Loretto High School - History

History

Excerpt from Nora Lowe's 1993 speech on Mary Ward Day: "I was assigned principal at the beginning of August, 1955, to this new Loretto. I believed that the school was near completion since it was to open in September. I arrived in the middle of August to find only a foundation with the roughed-in utilities in the middle of much mud, a couple of small houses, an uncared-for orchard, and the remains of chicken coops among which many rats romped and played. I further found out that the deed for the land on which the foundation was laid could not be located. The IBVM community had sent $35,000 to get the building underway. With the help of Monsignor Kirby, chancellor of the diocese, and the diocesan lawyer, Mr. Coyle, we obtained the deed for the land. The Loretto Corporation in Chicago underwrote the loan of $90,000 which we borrowed from McMahon and Hoban in Chicago.

We opened the school year, teaching in St. Philomene Gym. There were fifty-one students and the tuition was $100 a year. How did we finance the running of the school on those meager funds? The three full-time Sisters, myself, Sr. Colette Srill, and Sr. Roberta Gormaly did not receive a stipend or salary; all the money from Sr. Lucia’s music lessons at the convent came to the high school. Sr. Lucia taught choral free and we borrowed St. St. Arthur from St. Philomene’s to teach P.E. We had fund-raisers and a very active Women’s Auxiliary. All the Loretto convents in the United States and Canada sent us donations occasionally. Because of this great generosity, we were able to pay our utilities, and we paid an eighth grade boy $6.00 per week to sweep the classroom and clean the washroom.

I can’t leave the story about that first year without a word about those first fifty-one students. It has been my experience that the first year I work at a new place that God blesses me with special people, and there were so many specials in those first students. Sr. Jean Fyre was one of them. She helped me with all my office work, the bulletin boards, and even did some janitorial work—she never left school before 5:00 o’clock.

Sr. Judy Illig, too, who was so involved and even taught CCD classes and Ann Garcelon who has her own clinic in a poor area in Chicago. One medical student once said to me about Ann—I don’t want to be like Dr. Garcelon; I want to be Dr. Garcelon. And Sandy Halford, a polio victim who kept up with the others in every way. Sandy died a few years ago, but before she became ill with cancer, she had been such a success in her own CPA business. And the talents of Sally Sanford and Cathy William; whether it was for the school, the auxiliary, for TV or for the public in general. Those students expressed great delight the first time I told them that Sr. Lucia would be coming to Loretto for choral classes! I was amazed at how faithful most of the students were in completing homework assignments. Truly, they were very special people—all of them, including the ones I haven’t mentioned."

Although considered a premier high school for young women the beginning of the high school were as meager but through the strength of both the founding sisters and the associates they build community with the high school supported the growth of three generations of young women.