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Ursuline Sisters became experts teaching in rural schools By Dan Heckel, Mount Saint Joseph Staff
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nlike girls her age in larger cities, Beatrice Peterson had no chance to attend high school in her small, rural community of St. Mary, Ky. That all changed in 1912, when Ursuline Sister Gabriel Hayden led a small group of Ursulines to teach at St. Charles School in Marion County. “We were so happy to have them because there were not any public high schools in our county except one in Lebanon,” she said in a 1971 interview. “There were no buses at all. There was no such thing as a country girl getting a chance to go to a high school. The Sisters started teaching Latin and algebra and a few other things and made us very happy. We were going to get to learn something. I walked myself every day that I went to school until I was
18 years old, two miles there and two miles back. … Everybody in the county was so pleased that we had a chance to go to school.” In 1914, Beatrice joined the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph, taking the name Sister Mary Joseph. She served as a Sister for 61 years and was elected the community treasurer in three different decades. None of that would have happened if the Ursuline Sisters had not come to teach in her rural Kentucky school. In their 109 years of existence, bringing quality education to the “country” schools in Kentucky and other states has been a hallmark of the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph. “I attended rural schools. I watched how happy the Ursulines were with so very little,” Sister Mary
These are the students at St. Charles School in Lebanon, Ky., in 1912, the year the Ursuline Sisters took over teaching there. In the third row are Sister Charles Gough, left, and Sister Gabriel Hayden. In the back row, the fifth girl from the right in the darker dress is Beatrice Peterson, who two years later became Sister Mary Joseph Peterson, OSU.
Sister Mary Matthias Ward, right, gets an embrace from Frances Darst during her farewell party from St. Paul School in Leitchfield, Ky., in 1971. At right is Susie Clark. Sister Mary Matthias was principal of the school from 1963-71.
Matthias Ward said. “Yet they gave so much to each of us. I resolved that someday I would give this to others.” The first three schools in which Sister Mary Matthias served were in small Kentucky towns – St. Peter of Alcantara in the Daviess County community of Stanley, St. Romuald School in Hardinsburg and St. Paul School in Leitchfield. Getting by with less was a staple for these schools. “At Stanley we squeezed children in classrooms when we lost a teacher. Our resources were minimal to say the least, but working together, we learned. The older students helped the younger – we were three grades in a room. “I worked at St. Paul, Leitchfield, for eight years (as principal). I’m still in touch with these folks. We worked, we played, we prayed together,” Sister Mary Matthias said. “I was able to give them experiences of seeing things they were not in touch with. Over a Continued on page 4
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