicta Riepp into the St. Cloud community when she was misunderstood by authorities and some community members for upholding the rights of the sisters in America (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives; McDonald, pages 12, 15-16, 19).
Miss Wilma Johnson, a superintendent of nurses from Chicago, was engaged by the Sisters of St. Benedict to serve as the first director of the St. Raphael's School of Nursing in St. Cloud from 1908 to 1910 (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives, McDonald, page 258).
St. Benedict's Academy (1883-1909). The tradition of preserving records and items of historical importance is passed on from one generation to the next -- from the Benedictine community in EichstÃtt, Bavaria, to the Sisters of St. Benedict in St. Joseph. Now a large archives and a museum, "Art and Heritage Place," preserve the records and objects which have been collected over the years by the Benedictine Sisters of St. Joseph, MN, to depict their life and work here and abroad (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
St. Benedict's Academy (1883-1909); St. Benedict's Monastery (convent), St. Joseph, Minnesota. The students and teachers have been identified as follows. Standing left to right: Kitten Marshall, Margaret Sanz, Bertha Fisher, Adelaide Stumpf, Pauline Roesaler, Augusta Kenek, Catherine Paulissen, Pauline Wieland, Alta Letson, Emma Engesser, Gertrude Wiemann, Eleonore Carmon, Anna Kepper, Nellie Marshall, Minnie Fehrenbacher, Clara Otto, Sister Josephine McLean. Sitting: .Sister Ulric Beck, Lizzie Zapp, Edith Cowing, Nan Marshall, Margaret Claesgens, Margaret Geissel, Josephine Hafner, Anna Alzheimer. Music has always been an important part of the sisters' religious and professional lives. Wherever the sisters opened schools, a music teacher was provided for music instructions in the classrooms and in private lessons; the academy was no exception. Besides the Choral Group, courses were offered in playing the piano, organ, harp, guitar, and zither. For the regular courses and board and room, students paid $80.00 a term. Extra fees ranging from $5.00 to $25,00 were charged for instructions in such courses as music and art; materials were purchased by the students. Records show that some of these accounts were paid in produce: cows, meat, or grain. Because the convent's schedule and discipline, though adapted, prevailed in the boarding school as well, students were given daily charges. These charges, such as cleaning the chimneys of the lamps, starting the fires and keeping them going in the chapel, study hall, dormitories, classrooms and the infirmary, were considered as part of their payment for room and board (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives; McDonald, pages 104-105).
St. Benedict's Mission, White Earth Indian Reservation (White Earth Band of Ojibwe). St. Benedict's mission at White Earth thrived; more and more orphans were crowded into the convent quarters and the day school's enrollment increased. With the help of St. John's Abbey, a new church and a convent school were built in 1881-1882. The convent school, called St. Benedict's Girls Orphan School, was built for 30 orphans; classrooms were built in the ground floor of the new church. Though unaware and unprepared for the cultural sensitivity that would have been desirable in undertaking such a venture as the Indian missions, the sisters shared what they best understood -- education and friendship -- with the Ojibwe who were relegated to reservations in the mid 1800s. There, as in the German and Polish settlements which they served, they staffed schools and taught the basic learning skills, music, domestic arts, and religion. Hindsight reveals the injustice of the American government and of the early settlers in land settlements and in the expectation that American Indians must learn to live, talk, believe and look like the whites who took over the country. For example, the sisters were required to use only the English language in school. However, homey exceptions to that occurred in the life on the mission as the sisters lived, worked and played with the Ojibwe children and learned from them the native language, traditions and life values that in turn enriched the sisters. [SBMA]
St. Benedict's Mission, White Earth Indian Reservation (White Earth Band of Ojibwe). The school at White Earth was so successful that it was noticed by Katherine Drexel who lived in Philadelphia and had devoted her life to working for American Indians and African Americans. (She later founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for the education of these minorities.) Katherine visited White Earth with her two sisters and was so impressed by the work of the Benedictines there that she made arrangements for the building of a new school that would house 150 orphaned and dependent children. During the summer of 1890, the bricks for this four-story building were made near the mission and in the winter months, the lumber and other materials were gathered. Two years later, February 10, 1892, the school was opened for 100 children with the expectation that government funds were available to educate and cloth them. By 1895, the enrollment had grown to 150; the number of teachers and helpers grew to eighteen over the years. However, when government funding was rescinded by the turn of the century, the school faced the challenge of survival. The Benedictines turned to the charity of the Catholics of the Northwest Territory, of St. John's Abbey and of St. Benedict's Convent, and most of all, to tribal funds that the government had held in trust for them in lieu of the land they had given up. These funds could be requested by the Ojibwe as needed. In this way, St. Benedict's Mission managed to continue the boarding school until 1945. When the tribal funds were no longer available, the school became a parochial day school. [SBMA, McDonald, pp. 241-246]
St. Benedict's Academy; Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict
Date Created:
1900
Description:
1900-1901 Nineteenth Annual Catalogue was published for the academy of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Minnesota. Contents include description of institution, course of studies, fees, regulations for wardrobe, religious & literary societies, academic department, list of pupils, lectures and programs. Saint Benedict's Boarding School For Little Boys, known for a time as Bethlehem Boys Academy, operated concurrently with the Academy during the period from 1896-1915.
St. Benedict's Academy; Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict
Date Created:
1890
Description:
1890-1891 Ninth Annual Catalogue was published for the Academy of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Minnesota. Contents include description of institution, general rules of discipline, course of studies, fees, general and wardrobe regulations, clubs, lists of students and awards, and closing exercises.
Drama held a significant role in the curriculum of the academy. Performances drew large audiences, not only from the surrounding areas, but from as far as Milwaukee, WI. The Delsarle Tableaux performance, honoring Bishop Otto Zardetti, was presented at the Village Hall in St. Joseph on February 10, 1893 (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
Early years in St. Cloud (1857-1863). Mother Willibalda Scherbauer and her companions traveled from St. Marys, Pennsylvania by rail and wagon to Pittsburgh; by river boats on the Ohio River to St. Louis and on the Mississippi River with a stop-over in St. Paul; finally reaching St. Cloud. However, the riverboat, "North Star" was stranded on a sand bar two miles from St. Cloud. After two days, on July 4, 1857, the sisters were taken ashore in small boats. They stopped at the Benedictine monks' college in St. Cloud to enjoy their first meal after three days on the boat without food as they could not afford the price of a meal (50 cents). Then the monks took the sisters to their destination, St. Mary's Parish in the German settlement of Middle St. Cloud. The whole area was desolate having been ravaged by a grasshopper plague. The resulting food shortage and the extreme cold tested the endurance of the sisters during their first years in St. Cloud (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives; McDonald, pages 20-27).
The first concern for Sister Laura Hesch when she began her mission on the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) was to get acquainted with the Ojibwe. She made her way to families and visited them in their homes on the reservation. The Ojibwe developed a faithful friendship with and a trust in Sister Laura--so much so that they requested she be buried on the reservation when she died.
Ojibwe homes along the shores of Mille Lacs Lake at Mille Lacs Indian Reservation (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe). Sister Laura Hesch made regular visits. Her outgoing personality soon won the trust of the people she came to be with as is evident by the fact that thirty two mothers came to the first Mothers' Party which she hosted.
St. Benedict's Mission, White Earth Indian Reservation (White Earth Band of Ojibwe). The traditional festive attire was an important part of all Indian celebrations at the White Earth Indian Reservation (White Earth Band of Ojibwe) (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
The up-to-date equipment in St. Raphael's Hospital was the pride and joy of the sisters and the medical staff. The operating room was designed for the radically new method of sterilizing everything. Dr. John B. Dunn, who had studied surgery both in Germany and in the eastern U.S., introduced this method in St. Cloud as early as 1893. It had made useless the elaborate surgical equipment for the wet antiseptic or Listerian method used at the first St. Raphael's Hospital I (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives, McDonald, pages 257-258).
Expansion of Monastery (1880-1909). To enhance the solemnity of community worship, the sisters invested in pipe organs from 1904, when this organ was purchased for the chapel in Scholastica Hall, to the present time. Along with the restoration of Gregorian Chant, the Liturgical Movement became a primary focus of the community. For some of its members, in particular Sisters Urban, Cecile, and Gemma Gertken, it became their life's work (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
Early ventures in St. Joseph, Minnesota (1880-1890). As early as 1875, the sisters had begun to care for orphans in an informal way, but in 1884 the orphanage was incorporated under the laws of the State. Overcrowded conditions forced the sisters to transfer them from St. Cloud to St. Joseph and back again until it was decided to move the girls to the sisters' quarters in Pierz, Minnesota, and the boys were moved back to the old log church and school in St. Joseph. When the fire of 1886 destroyed the orphan home in St. Joseph, the sisters made room for the 23 orphan boys in other buildings on the premises. Finally, at the request of Bishop Otto Zardetti in 1893, the orphans were given to the care of the newly-founded community of Sisters of St. Francis in Little Falls. The Sisters at St. Benedict's, however, retained the familial atmosphere effected by the presence of the orphan children by opening the Bethlehem School for Little Boys as a department of St. Benedict's Academy; little girls,"minims," were housed with the academy students (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives; McDonald, pages 122-123).
Schools in south-central Minnesota (1876-1909). In 1877, the sisters of St. Gertrude's Convent in Shakopee* were asked to care for orphan children in temporary quarters on Ninth and Robert Streets in St. Paul. Sisters Benedicta Klein and Agatha Nachbar assumed the responsibility for six orphans. For this they received a salary of $10.00 a month. When this photograph was taken in 1880, Sister Placida Heine had replaced Sister Agatha Nachbar. Because the number of orphans grew to 17 by 1879, a new building was constructed near the Assumption parochial school so that the orphans could be educated there. After St. Gertrude's Convent was amalgamated with St. Benedict's in 1880, the orphanage came under the jurisdiction of St. Benedict's Convent, St. Joseph, MN. For information about St. Gertrude's Convent, see SBM.03e or sbm00016 (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
