From 1893 until a 1970 merger with Ladywood, the St. Agnes Academy was an all-girls college preparatory high school operated by the Sisters of Providence. Six years later, the Sisters sold the Ladywood-St. Agnes property to Cathedral High School under the condition that the new school would be co-ed.
How did this week’s Penny Post early-1900 image of this prominent Indianapolis Catholic girl’s school find its way from Missouri to West Virginia?
Postmarked: MAR 6, 1911, Flaxton, W. VA., 6-AM
Message on Front:
Elizabeth got the hare barrets (or bands), likes it well
From dad
1911
Message on Back:
Pleasant Hill, MO 3-4-1911 [why do you not write]
Dear Children, well this is Saturday afternoon. Just finished the Washington and got a letter form Greg Stevens and he wants the swing bad but not at his price will I sell. Offered be $1150.00 and I not sell at that price after carring it through the winter. I have a chance now to buy 200 acres of land. All heavy good saw timber. 7000 feet per acre, half Pine 30 in. in diamiter, 3-16 feet logs, same size in Dent County MO., land is all good & level. 100 acres free of stone. Price $1600 cash
Addressed to:
Mrs. Goldie Stone
Flaxton, West VA
(Mason Co.)
A penny for your thoughts … Do you know anyone who attended the St. Agnes Academy? Did they share any more about it?
Check out Friday Favorite: Laurel Hall, Hidden Treasure to learn more about Indianapolis’ all-girl Catholic school history.
Interesting but strange note on the postcard. Would love to know about the “hare”. Wonder if he brought his daughter to St. Agnes for school? Did they board students back in 1911? Curious….
I don’t know where Flaxton WV is but I DO know whee Pleasant Hill MO is (Northern Cass Co, MO, just south of Kansas City, which had some prominent Catholic high schools, along with Catholic Rockhurst University…)
Assuming he meant hair barrettes—????
It’s either hair barrettes or hair bands. It is often difficult to tell on some postcards – handwriting coupled with frequent misspellings. I makes me want to write carefully in all of my correspondences!
My aunt we t there in the 60s. The building pictured is on the SW corner of Meridian and 14th. On the NW corner is the old Cathedral HS, which was all male. My aunt was a cheerleader for the Cathedral all-boys school one year. The cheerleaders for. Athedr would alternate years; one year they’d be from St. Agnes, and the next from Ladywood, I believe. St. Agnes is now apartments, and the old Cathedral is the Cstholic Center for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
St. Agnes and St. Mary Academy shared the cheerleading for Cathedral. I went to St. Mary Academy in the 60’s and one year there would be 3 girls from St Agnes and 2 from St. Mary’s and the next year there would be 3 girls from St. Mary’s and 2 from St. Agnes. You can look in St. May’s year books from 1964, 65, 66 and 67. I remember one of the cheerleaders name was Dixie Roberts from St. Mary’s.
I don’t believe that there was a quota for Cathedral cheerleaders from the various girls’ academies. During my time at Cathedral (1965-1969) we had equal representation from St. Agnes and St. Mary’s. To my knowledge, CHS never had cheerleaders from Ladywood; not sure about St. John’s. St. Agnes, which seemed to have attracted Irish Catholic girls from the archdiocese, originally boarded girls. It was a very roomy school. In the late 1960’s St. Agnes had the oldest registered elevator in Indianapolis. It was for the exclusive use of the Sisters and the occasional Cathedral art student making his way to the art studio located in the fourth floor/attic spaces. St. Mary’s originally catered to the archdiocesan German Catholic young ladies since it was adjacent to St. Mary’s Church which was a German National Catholic Church. My aunt, Maria Louisa Müllenholz Fierek was a member of St. Mary’s Academy, Class of 1918.