Celebrating 150 Years: Preview

(Preview of Excerpts from "Celebrating 150 Years")

A Woman NAMED ANGELA

When you first step onto the campus of Ursuline Academy in Dallas, you might feel a strange sensation of coming home. Teenage girls wearing bright plaid skirts and pullover sweatshirts laugh and chat as they go from class to class toting backpacks and laptops. Student ambassadors greet you with a smile. As you approach the red brick and white columns of the front entrance, where a statue of Jesus Christ stands with arms wide open, you can feel the warmth of invitation, of community — of welcome.

That feeling is no accident. It comes from the Academy’s long-cherished traditions, its deep roots in Dallas history, and an intentional focus on individual well-being and inclusion. But none of this started in Dallas, or even in the Americas. The spirit of welcome that can be felt at Ursuline Academy began in the heart of a woman named Angela Merici, born around 1470 in Desenzano del Garda, a lakeside town in Northern Italy.

In a breathtaking landscape bordered by snowcapped Alps and the blue waters of Italy’s largest lake, Lake Garda, Angela grew up as the child of devout middleclass farmers. Listening to her father read the lives of the saints from The Golden Legend, she developed a deep faith and desire to serve God from a young age.

Tragically, Angela’s parents died when she was still in her teens. She went to live with an uncle in the nearby town of Salò, and there, around the age of 18, she formally consecrated her life to God. She became a Third Order Franciscan — a layperson, living outside of a convent, connected to the Franciscan way of life and devoted to serving God and others. In the early days, though, it wasn’t entirely clear what shape her vocation should take. Angela returned to Desenzano in her early 20s, where she lived in her old family home for the next two decades. She pursued a life of prayer and looked for ways to serve the people of her town. Although she didn’t use the word herself, her life was formed by the principle of Serviam — a Latin word meaning, “I will serve.” Deeply dedicated to Jesus Christ, Angela made herself available to serve in any way He asked.

Desenzano del Garda, Italy, where Angela Merici was born around 1470.

Austria

Switzerland

DESENZANO DEL GARDA, ITALY

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Italy

The statute of St. Angela on the Ursuline Academy campus reminds students of their school’s roots in faith and service.

A New Work IN A NEW WAY

Around 1516, Angela — now close to 40 years old — moved to the city of Brescia, where her life’s work began to take a more definite shape. She cared for the sick, comforted widows, and met with many people who sought her out for counsel, prayer, and spiritual help. She also befriended other women who were pursuing a similar lifestyle of consecration to God outside of the established religious orders.

It was a time of upheaval and change in nearly every sector of European society, from the arts to religion. Christopher Columbus had come back from the New World only 23 years earlier. The Renaissance was underway, the Italian city-states were embroiled in constant warfare, and contentious religious controversy was about to explode into the Protestant Reformation. A woman dedicated to helping others didn’t need to look far to find people in need.

Angela welcomed coworkers and spiritual seekers alike into her simple dwelling next to the church of Sant’Afra, making her home a sanctuary for them. In that atmosphere of prayer and mutual support, the future began to take shape for her and the women who gathered

Angela Merici.

Angela’s home was directly next to the church of Sant’Afra in Brescia, seen here.

with her. In 1535, Angela and 28 other women in Brescia founded the Company of St. Ursula, named for a legendary saint well known and loved in their day. Together, they wrote a Rule of Life to unite them, govern their daily lives, and keep them on a path of spiritual growth and faithfulness. They elected Angela as mother and treasurer.

The Company of St. Ursula was unique in the history of the Church — and in many ways, it was far ahead of its time. It was composed of women who had consecrated themselves to Christ, but did not take vows, live communally, or have a male head to oversee and direct them. Their lives were a third option in a time when most women only had two — marriage or the convent. Rather than being enclosed behind monastery walls, the women of the Company lived independently or in their parents’ homes, and they chose and directed their own work. They had a degree of independence that was unheard of for women in those days — Angela trusted them to use it well, and they did not let her down.

The Legend of St. Ursula

St. Ursula, from whom the Ursulines take their name, was a legendary 4th century martyr. She was a Christian princess from Britain who agreed to marry a pagan king if he would convert to Christianity and be baptized. She sailed to meet him along with a large group of virgin companions — different versions of the story give different numbers, but the most famous of these is 11,000. Along the way, her ship was blown off course by a storm, and all were ultimately martyred in Cologne by invading Huns. Ursula was given the choice to deny her faith and save herself by marrying the leader of the Huns, but she was killed when she would not betray Christ.

In Angela’s day, St. Ursula had captured the imagination of many. Considered to have been highly educated, she was patron saint of the Sorbonne, one of the oldest universities in Europe. For her dedication to Christ, her purity and strength, and her example of faithfulness until death, Angela chose St. Ursula as patron of the new Company – the Ursulines.

The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula.

In April of 1639, the sailing vessel St. Joseph departed from Dieppe, Normandy, and began its journey towards Canada.

Across the WIDE ATLANTIC

DIEPPE, NORMANDY, FRANCE

QUÉBEC, CANADA

France

North Atlantic Ocean

Angela Merici died in 1540, just five years after founding the Company of St. Ursula in Brescia. By that time, it had grown to 150 women, and new companies were forming in other Italian cities as well. Initially, the companions stayed close to Angela’s vision, but over the next 150 years they underwent considerable transformation. In the 1590s, their movement expanded from Italy into France, and along the way, they adopted a new, more defined mission — teaching. Their form of governance also changed, and in Paris in the 1600s, the French Ursulines were formalized as a true monastic order — the Order of St. Ursula, known more simply as Ursulines. They were placed under the authority of their local bishops and adopted a cloistered lifestyle, remaining within the walls of the monastery rather than moving freely among the people.

While very different from what Angela had envisioned, at the time these changes were considered necessary to fulfill the Ursulines’ teaching mission. It soon became standard practice for every Ursuline monastery to include a boarding school for girls. As the 17th century neared its end, around 9,000 Ursulines in France were living in over 300 monasteries — and all of them were teachers.

The seal used by the Superior of the Ursulines of Sainte-Avoye in Paris, 1622-1790, at the time of their voyage to Canada.

The first Ursulines to cross the Atlantic sailed from France to Canada in 1639 under the leadership of Mother Mary of the Incarnation. They founded a two-room school, roofed with bark, in the harsh northern wilderness of Quebec. They endured loneliness, brutal winters, and smallpox outbreaks, but they persevered. They were the first teaching order of women in the Americas, and the Ursuline school in Quebec City — which still exists today — is the oldest educational institute for girls in North America.

Paris and the Réglements

First published in 1652, Les Réglements des Ursulines de la Congrégation Monastique de Paris — “The Regulations of the Ursulines of the Monastic Congregation of Paris” — laid out basic guidelines for the organization and teaching methods of Ursuline schools. The Réglements drew much of their content and structure from a similar Jesuit work, which in turn was heavily influenced by the teaching methods of the University of Paris. From its roots, then, Ursuline education was closely connected to the best of Western education — the Réglements are distinct in their emphasis on gently caring for individual students. This emphasis comes directly from St. Angela and has never been changed.

The Ursulines in Rimouski, Quebec, opened the Normal School to train teachers. Although now closed, their legacy continues with Ursuline schools educating children in Quebec.

Port Cities, Swamps, AND A TOUCH OF CULTURE

In the spring of 1727, 88 years after the first Ursulines arrived in Canada, another group of 12 nuns left France for the New World — but their destination, the newly founded port city of New Orleans in the swamps of southern Louisiana, could not have been more different from the glacial wilderness of Quebec. Their journey took place on a ship called La Gironde, carrying, as one of the nuns wrote in a letter home, “a great number of sheep and 500 hens” — food for the human passengers, who expected to be at sea for three months.

The journey was terrible. The wind was against them, and they faced the threat of pirates. All told, it was five long months before the nuns finally reached the mouth of the Mississippi and boarded canoes for New Orleans. From there, they traveled upriver through heavy rains and thick mud. The canoes were precarious and threatened to tip and spill their passengers into the water. Thick clouds of mosquitos descended at dusk. Hardships were everywhere they turned — but thankfully, the passengers had faith and a sense of humor to see them through.

When the Ursulines reached the city of New Orleans — to the great surprise and joy of their hosts, who had assumed they’d been lost at sea — the Sisters founded a convent and girls’ school in late 1727. They quickly became part of the fabric of the city. As is so often true in Ursuline history, it started with hospitality.

In 1841, the Ursulines of New Orleans hosted Fr. Jean Marie Odin on retreat as he prepared for his appointment as bishop of the newly established Diocese of Galveston. The enormous frontier diocese covered nearly 360,000 square miles and included the entire state of Texas, as well as parts of Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. During his stay with the Ursulines, Bishop Odin was so impressed that he invited them to come and found a new convent and girls’ school in Galveston. Along with their educational talents, he hoped they could bring a touch of European culture to Texas’ roughand-tumble port city.

A painting showing the Ursuline Nuns landing at New Orleans, August 7, 1727.

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

Texas

January of 1847, eight Ursulines set out for a two-day trip across the Gulf of Mexico on a coastal paddle-wheel steamer from New Orleans to Galveston.

Louisiana

GALVESTON, TEXAS

Gulf of Mexico

Accordingly, in January of 1847, eight Ursulines set out for Galveston by coastal steamer. It marked another first — they were the first religious order of women in Texas, a state which, despite its staggering size, was home to fewer than 20,000 Catholics. The school they opened two weeks after landing was the first non-parochial Catholic school in the state. And before long, the Ursulines responded to the growing need for Catholic education in other parts of Texas as well — which brings the final step in the journey to Dallas and the founding of Ursuline Academy.

FAITHFUL SERVICE

The Ursuline school in Galveston lasted 120 years until it merged in 1968 with two other Catholic high schools. It survived an astounding list of hardships, including the Civil War, devastating yellow fever epidemics, and the 1900 Galveston hurricane, the deadliest in American history. Through it all, the Ursulines stood strong and provided care, comfort, and teaching to the community around them.

An advertisement promoting the Ursuline Academy in Galveston.

Go North YOUNG WOMEN

The year was 1873, and the railroads were opening up the interior of Texas in a whole new way. Vast regions that had once been the domain of the buffalo, Indigenous Americans, and cattle ranchers were now becoming hubs for the cotton and lumber industries. In the prairies of North Central Texas, the city of Dallas was primed for a boom.

Founded in 1841 at a ford on the east bank of the Trinity River where two old trails crossed, Dallas originally entertained hopes of becoming a port city — but the dream of making the Trinity River navigable from Galveston to Dallas never came to pass. It didn’t need to. When two railroads arrived between 1872 and 1873, Dallas suddenly became a bustling commercial crossroads and a supply hub for the rural communities all around it. Those communities, too, were growing, as

the railroads meant more and more people were settling in the interior of the state and not just on the coast or along the Mexican border. Rapid growth was inevitable.

Bishop Claude Dubuis, who served as Bishop Odin’s successor, saw a great need in Dallas. Its Catholic population — which was small and isolated in a largely Protestant milieu — would need good educational options for its children. And like Odin in Galveston, Dubuis felt that the dusty cowboy town could use some feminine influence and a dash of culture.

Galveston in 1885.

In November of 1873, Bishop Dubuis asked the Galveston Ursulines to send some of their Sisters to found a new community in Dallas. The Sisters in Galveston decided they would establish the new community as a branch of their own, with the two retaining close connections and mutual support. They chose six Sisters to go, led by 32-year-old Mother St. Joseph Holly.

THE HOLLY SISTERS

Mother St. Joseph was born in Austria as Teresa Holly. Her family came to Texas when she was a young girl and settled in Houston, where both parents were tragically lost to yellow fever when Teresa was just 13. Fleeing the epidemic, a priest brought her and her two younger sisters, Catherine and Barbara, to the Ursulines in Galveston. The community took them in and raised them. As young women, Teresa and Catherine both chose to become Ursuline Sisters, under the names of Mother St. Joseph and Mother Evangelist Holly. Both played significant roles in the history of Ursuline Academy of Dallas.

Mother Evangelist Holly, Directress 1886-1891.

Mother St. Joseph Holly, Directress 1874-1886.

Six Sisters IN DALLAS

Mother St. Joseph Holly, the elected leader of these pioneering nuns, was known and loved for her ability to manage the needs of a group both capably and kindly, and she had a beautiful singing voice. The other five founding Sisters brought their own unique strengths to the group as well.

Mother St. Paul Kaufmann, treasurer of the group, was known for her exceptional skills with math and logic. Sr. Mary Patrick Flaherty, an Irishwoman in her early 20s, brought her quick wit to the service of all. Sr. St. Bernard Dowd, also Irish and considerably older than the others, brought a wealth of experience from the early years of the Galveston community. Sr. Mary Francis Xavier Vindrier, another of the younger

Sisters, had come from France and was the goddaughter of Bishop Dubuis. Finally, Sr. St. Philomena Gerngros, originally from Germany, completed the group. She had another reason for going to Dallas than simply helping with the mission — she suffered from bad health, and the Sisters hoped the climate in North Texas would be better for her than the low-lying, marshy environs around Galveston.

These six Sisters spent three days in prayer before setting out for an overnight journey by train on January 27, 1874. Their household goods, including bedsteads and dishes, followed them on another train. They brought school supplies and $146 that was given to them by the Galveston community (approximately $3,700 in today’s dollars). Bishop Dubuis had promised them a convent where they could live and begin teaching

students, along with provision for a second building when more space was needed. This was trailblazing work and sure to be full of challenges, but the Sisters hoped to be equal to the task.

Mother St. Paul.

A bird’s eye view of Dallas, 1872.

“La Voilà!” THE FIRST CONVENT AND SCHOOL

Stepping off the train on January 28, the six founding Sisters exited into a cold, frostbitten morning. Horses, wagons, and cattle churned up the wide, muddy streets before them. Although it was no longer on the edge of the Texas frontier, Dallas still had the feel of the Old West. It was home to a two-story limestone courthouse built just the year before, a telegraph office, Sanger Brothers department store, numerous saloons, a drugstore, and an opera house. Brickyards, saddle shops, and a carriage factory provided the city with industry, and a three-story hotel welcomed visitors. It even had its own newspaper, the Dallas Herald. The total population was around 3,000.

Bishop Dubuis had traveled with the Sisters from Galveston, and he ushered them to Mass at Sacred Heart Church, a small wooden structure in the middle of town. Pigeons roosting in the rafters put up a clatter during worship. As they emerged from the church into the miserable cold, Mother St. Joseph Holly made the mistake of asking where the convent was.

To their collective dismay, the bishop waved his hand toward a four-room wooden cottage near the church and proclaimed, “La voilà! — Here it is!”

Venturing inside, the Sisters found the house completely empty. There was no furniture, not even a stove for heating, and rain and snow seeped through the roof, hitting the bare wooden floors. Temperatures that night dropped below freezing; it was an unusually cold winter. Making matters even worse, their household goods had been delayed coming from Galveston and didn’t arrive for another day.

Thankfully, local Catholics, the W.A. Rodgers family, took pity on the Sisters and invited them into their home for the night. The next morning over breakfast, Sr. St. Bernard made them all roar with laughter when she described sitting straight up in bed in the middle of the night, heart racing in shock at the sight of an old woman across the room staring back at her. It took her some time to realize she was looking in a mirror! Later that day when the household supplies finally arrived, Bishop Dubuis, along with Father Joseph Martiniere, their new chaplain, helped the Sisters install their furniture. Father was to be a beloved friend from that time forward.

Ursuline’s first location in Dallas, adjacent to Sacred Heart Church.

The Ursuline’s first convent in Dallas was a simple four-room wooden cottage.

The Sisters arrived to find the cottage with not even a stove for heating. Rain and snow came through the roof, hitting the bare wooden floors.

AFTERWORD LASTING IMPACT

This extraordinary history reflects the amazing legacy of the Ursuline Sisters. It is also testament to the commitment of an engaged community, evident from the very beginnings of Ursuline in Dallas and sustained throughout the decades.

From the time of the founding of Ursuline Academy of Dallas in 1874, the Ursuline Sisters have persevered, risked new things, and relied on the Serviam spirit of the community. But they have never wavered from their ultimate goal — the fullest possible development of the individual student... development that leads to action, and action especially suffused with the spirit and presence of Jesus Christ.

The support of generations of families, alumnae, community leaders, and others who believe in Catholic all-girls education has established Ursuline Academy as a leading force in education and has enabled its students to grow and thrive for the last 150 years. Every Ursuline girl distinctively and individually embodies the Ursuline mission. Every graduate makes a lasting impact on our school and in our world.

As the history of Ursuline continues to be written, we are truly privileged to be part of this story, honoring all the dedicated and remarkable educators who came before us. We joyfully embrace our charge to be compassionate guides for the young women entrusted to our care. We delight in their growth and discovery as they prepare for their future, living lives of leadership and service.

Over 500 years ago, St. Angela Merici reminded her followers of the heart of their work:

“Consider the respect you owe your daughters, for the more you respect them, the more you will love them. And the more you love them, the greater care you will have for them.”

With gratitude,

The Administration, Faculty, and Staff Ursuline Academy of Dallas, 2023-2024

PHOTO CREDITS

Page 9, Seal of the Superior of the Ursulines of Sainte-Avoye in Paris, 1622-1790. Image courtesy of Carnavalet Museum, The Museums of the City of Paris, NS381.

Page 10, Monastère des Ursulines (École Normale) Rimouski, Qué. [S.l.] : Mme. Lauzier & Fils., [19--?], From the Postcards Collection of Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Canada, BAnQ Call Number: CP 16288 CON.

Page 11, Landing of the Ursuline Nuns, at New Orleans, LA., August 7, 1727; ca. 1930; offset lithograph by Hermitage Art, publisher; The Historic New Orleans Collection, gift of Ernest C. Villere, 1984.222.

Page 13, Galveston, Texas in 1885. Galveston Texas, 1885. Color lithograph, 26.4 x 40.5 in. Lithographer unknown. Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.

Page 15, Dallas in 1872. Bird’s Eye View of the City of Dallas Texas 1872, 1872. Lithograph (hand-colored), 15.8 x 22.9 in. Lithographer unknown. Dallas Historical Society.

Page 17, Jones & Murphy's Map of the City of Dallas, Texas. Compiled from the Records of Dallas Co., and latest surveys of the City-Engineer, 1878, Lithograph, 29.5 x 21.5 in.

Page 48, The Ursuline Academy, where many were saved from the fury of the storm, Galveston, Texas, 1900. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C., LC-DIG-stereo-1s45609.

Page 129, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aerial of Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain. Photo from iStock, credited to R.M. Nunes, Stock photo ID: 1092318084.

Page 150, Dallas looking from the Trinity River. Photo from iStock, credited to 4kodiak, Stock photo ID: 1270092318.

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