SCL educators establish schools, high standards for students

By Sister Dolores Brinkel, SCL
Diocese of Helena Archivist

When the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth arrived in Helena in 1869, their first mission was to establish a boarding school for girls. St. Vincent’s Academy, located above Last Chance Gulch on Catholic Hill, provided a finishing school education for hundreds of young frontier women until the 1935 earthquake destroyed the buildings.
Later, in 1916, Bishop John P. Carroll noted in his ordo that “Sister Cornelia…, when at St. John’s Hospital, … began in 1907 to board the out-of-town students of St. Aloysius Institute… , and then helped me to lay the foundations of Mt. St. Charles College, which opened in 1910.”
The Sisters had established St. Mary’s Academy in Deer Lodge in 1882 and, after numerous renovations, continued the school until 1957 when the parish took over the school. In its early years, the Sisters accommodated boarders of preschool age, making the school the first to experiment in kindergarten work in Montana. Sister Mary Margaret Coughlin, a native of Helmville, attended St. Mary’s and later taught there.
The Sisters were also on the cutting edge in the 1960s when Bishop Raymond G. Hunthausen expanded the religious education program to involve more children and adults. Sisters Mary Roberta Fitzgerald and Mary Emmanuel Dougherty were appointed to the diocesan religious education office. They traveled the diocese setting up programs in parishes and training local religious educators. To help this cause they established an audio-visual lending library. Their workshops and coordination enabled parishes to establish religious education programs for all their children and adults. This was especially important in the ensuing years with the closing of Catholic schools.
The Sisters had staffed various parish schools; in Helena, St. Mary’s, St. Helena and Cathedral High School; in East Helena, St. Ann’s; in Butte, St. Patrick, St. Lawrence, Sacred Heart, St. Mary, Holy Savior and (Girls’) Central Catholic High School; in Anaconda, St. Joseph’s. In his 1898 diary, Bishop Brondel noted 1,000 pupils at St. Patrick’s in Butte, 53 boarders and 150 day students at St. Vincent’s Academy in Helena.
Stories about the SCL teachers abound. One about Sister Mary Xavier Davey, teaching at coeducational Butte Central from 1912 to 1926, reflects the dedication and resourcefulness of the Sisters who often taught large classes with limited resources. Sister taught math and science and was determined to prepare her boys for work in the mines. Shift bosses and mine superintendents became accustomed to her direct questions and often gifted her with the glass tubing, copper wire or other supplies she needed for classroom experiments.
One day she was invited by the School of Mines to attend a lecture by a distinguished mathematician. Accompanied by several of her best students, she set out. The speaker posed a mathematical question to his audience. After momentarily not getting an answer, he noticed the raised hand of the lone woman (Sister Mary Xavier). She took the chalk and quickly solved the problem, to the delight and applause of the other teachers. Then she posed a problem for the speaker, which he could not solve. Her boys took the news back to Butte Central. She shrugged it off – typical of most Sisters who worked only for recognition from the Lord.

The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth arrived in Montana Territory within 11 years after they were established in Kansas. This is the third vignette in a series to commemorate their 150th anniversary as a congregation of women religious.

Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 24, No. 3, March 21, 2008.