WINDS OF CHANGE
The year is 1960. In the world, the winds of change are blowing. Teenagers are picking up a racy new dance, the twist. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration launches the first passive communications satellite, Echo. The first televised presidential debates, between Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy, are beamed into the living rooms of approximately 66 million Americans, about three-eighths of the population. Kennedy is elected, becoming the first Roman Catholic president of the United States. Changes are also occurring in the Church and in the convent of the Daughters of the Cross. The sisters’ habits, unchanged since their arrival in Louisiana in 1855, are redesigned in 1953 after a tragic automobile accident is attributed to the driver’s inability to see an oncoming vehicle because of her bonnet. The Sister Formation Movement leads to the foundation of Marillac College in St. Louis, Missouri, where training and formation is centralized for religious orders across the nation. The Daughters of the Cross establish a juniorate there for
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CATHOLIC CONNECTION
Courtesy of the Monroe News-Star A farewell hug between Andrew Wieseman and Sister Maria Smith, D. C., Principal of Jesus the Good Shepherd School, May 29, 1997.
their young professed sisters, who stay with the Franciscans while studying at the college. Variations appear in the liturgy, and the Daughters of the Cross revise their Rule. Weaknesses in the structure of the convent are appearing, and although repairs are made, it becomes apparent in the late 1950’s that the beloved Gothic convent and school built by Father Roulleaux will have to be replaced. Plans for a new St.Vincent’s are drawn up, and financing is acquired through a fund drive and the sale of a portion of the property which encompasses the last of the St. Vincent’s woods. The sisters are operating ten schools for the 1960-1961 school year, two high schools and eight elementary schools: St. Vincent’s (grades 8-12, the last year of phasing out the elementary school), St. John’s, St. Catherine’s, and St. Theresa’s in Shreveport; Christ the King in Bossier City; Presentation Academy in Marksville; Sacred Heart in Moreauville; St. Patrick’s in Lake Providence; and St. Matthew’s (Grades 9-12) and the newly opened Jesus the Good Shepherd in Monroe. Most of the 77 sisters are American; only a dozen remain of the ones who came from France. The French Sisters are aging; three are given school assignments, five assigned to jobs around the motherhouse, and five are too frail to work. A new era is ushered in with the completion of the new St. Vincent’s Academy on Fairfield Avenue in August, 1962. The
