Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1914-08-01
Founded First Convent Within
Limits of the United
States.
How They Protected and Cared
For Young Girls From
France.
They CONDUCT ACADEMY here
BY James A. Rooney, LII. d.

BY James A. Rooney, LII. ID.
To the Ursulines. the daughters of
st. Angela and the first teaching
order of women established in the
church, belongs the honor of having
founded in 1927 the first convent
within the limits of the United
States, though the first house of the
order in America had been founded
in Canada by Mother Marie de Pin
carnation nearly hundred years
before.
When in 171S Bienville and his
men transformed the abandoned In
dian village of Tchoutchouma, about
110 miles from the Mississippi's
mouth, into a city, which he named
New Orleans in honor of the Due
d'Orleans of France, the plans of
De La Tour, the chief engineer of
the colony, included parish church
under the invocation of st. Louis,
on whose site the old Cathedral
stands today.
Here the Capuchins and Jesuits
labored, going among the scattered
French and Indians, and the new city
grew apace until in 1925 they were
ministering to about 1000 families
More priests were needed and when
Father Nicholas Ignatius Beaubois,
the founder of the Jesuit mission,
decided to make a voyage to France
to enlist volunteers for the work,
Blenville charged him to secure a
band of nuns capable of taking
tharge of an hospital and school.
40 hot Vial
Ursulines at Rouen and they agreed
to organize a band for a foundation
in the new world. Under authority of
a royal patent issued September 18.
1926. Mother Mary Tranchepain, OF
st. Augustine. secured seven pro-
fessed nuns from various converts
of the order, besides Madeline
Hauchard, a novice, and two
postulants. The little colony, REIN
forced by Fathers Tartarin and
Doutreleau, sailed from L'Orient for
Louisiana, and reached New Orleans
August 6. 1927.
Bienville received the Sisters with
Toy and as their convent was not
yet ready for occupancy he welcomed
them to the hospitality of his own
home. They lost no time in begin
| ming the work to undertake which
they had journeyed so far, and on
the day after their arrival they took
charge of the hospital and a school
for poor children. On taking pos
session of their convent they opened
an academy for girls, the first in
stitution in the United States for the
education of women. When they
nanund IN ht.fIlfnn In.
lower part of the city in 1924 their
first convent became the Bishops
residence and later was used as the
chancery office of the diocese.
AS the Ursulines had established
the first convent in the United States,
1t goes without saying that they
numbered in their community the
first nuns professed in the country.
One of these, Mary Turpin, daughter
of a Canadian father and an Indian
mother, was the first native Ameri-
can nun to take the veil in this coun-
. try. She died at the age of fifty
two in 1861.
The Ursulines also gave asylum to
many young girls sent out from
! France on the urgent appeal of Bien-
vile as wives for the colonists, and
as each band arrived they we're con-
fided to the care of the Sisters until
suitable husbands were secured for
them. To vouch for their re-
spectability each girl on leaving
home was given a curious casket.
whence they became known as "cas-
ket girls" and now many of the best
families of Louisiana are proud to
be able to trace their descent from
these "casket girls"
From these small beginnings the
Ursulines have spread all over the
United States, numbering now about
1900 professed nuns, and they have
strictly adhered to the original OBJ
jects of their foundation, which was
expressly and exclusively the educa-
tion Of young girls. They are found
teaching In parochial schools and
conducting academies all over the
country, and in 1904 they established
at New Rochelle the first Catholic
college for women in the United
States.
The splendid Sacred Heart Acad-
emy at Crescent Hill is conducted