The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet opened St. Mary’s Convent, a Catholic academy for young women in Northeast Minneapolis (then known as the town of St. Anthony) in 1853, five years before Minnesota became a state.
It was the town’s first Catholic school, across the street from St. Anthony of Padua, the town’s first Catholic church, which was built four years earlier. St. Mary’s would later merge with St. Anthony’s parochial school, bringing together a co-educational elementary school and a high school for girls. Over 100 years and two buildings later, the school remained a place for innovation, even as the world of Catholic education changed rapidly.
The year 1969 was a turning point for both the elementary and the high school. In the high school, teaching staff adopted a trendy new modular scheduling system that created shorter time blocks and opened the possibility for smaller classes, more study periods, and students taking responsibility for their own unique schedules. The changes reflected the school’s young teaching staff (with an average age of 33) and its culture of student involvement in decision-making.
The superintendent decided 1969 was also the time to try out a new organizational system for the Catholic elementary schools in Northeast Minneapolis. As teaching sisters moved into other fields and student enrollments declined, All Saints was merged with Holy Cross, St. Hedwig merged with St. Cyril, and 184 children from St. Anthony of Padua Elementary were sent to St. Boniface. The consolidation began a cascade that would become known as the Northeast Minneapolis Consolidated Catholic Schools and, much later, St. John Paul II Catholic School.
Now just a high school for girls, St. Anthony faced many challenges over the next few years. While students cherished the small feeling of having only 300 members in the student body, declining enrollment strained the budget. The mortgage on the school’s recent addition made things even more challenging. In another effort to consolidate resources, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis decided to close St. Anthony at the end of the 1971 school year. DeLaSalle would welcome the students from St. Anthony, becoming co-educational for the first time.
With the school closed, Father William Hough looked for other ways to use the building and the parish’s prime location. Dominican Sister Ruth Roland brought up an interesting idea. They could turn the school into an eldercare facility.
After gathering support and city approval, the project moved ahead in 1980. Catholic Eldercare leased the land under the school building and transformed it into a home for 150 residents. The older portion of the school building was razed to make way for resident rooms, and the school’s newer addition became the dining, kitchen and therapy facilities. The new Catholic Eldercare building was connected to St. Anthony church, allowing residents to come to Mass without ever going outside. It also transformed Father Hough’s parish, adding 150 elders to the 300 families that were already parishioners.
Over the past 40 years, Catholic Eldercare has continued to flourish, ultimately purchasing the whole site in 2013 and transforming the St. Anthony of Padua church into a chapel and continuing the ongoing history of the first Catholic church and school in Minneapolis.
Luiken is a Catholic and historian with a doctorate from the University of Minnesota. She loves exploring and sharing the hidden histories that touch our lives every day.
