Happy holidays! It is once again time for the Heritage Center’s annual “12 Days of Christmas” spree. If you did not follow along on our Facebook page, all of the posts can be viewed below. “12 Days of Christmas” posts…
Happy National Archives Month! The archive for the Loretto Community is housed in the Loretto Heritage Center at the Motherhouse. Heritage Center staff wear many hats in doing archival work. This week’s Facebook posts explain how archival collections are processed,…
Browsing through Loretto’s database of Sisters and Co-members, it is fascinating to see how many members had blood relatives who also joined the community. Five family groupings in particular stand out because they are sets of not two, but five…
While the Loretto Heritage Center contains a lot of archival papers that document Loretto’s past, one aspect that is difficult to see in the archives is the history of agriculture at the Motherhouse and other convents. Perhaps this is because…
A note in Sr. Matilda Drury’s file mentions that she was “related to many in the Society and in the priesthood.” Like the Bowling family highlighted in January’s LOREtto post, “related to many” has a larger meaning than the typical…
The Sisters of Loretto were founded in 1812 with a mission of teaching, but what were their schools like? To answer one aspect of this question, an upcoming exhibit at the Loretto Heritage Center explores how Sisters of Loretto taught…
Loretto recently donated a major piece of art, Miguel Cabrera’s painting, “Our Lady of Light,” to the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art (MOSCA) in Santa Fe, N.M. This painting had been with Loretto since the late 1870s, when Archbishop Jean…
Updated on March 4, 2024 after additional discoveries in the Loretto Archives. It’s not uncommon to find Sisters of Loretto who are biologically related to each other, usually as sisters, cousins, or aunts and nieces. Heritage Center staff may find…
Guess which artist is most represented in the Loretto Heritage Center? Sister Gabriel Mary Hoare! We have over 70 works by her in the collections here. People who have been to the Motherhouse have likely seen other pieces by her…
Loretto numbers among its early students and Sisters several descendants of Benedict Spalding (1746-1815), one of the leaders of the Maryland-to-Kentucky Catholic migration. Benedict’s wife and children accompanied him in 1790, settling on the Rolling Fork River and prospering in…
Despite the fact that Loretto established three different schools in Arkansas, they all vie for some of the shortest-lived Loretto houses. None lasted more than four years. They were all founded at a time when Loretto was expanding across the…
Back in January, the Heritage Center staff were asked about an oil painting of the Epiphany that hangs in the Motherhouse Infirmary. This work, showing the three Magi visiting the Holy Family, has a plaque on its frame for “Francois…