Newspaper Page Text
Thursday, May 3, 2001
N©ws
A wild goose (paper) chase
Rita H.
DeLorme
[ t seemed an easy enough project
at the time: helping to identify
the Catholic girls’ boarding
school pictured in an old photo
album from the early 1900’s.
After all, there was a little in
formation on the family of one
\ JHIf g* r * s w *>° posed in Gib-
* son-girl finery for some of the
pictures. Her name was Margue
rite Kimball and she was the
daughter of Fanny Brown and
Walter Kimball. A search of the International
Genealogical Index of the Church of Latter Day
Saints (Mormons) even turned up a date for the
marriage of J. Walter Kimball and Fanny Brown:
19 April 1884, Fulton County, Georgia.
A flurry of e-mails between researchers at the
Georgia State Archives, which was given the al
bum, and Gillian Brown, Savannah diocesan
archivist, offered additional clues. Manuscripts
Curator of the State Archives, Elizabeth W.
Knowlton, wrote in late January 2001 that she sus
pected the Kimballs’ marriage had been dissolved
because Mrs. Kimball, though listed as married for
fifteen years, is found living with her father as of
the 1900 state census. Fanny Brown Kimball pur
portedly married a man named “Chase” later on.
A communication, also in January of this year,
from Kathleen Flaherty Lee, suggested that the
locale of the girls’ boarding school had to be the
south (because of palmettoes in photos) and put
forward Saint Angela’s in Aiken, South Carolina,
as the place shown in the mystery album. Jane
Cashin of Augusta asked if the archives had
checked Sacred Heart School in New Orleans
which could possibly fit the bill. Connie Birabent
of the Catholic Archives of New Orleans studied
photos of the old school in the album but said the
school could not be positively identified as Sacred
Heart, because of changes wrought over time in the
building and property.
Old pictures of Saint Mary’s Academy of
Augusta, Georgia, which shared
the same time frame as the
mystery school, offered a possi
ble solution until the Sisters of
Mercy, who ran Saint Mary’s,
declared no member of their
order had ever worn a habit
similar to the one worn by sis
ters in the early photos. Sister
Marie Kevin Mueller of the
School Sisters of Notre Dame
vetoed a suggestion that her
order might have run the board
ing school in the album. Rea
ders Adelia Solovieff and Gen
Farmer’s ideas about the album
were also investigated, but
proved not to be the right order
or school.
A visit to the Web site of
Saint Angela’s Academy, which
closed in 1988, provided photos of early buildings
and of Sisters of Mercy of Our Lady of Charity
who staffed the school subsequent to its founding
in Aiken. Located at Richland and Pendleton
Streets, the boarding school for girls was at first
operated by Ursuline Sisters and named for Saint
Angela, patroness of their community. Sister Laura
Ann Grady, CSJ, of Augusta, has suggested the
habit might be that of the Ursulines or perhaps one
of Saint Katharine Drexel’s Blessed Sacrament
Sisters, who served in African-American commu
nities in Georgia at the time.
In 1906, Bishop Henry P. Northrup of Charleston
asked the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy
to take charge of Saint Angela’s and they soon be
gan operating a boarding school for young ladies
with an enrollment of about 100 students.
In 1912, Saint Angela’s moved to larger quarters:
the former Magnolia Inn on York and Richland
Street, which had once been the home of Mae
Busch, wife of James F. Byrnes who served as Pre
sident Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of State and
The Southern Cross, Page 3
as governor of South Carolina.
There, members of Saint Mary
Help of Christians Parish atten
ded weekday Mass in the con
vent chapel. In 1938, the expan
sive former “Magnolia Inn”
was supplanted by a modem
structure.
!" Online photos of Saint
"5 Angela’s old school appear to
^ have been taken just after the
jg Edwardian period, a few years
o later than the ones in the old
9 album. Saint Angela’s, as seen
The mystery photo
in these pictures, looks a trifle
t too “citified” to be the school in
8 the album held by the Georgia
8 Department of Archives. The
£ extensive database maintained
for Saint Angela’s on the
Internet lists former students,
but—as attested to by Frank Maloney who replied
to a query—goes back “only to 1931.” Saint
Angela’s remains a possibility, but only a faint one.
Another girls’ boarding schol of the desired era
has cropped up. Recently, the Academy of the
Holy Name in Tampa surfaced as a contender.
Begun in 1882 by two Sisters of the Holy Name,
the school’s fiftieth anniversary was noted in The
Bulletin of January 16, 1932, making it a contem
porary institution of the school in the photo album.
Another clue? A Marguerite Kimball, listed on the
Social Security Death Index, could be the girl pre
viously mentioned as being in the photos. Bom in
1892, she would have been about the right age.
Her place of birth is not given, nor is her final New
York state address a hopeful sign.
Until more information surfaces, the mystery
album, populated by lively girls and dedicated
teachers, will continue to haunt several archives.
Rita H. DeLorme is a volunteer in the
Diocesan Archives.
For Mass times and locations nationwide,
call 1-800-Masstimes
(1-800-627-7846)
www. masstimes. org
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Saturdays
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One Faith...One Family
Eastman: Saint Mark Mission
Parkerson, and
Catholic services
were then held on
Monday evenings in
the homes of vari
ous church mem
bers. Later, Mass
was celebrated on
Monday evenings at
the First Pres
byterian Church on
Oak Street.
Regularly scheduled services were
then interrupted for a period of time,
and practicing Catholics drove either
to Cochran or to Dublin each Sunday
for Mass.”
C cnnhe Dodge
X County
faith community
experienced a
number of begin
nings prior to
becoming the
established
church it is today.
In 1971 Catholics
in the Eastman
area gathered on
Monday evenings in the Episcopal
Church (originally a Presbyterian
church) located on the comer of
Anson Avenue and Clements Street.
The Trinitarian Fathers who staffed
Immaculate Conception Church in
Dublin ministered to the small congre
gation in Eastman. In 1973 the
Episcopal Church was sold to Dr. Don
One Faith ... One Family:
Diocese of Savannah 1850-2000
A 350-page commemorative book NOW IN PRINT
Order form
Name:
Address
City:
Phone:
State:
Zip:
Parish:
—From One Faith... One Family,
p. 291
Please send me copies of One Faith... One Family @ $30 per copy.
Enclosed is my check for $ for copies, plus for home
delivery (@ $8.00 per copy, if desired; otherwise books will be sent to your
parish office).
Return form to:
Catholic Pastoral Center
601 E. Liberty St.
Savannah, GA 31401
This commemorative book is also on sale at: E. Shaver Booksellers, 326 Bull
Street, Hannah Banana Bookstore, 4515 Hob in Street, and Saints &
Shamrocks, 309 Bull Street, all in Savannah.