Habits on the Hill: How the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet helped educate a growing Kansas City

By Diane Euston

  When they arrived in Kansas City in 1866, what they found was a rudimentary town-turning-into-city with gullies, dirt roads and the great ambitions of a Catholic priest named Fr. Bernard Donnelly. 

  For most of these women of the cloth, it wasn’t their first time traipsing into the unknown, tasked at their early arrival in the United States with teaching the deaf. 

  Slowly but surely, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet opened schools in Cahokia, Ill., St. Paul, Minn., and Philadelphia, Pa., spreading their message of love and tolerance. Their mark on these early communities can still be seen today – and that early school established in Kansas City has stood as a premier institution of learning for 160 years.

  St. Teresa’s Academy’s story showcases the tenacity of an early Catholic priest, an order of nuns and how the institution they founded successfully grew from a small building at 12th and Washington into a suburban campus in the County Club District.

The Path of Early Catholics 

  The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet were founded in the mid-1600s in France. According to the Catholic Key, they “taught lace-making to women forced by poverty into prostitution so that they could support themselves and their children respectably.”     

  They closed during the French Revolution but reestablished themselves as teachers.

  In 1836, the Sisters received a call from Bishop Joseph Rosati (1789-1843), head of the St. Louis Diocese which included Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa and Indian Territories to the Rocky Mountains. Bishop Rosati arrived in Missouri in 1818, opening a seminary called St. Mary of the Barrens in Perryville. He was named as first bishop of St. Louis by Pope Leo XII in 1827.

  Six sisters departed Lyon, France and took the tenuous seven-week journey to St. Louis where “three remained in St. Louis in the village of Carondelet, living humbly in a log cabin.” In 1837, “two more sisters arrived in Carondelet to teach the deaf, founding St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf, which remains at the forefront of deaf education today.”

  Just 15 years earlier, St. Louis born Francois Chouteau (1797-1838) and his wife, Berenice Menard (1801-1888) arrived to settle on the western border of the United States (and the future site of Kansas City) in 1822 to establish a fur trading post. With them were about a dozen French-speaking Catholics.

  The expansion of white settlement in western Missouri prompted Bishop Rosati to send the first resident priest of the area, Rev. Benedict Roux, in 1831. When he arrived, he reported only nine Catholic families there.

  Fr. Roux reported to Bishop Rosati  “that the Catholics of [western Missouri] are incapable of supporting a priest decently, being so few in number.” Regardless, his orders were clear: he was to build a church.

  Fr. Roux was able to raise money for the area’s first church on 10 acres of donated land. Completed for $500, the little log church called St. John Francis Regis, was 20×30 feet and sat on a bluff overlooking the Missouri and Kaw Rivers and sat at modern-day 11th and Pennsylvania.

Father Bernard Donnelly

  Born in about 1810 in Ireland, Bernard Donnelly arrived in America in 1839. After teaching in Pennsylvania, he was drawn to a pious life and opted to become a priest. 

  In 1842, he arrived at St. Mary of the Barrens Seminary in Missouri where he studied theology while teaching Greek and mathematics. 

  Three years later, he was ordained as a priest, and hours after, Bishop Rosati appointed him pastor of St. Mary’s in Independence, Mo. This included “the missions of Westport Landing, Independence, Westport, Liberty, Clay County and about a hundred places.”

  In November 1846, Fr. Donnelly moved his primary residence from Independence, Mo. to the little log church overlooking the Missouri River. 

  Kansas City had been officially platted in 1838 even though the town was slow to grow due to its elevation. 

  Also trained as a civil engineer, Fr. Donnelly used his skills to help Kansas City leaders cut away at the bluffs in order to make way for the town. In 1853, he wrote to two Irish newspapers out east to call for men from the province of Connaught to move to the city to literally dig out of the bluffs. 

  He called for Irishmen from one area to eliminate any of the internal Irish warfare settled in fist fights. He also made them abstain from liquor and attend Mass regularly.

  This was the beginning of the influx of Irish immigrants to Kansas City.

The Arrival of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet 

  Thirty years after their arrival in Missouri, Fr. Donnelly called upon the Sisters for a new mission. He’d built a brick school in 1858 and staffed it with whoever was available. During the Civil War, classes continued in the basement. 

  But the influx of Irish and German-born Catholics to Kansas City called for a school run by experienced women of the faith.

  Fr. Donnelly saw the railroad contracts landing in Kansas City that would certainly see Kansas City into a bright future. He called on the Sisters, writing to Mother St. John December 5, 1865 “of the prospects of his congregation, which had more than doubled in the short space of six months.”

  He also promised to build a substantial three-story brick building with wide corridors and large, airy rooms on 10 acres. He’d replaced the old log church in 1857 with a brick church he called Immaculate Conception.

  When he received a “yes” from the Carondelet nuns, Fr. Donnelly “finished the two stories over the basement and built a large brick front to the original [school], facing it toward 12th Street.”

  In August 1866, seven Sisters led by Sister Francis Joseph Ivory (1824-1902) unloaded at the levee in their habits. Sister Francis Joseph later wrote, “The people thought we were the Circus as we traveled across town.”

  Sister Francis Joseph, born Eliza Ellen Ivory in Pennsylvania, took her vows in 1847 in St. Louis where she was given her name that was “chosen for her devotion to St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary who was patron of missions.”

  And missionary work was her calling; in 1848, she established a mission in Cahokia, Ill. She then returned to St. Louis to establish a boys’ asylum and teach 60 girls. By 1851, she traveled to St. Paul, Minn. to establish St. Joseph’s Academy. 

  After spending some time in New York working at various Catholic schools, she returned to Missouri to take on the task of opening Fr. Donnelly’s Catholic school in Kansas City. 

  With her were six nuns: Sisters Mary Agnes Gonzaga Donovan, Mary of the Holy Cross Bernelin,  Mary Lucina Crooks,  Mary Boniface Schab, Mary Prudentia Reilly and  Mary Bridget Burke.

  When they took possession of the building, S. Francis Ivory’s notes indicate “the house was not yet furnished.” They purchased a cow, threw a party to raise funds to furnish the building and opened up in October 1866.

  The first student to enroll was Laura Coates (1857-1938), daughter of early business leader Kersey Coates. From a Quaker family, she later recalled how surprised she was that the nuns treated her so well due to her religion- and the fact that her father was busy building an opera house just down the road. 

  Laura Coates Reed later recalled, “I studied French and art under Sister Mary Anne, who did not speak English very well.”

  In 1867, the school was incorporated as St. Teresa’s Academy after St. Teresa of Avila. For over 25 years, it was the only Catholic school that provided more than just elementary studies to the area. And, its founding predates the Kansas City Public Schools by one year.

 

The Early Structure of St. Teresa’s 

    When opened, pupils were charged $100 for a five-month academic session. Because it was also a boarding school, bed, bedding and washing was an additional $15. Music and languages were available for an extra charge.

  Operating as both a boarding and day school, St. Teresa’s was described in the City Directory in 1868 as being “situated [on] the highest point within the city, which for health and scenery cannot be surpassed; the pupils have spacious playgrounds all around the convent, while in the immediate vicinity are a variety of shade and fruit trees, rendering its appearance both inviting and picturesque.”

  By 1869, Sister De Pazzi O’Connor arrived at St. Teresa’s and was known as “an excellent English scholar.” Appointed to Mother Superior in 1871, her leadership was known for “literary composition and expression [as] leading features.” 

  The course of study also included learning “plain and fancy needle work, wax work and the making of artificial flowers.”

  Thursdays were set aside for “general recreation” and students could be visited by their parents. Due to being near the Santa Fe Trail, girls from all over the country and as far away as Mexico were sent to the school. 

  The boarding students had to bring six changes of underclothes, towels, wash basin and pitcher, four table napkins, knife and fork, silver spoon and goblet, letter paper and postage stamps. The girls wore blue marino dresses and hats with blue trimmings in the winter and blue chambray dresses with the same hats in the summer.

  A large iron gate, eight feet high, guarded the entrance and was locked each night at 8 p.m. 

  The building was enlarged in the summer of 1869. The Kansas City Journal proclaimed, “We should always patronize home institutions when facilities offered equal to those to be obtained elsewhere, and we recommend to parents and guardians, to investigate the advantages offered by the Sisters for the obtaining an education.”

  About 30 boarders and 11 teachers were a part of St. Teresa’s in the first years, and enrollment was about 150 to 200 students total. 

  Calculating how many students graced the halls of those early days of St. Teresa’s Academy is quite difficult, but the growth of the offerings at the school indicates an increase in enrollment. By the 1870s, there were two sessions of school at five months for each session. 

Celebrations and Commencements at St. Teresa’s

  The very first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Kansas City in 1873 featured St. Teresa’s Academy as part of the procession. 

  Starting at the Junction of Main and Delaware at 9 a.m., groups including the St. Joseph’s Society, Irish Benevolent Society and even the St. Vitus Society hailing from the German Catholic Church proceeded to march to St. Patrick’s Church at 7th and Cherry. There, participants crammed in the church for High Mass before marching west.

  The parade stopped at the old St. Teresa’s Academy where the Lady Superior along with “ladies under tuition” presented four wreaths of white flowers and shamrocks. The wreaths were tied onto banners carried by the groups; girls from open windows of the school sang Irish songs “familiar to all.”

  For years after, St. Teresa’s continued their tradition of participating in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, even judging the banners – a very competitive part of the parade – in the 1880s.

  At the 1874 Commencement, Emma Guinotte (1859-1930) read her essay called “Woman’s Standing in Society.” In part, it read:

  She, like man is, blessed with reasoning power and like him obliged to use and improve the talent given her. She too, can study and seek distinction’s badge; she too, when events demand, can, and ought, as she has done, take her place in the world’s strife. The gratitude of admiring generations has blessed the heroines who threw away the restrictions of class, when God or country required it, and did deeds on the battlefield, on the throne and in the forum, which man has seldom equaled.

  After Fr. Donnelly passed away in 1880, his vision for the school and for a new Cathedral continued. In 1883, the Cathedral (now standing) at 416 W. 12th Street opened.

  In 1885, a new wing was built onto St. Teresa’s Academy. The first church bell to ever ring in Kansas City- once stationed in the original log cabin – was sent over to St. Teresa’s.

  According to Sister Evelyn, the church bell was a well-known and coveted part of the school. She wrote, “Standing on the north porch, rain or shine for 25 years, it faithfully roused the sisters from their morning slumbers and announced with clock-like decision the hour for holy Mass, for prayer, for study, and for meals.”

  At graduations in the 1880s, the girls wore white laurel wreaths and gold medals on their chests. These medals were the early diplomas. 

  According to historian Pat O’Neill in “From the Bottom Up,” as time passed by, “Irish-born and first-generation Irish Americans accounted for the majority of priests and sisters assigned to Kansas City parishes and schools.”

  In 1889, there were about 6,000 children of Catholic families, and only about 2,000 sent their children to parochial schools. There were 15 parishes in Kansas City, and 10 of them had schools.

  By 1892, St. Teresa’s had about 200 students ranging in age from eight to 18 years old. But don’t let that number fool you; even in 1894, there were only four graduates at commencement exercises.

  Public schools in Kansas City reached about 15,000 within 35 different schools by 1893, and in Catholic schools, there were 2,420 students enrolled.

  The growth of Kansas City had been substantial in 20 years since the founding of the first Catholic school. And the nuns of Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet had expanded with that growth to include St. Joseph Hospital, St. Patrick’s School and St. Joseph Orphan Asylum.

Continued Growth and Time for Change

  St. Teresa’s became the first private girls’ school in Kansas and Missouri to be accredited by the University of Kansas – meaning that those who graduated from the school could enter college without exams.

  By 1905, St. Teresa’s Academy had about 200 students in attendance with 75 boarders. On November 17, tragedy struck at about 4 p.m. when fire spread on the roof. Although it was confined to a small area and no one was injured, the fire revealed that there was a serious flaw with the construction of the building.

  When the mansard roof was added, the flues connected to kitchen range in the basement were covered over. The fire chief was baffled by this and called for the man who constructed it to be arrested if possible “and prosecuted to the limit of the law.”

  This event coupled with a crowded downtown Kansas City caused the Sisters to look toward the future- and the future, along with the suburban population of Kansas City – was moving south.

 Sister Evelyn O’Neill (1859-1938), a botany and music teacher at St. Teresa’s Academy, was named Mother Superior in 1908. Born in Kewanee, Ill., Sister Evelyn was a tireless advocate of the school. 

  Just prior to her appointment to Mother Superior, St. Teresa’s Academy announced they were looking to move to a more “modern building.” 

  Sister Evelyn loaded in a horse and buggy in order to look for the perfect location. She headed south, well past any true development. 

  For context, at the time, the old Armour farm had just been purchased by developer J.C. Nichols. Hugh Ward still owned 450 acres of property with 120 acres of it functioning and Kansas City’s first country club. The Country Club Plaza wasn’t on the horizon, literally and figuratively. 

  Mother Evelyn continued south and when she approached a 20-acre tract near the Rockhill district outside the city limits in June 1907, she said, “That’s it.”

  The price was $40,000.

  The land was described as being “upon high ground commanding a good view of the surrounding country. The tract is close to the Country club, and will be easily reached by the system of rock roads and winding drives now being built through the residence district south of 51st street and between Holmes Street and State Line.”

  But there was a problem. The plan relied upon the lease of their current land at 12th and Washington in order to pay for this new, expansive project. But Bishop John Joseph Hogan (1829-1913) informed the Sisters of St. Joseph that they didn’t legally own the land where they’d been conducting a school for  40 years.

  Mother Evelyn wasn’t willing to take no for an answer. She showed records that the Sisters had paid for all grading of the streets near the school, and they had been the ones to pay the taxes for four decades.

  Bishop Hogan agreed, and plans moved forward.

  Architects Wilder & Wight were commissioned to design the expansive campus which at the time was to include seven buildings arranged in a rectangle. 

  The first buildings to be constructed were the administrative building and the music and art building. A cornerstone was laid in the rain with 200 people present in November 1909. The cornerstone read Deo Adiuvante Non Timendum (“If God helps me, I need not fear anything”). 

  It was a risk, to be certain, to move so far south. But that risk paid off.

  The Sisters called this new campus “Windmoor” due to how windy it was up there on the prairie far south of Kansas City.

St. Teresa’s Growth in a New Location

  The Music and Arts Building opened in September 1910. The Class of 1910 delayed their commencement exercises so they could graduate out of the new building, and in November, the first graduation at 5600 Main Street occurred.

  The move was a success, and in 1916 under the leadership of Mother Evelyn, St. Teresa’s added a junior college.

  As the new campus flourished, what was left behind was dismantled. In July 1916, the original St. Teresa’s Academy at 12th and Washington was knocked to the ground. It wasn’t old or historic, they presumed. 

  A writer at the Kansas City Star wrote of its demise, stating she was once a student. ““[I] stood the other day and watched the workmen, in a haze of mortar and brick dust, busily engaged in removing brick after brick and stone after stone in the labor of razing one of the historic structures of Kansas City.”

  She recalled the ringing of the old convent bell that “signal[ed] the silent march to the dormitory; the bell that roused us all too soon from dreams that were freighted with none of the joys or sorrows of worldly life. Simple, clean and wholesome were the pleasures of those sweet old times.”  

  But St. Teresa’s did have the foresight to know that some things were worth saving. They carted the old iron gate and Fr. Donnelly’s bell that once rung at the first church in Kansas City with them to their new campus. 

  They are on display today.

  In 1939, the College of St. Teresa, opened its own building at the school as a four-year college, and the first college graduates received their diplomas in 1942. 

  Due to increased enrollment, they discontinued boarding students in the 1940s.

  The college, too, outgrew this location and looked even further south to 50 acres of land bordering the old Santa Fe Trail at 119th and Wornall. They purchased the spot, moved onto the campus in 1963, and adopted the name Avila College.

The Legacy of 160 Years

  So many women graced the halls of St. Teresa’s Academy and so many Sisters selected a life of service in education and nursing. Their contributions to the betterment of Kansas City cannot be understated. 

  What started with one Mother Superior from Pennsylvania accompanied by six Sisters to western Missouri established one of the strongest – and the oldest- Catholic school in Kansas City. 

  At the 1883 commencement, Ida Mason, valedictorian seamlessly summed up the contributions and unending legacy of St. Teresa’s in a poem she penned. One verse stands out as poignant even today:

   But no! If man not, can not be;

    Our future paths lie severed far;

  Yet St. Teresa’s e’er thro’ life

    Will be our sweetly guiding star.