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Loretto and Native American Boarding Schools

Posted on October 1, 2021, by Eleanor Craig SL

Colored drawing of a cluster of brown log buildings on a green background.
Drawing by a student at the Osage Mission in the 1860s.
Courtesy of Loretto Archives

Now that directorship of the Heritage Center is in the capable hands of Ayla Toussaint, I have time to write occasional pieces of Loretto history for the Community. As there are more questions all the time about Loretto’s involvement with Native American boarding schools, I’ll start with this article about Loretto’s first boarding school for American Indians, for the Osage Nation. For the next article I’ll write about Bernalillo, N.M., our only other boarding school for which we accepted federal funds to teach Native Americans. Of course, I will be delighted to share further resources with any readers who wish to read more.

As Loretto was beginning on the Kentucky frontier in 1812, native peoples were rapidly being driven west of the Mississippi. We have no records of the sisters interacting with American Indians in Kentucky. Rev. Charles Nerinckx met Osage people in Missouri in 1824 among the Jesuits at Florissant, and arranged for some of the girls to be sent to Bethlehem, Loretto’s convent school at St. Mary’s on the Mississippi. There is no documentation showing the girls ever arrived.

Not until 1847 do we read of Loretto teaching American Indians. In that year four sisters responded to an urgent request from the Jesuits who themselves had been begged by the Osage for schools for boys and girls. Soon two schools were established at Osage Mission in southeastern Kansas Territory. These schools prospered, but for just 20 years. In 1867 the Osage people were forced to relocate to Oklahoma, and Quakers were designated by the federal government to conduct the federal boarding schools for Osage children.

In 1915 Loretto was again asked to teach Osage children. In that year Mother Katherine Drexel invited Loretto to take charge of St. Louis Industrial School, the private boarding school for Osage girls which Drexel built at Pawhuska, Okla., in 1887. It had been staffed first by Franciscans and then by Drexel’s Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. Loretto conducted St. Louis School from 1915 to 1942 when Drexel’s community again had enough sisters to staff it. St. Louis closed in 1949.

Black and white photo of a large white clapboard building.
Girls’ school building at the Osage Mission; photo taken in the 1860s.
Courtesy of Loretto Archives

Also in Pawhuska, Loretto taught at the parish school, Immaculate Conception, from 1918 to 1942. This, however, was a day school with tuition paid by parents and not all pupils were of the Osage tribe.

Osage Nation members even today cherish memories of Loretto teachers and attribute the continuing Catholic faith in the Nation to the Sisters of Loretto.

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Eleanor Craig SL

Eleanor has been a Sister of Loretto since 1963 and an educator since birth. She graduated from two of Loretto's best known St. Louis institutions, Nerinx Hall High School in 1960, and Webster University in 1967. She taught mathematics at Loretto in Kansas City, where her personal passion for adventure history inspired her to develop and lead treks along the historic Oregon Trail. From 1998 to 2010 she created an award-winning program of outdoor adventure along the Western trails for teens who are visually impaired. Eleanor claims to have conducted more wagon trains to the West than the Mountain Men! From 2012 to 2021, Eleanor led a talented staff of archivists and preservationists at the Loretto Heritage Center on the grounds of the Motherhouse. She recently retired, but still serves in the Heritage Center as Loretto Community Historian.
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Loretto welcomes you

Learn more or plan a visit to the Motherhouse!