LOREtto
Welcome to LOREtto, a blog created by Loretto Heritage Center to share insights into the rich history of the Loretto Community. Learn more about our Heritage Center and archives.
By Ayla Toussaint The first part of this blog post was written for us by Loretto’s second archivist, Sister Matilda Barrett! Found in the archives vault, this short chapter recounts the story of Loretto’s shortest mission: Belen, New Mexico – Our Lady of Sorrows Convent – (1900/9/28-1900/10/5) The shortest-lived Loretto foundation, if one may call…
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By Susanna Pyatt In 1867, three Sisters of Loretto – Sisters Kostka Gauthreaux, Alphonsa Thompson, and Isabella Trealler – set out from Kentucky and Missouri to follow the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico. There they would join other Sisters in the growing work undertaken by Loretto in the American Southwest. The three Sisters traveled…
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By Susanna Pyatt One of my favorite objects in the Loretto Heritage Center collections is an embroidery sampler signed “Victoria Whitehair, Osage Mission, 1859.” Victoria stitched the English alphabet five times in different styles on a linen background, interspersing her lines with decorative patterns. She joined other female students across Europe and America in creating…
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Sometime around 1960, Sister Jean Paul Steube, a Loretto novice, wrote a colorful biography of Sister Mary Athanasius Wathen. In that piece, she shared many delightful stories of Sister Athanasius’s long life. For example, in her last days and weeks, at the age of almost 99, Sister was still receiving guests daily, even though she…
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By Susanna Pyatt Visitors to the Loretto Heritage Center may recall a display in the museum about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The deep display case is designed to mimic the Sisters of Loretto exhibit at the Fair, where the Sisters placed work from their students for millions of fairgoers to see. Six years after…
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On the grounds of Loretto Motherhouse, in an area of central Kentucky which is today still quite rural, two imposing brick buildings stand as witnesses to more than 175 years of Loretto’s education of young women. First there was Rhodes Hall, one of Kentucky’s earliest academies for girls, built in 1834 on the “Bardstown Pike.”…
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By Leslee Moore Even after 12 years of working in the Loretto Archives and Heritage Center, assistant and docent Marcia Mohin still can be surprised. As she processes files of Loretto Community members past and present, she finds stories that beg to be shared with a wider audience. While researching a list of Loretto Sisters…
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By Katie Santa Ana With October upon us and Halloween just around the corner, the season for ghost stories is here! Sister Joan Campbell SL (1929-2007) was always on the look out for Loretto ghost stories and gathered a few together in her files. Her notes are now in the archives as part of her…
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By Katie Santa Ana In the museum collection of the Loretto Heritage Center, we have a small, unassuming crucifix with an interesting egg shaped wooden case. In now fading white ink, “Rev. Flaget’s Rosary given to Loretto 1925” is written along the juncture where the two halves of the case twist together. For over ninety…
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Loretto Academy at Loretto Motherhouse, opened in 1834 in today’s “Rhodes Hall,” steadily pursued its mission of education, through times of financial boom and bust, through the fire of 1858 which destroyed most of the Motherhouse, and despite the turmoil of the Civil War. For fifty years in the original building the Sisters of Loretto…
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Two buildings on the grounds of Loretto Motherhouse are in the midst of significant anniversaries. The buildings that today we call “Rhodes Hall” and the “Novitiate/Academy Building” together mark 175 years of young ladies’ education at the Sisters of Loretto Motherhouse in central Kentucky. In later blogs we’ll look at the story of the 1886…
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By Susanna Pyatt 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Thomas Merton’s death. As a monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton was a neighbor of the Sisters at the Loretto Motherhouse. The Heritage Center is currently planning an exhibit for this fall that highlights the friendship, mentorship, and dialogue between Merton and the Sisters of…
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