Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/551

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The first Catholic school established in Portland was St. Mary's academy and college on Fourth street, in 1859.

On October 21, 1859, the twelve foundresses of the school landed in Portland, having come from Montreal by way of New York and the Isthmus of Panama. These heroic nuns, who were destined to lay the foundation of a great teaching order in the northwest, were: Sister Mary Alphonse, Mary David, Sister Mary of Mercy, Adelaide Renauld; Sister Mary Margaret, Mary O'Neill; Sister Mary of the Visitation, Agiae Lucier; Sister Mary Francis Xavier, Vitaline Provost; Sister Mary of Calvary, Violet McMullen; Sister Mary Febronia, Melanie Vandandaigue; Sister Mary Florentine, Alphonsine Collin; Sister Mary Perpetua, Martine Lachapelle; Sister Mary Arsenius, Philomene Menard; Sister Mary Julia, Olive Charbonneau and Sister Mary Agatha, Celina Pepin.

Before their arrival Archbishop Blanchet had purchased from the townsite proprietor, Daniel H. Lownsdale, the block of ground on which the college buildings now stand. There was at the time on the block an unfinished building, practically at the edge of the native forest.

The building was a frame one of two stories with two small wings, 17x17 feet, on either side of the structure. Two stairways led to the unfinished upper story, and through the cotton ceilings and wide chinks in the walls the rain and winds came unbidden and unsought.

Through the effort of combined labor, conditions were noticeably improved. Rev. L. Piette, the self-constituted head of the carpenter department, toiled early and late with two aids, and at the end of a fortnight an altar, tables, desks, benches and other articles of needed household furniture had been manufactured. The dingy walls and ceilings had been covered with wall paper of pleasing tints and a faultless cleanliness attested the work of tireless hands.

The opening day was on November 6, 1859; six pupils answering the roll call. Three of these were Catholics, Emma O'Brien, Anna Dellschneider and Mary Clarke; two were Hebrews, Josephine and Clementine Meyer, and the remaining one, Emma Sherlock, was a non-Catholic. In accepting a foundation in Oregon, the sisters had agreed to establish a boarding and day school. Ten days of school life had passed when little Anna Cobletz, a seven-year-old motherless child, was placed in the sisters' care. Her name heads the list of the honor roll of the resident students of 50 years.

These twelve sisters had been chosen with reference to their especial adaptability to the requirements of the institution they were to found. Art and music were in demand. A square piano, ordered during the sisters' brief stay in New York, and shipped by way of Cape Horn, reached its destination in February. Its arrival caused much rejoicing among the pupils and teachers and the solitary instrument was seldom silent during the day.

Such was the beginning of the first seminary for girls, in Portland and Oregon, and from which have gone out thousands of noble young women taught, strengthened and fortified for all the duties of life by the self-sacrificing sisters.

The twelve foundresses of this first school were never idle. In 1886, they undertook and built the Holy Names Academy in St. Francis parish. The teachers made St. Mary's their home. Their daily mission was of a nature to tax the strongest—the two sisters set out at 7:30 a. m., walked to the Stark street ferry,