September 14, 1818…Sisters of The Sacred Heart found school for girls in St. Charles
The Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart opened a school for girls in St. Charles, September 14, 1818. Nuns in charge were Mother Rose Philippine Duchesne, and Sisters Octavie Berthold, Eugenie Aude, Marguerite Manteau, and Catherine Lamarre. In addition to teaching paying students, the school gave free instruction to the children of the poor in St. Charles. The Sisters established their school in a log house rented to them by the widow of Francois Duquette. Constructed of upright white oak posts on a low stone foundation with a slanting roof of pegged shingles, it was heated by an open fireplace. Elements of the Christian religion were taught along with an introduction to reading, writing, and counting. It also functioned as a boarding school.
A glimpse of the school is given in a letter written by Mother Duchesne, October 8, 1818:
"Our free school numbers twenty-one, which in proportion to the population equals a school of a hundred in France. The children have never heard of Our Lord, of His birth or His death, nor of hell, and listen agape to our instructions….
We are very inconveniently lodged and shall have to go elsewhere at the end of a year, for we are paying nearly 2000 francs in rent for a house consisting of six very small rooms badly in need of repairs. The large garden and orchard are uncultivated and we have no one to work them…. There are here more English-speaking people than there are French or Creoles, but as both languages are fairly well understood and the children are accustomed to hear both, Mother Octavie will do for the English part of the school, at least for the present…."
The children participated in devotionals characteristic of the order, beginning their first "month of May" in the spring of 1819 and in June making the traditional daily devotionals to the Sacred Heart. St. John Regis was honored with a special 9-day service and the first "Missa Cantata" on record in St. Charles. The school did not flourish at first, however, and in 1819 was moved to Florissant. Re-established in St. Charles in 1828, the convent is still in existence today.
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