Laying the Foundation for Education in St. Louis
Historians Coburn & Smith called the mother superiors leading the first missionary groups in the US, the “first female CEOs” because they “administered institutions, personnel, and financial resources throughout the country.”
– Spirited Lives: How Nuns Shaped Catholic Culture and American Life (1836-1920)
The Visitation Sisters literally laid the foundations of education in St. Louis
In some cases, sisters literally laid the groundwork for education in the St. Louis area. Sister M. Josephine Barber’s memoir chronicles the remarkable story of the first eight Visitation Sisters who arrived in St. Louis in 1833 with a mission to establish a convent school & includes beautiful architectural drawings of their school buildings. Their journey began humbly, not in a grand building, but in a converted grocery store in Kaskaskia, Illinois, with a log church they initially mistook for a barn. Undeterred, the sisters transformed this space with resourcefulness, relying on donations and borrowed labor to create a nurturing learning environment. As their student body grew, they relocated to larger and more practical accommodations. While they often secured these new locations for free or at a significant discount, the buildings were frequently in a state of disrepair. Josephine recounts the struggle to finish their chapel before Christmas as they suffered from bitter cold,
“There being no brick layers about, I was given the job of laying the hearth – fire being indispensable. First filling up the cavity with sand, I put down the bricks in regular files, to the admiration of all who saw it, and to the joy of those who feared we would freeze there on Christmas night.”
“Sr. Josephine Barber’s History of the Foundation at Kaskaskia till the Move to Cass Ave,” St. Louis Visitation Archives, 102.2.1.
In 1962 the Sisters moved their academy to its present location in St. Louis on Ballas Street. Once again, the sisters industriously set to work: although it was highly unusual for women to participate in the construction process, the Visitation sisters played a central role in designing their new Academy.
Courtesy of: St. Louis Visitation Archives
Visitation Academy at 3020 Ballas Street in St. Louis