Topic archive
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.
“Christmas Always”: A Loretto Heritage Center Christmas Treasure
The holiday season is once again upon us, and the Heritage Center would like to share one of the many treasures in our collection. The Heritage Center houses a large collection of books authored by Loretto Sisters. While many of…
What’s in a Date?
August 15, September 8 and 15, October 25, December 8, April 25, May 24, May 31. What do these dates have in common? By the zodiac, they loosely demark the seasons of the year: summer, fall, winter, spring. By the…
Tales from the Annals: Fire in Kansas City
I am coming to the end of my first month at the Loretto Heritage Center, and in my quest to learn about Loretto history I have read many interesting and detailed documents from the archives. I find that for me,…
Smuggling Mother Mary Out of China
Placed in the bottom of a display case in the Heritage Center museum is a “vexillum” or standard, a marble base and orb from which extends a metal pole with an image of the Miraculous Medal (representing the Immaculate Conception)…
Sr. Grace Clare Shanley in China
We have two interesting artifacts at the Heritage Center that nearly bookend the 15 years that Sister Grace Clare Shanley, SL, spent serving in China. The first is a small scrapbook of her journey overseas in 1934. She used a…
Federal Census Evidence for Loretto Slaveholding, 1820-1860
(Editor’s Note: The Loretto Community is working to understand its complicity in systemic racism. We thank the Loretto Heritage Center staff for providing important research about Loretto’s history of slaveholding. We cannot atone and change without knowing the truths of our past.)…
Nuns at the Polls: Loretto and Politics
by Ayla Toussaint and Mary Frances Lottes SL It’s November, which means it is election month in the US! This blog post was written with the help of one of our past Sisters, Sister Mary Fran Lottes. We share this…
Sighting of Spirits and the Devil
Throughout Christianity, there have been stories of people who have seen signs of spirits, demons, and other malevolent beings. The frequency of these experiences, the imagery in them, and how people received them has changed throughout the centuries, but the…
MY EXPERIENCES AS A PROTESTER
I am a white female who grew up in a St. Louis suburb featured in the CBS documentary “16 in Webster Groves” (1966), a critique of the insular life of suburban kids that is still used in sociology classes and…
Running Off to the Convent, Part Two
By Susanna Pyatt As Jewel, Pearl, and Ruby Rogers completed their education at Loretto Academy, their secret plans conflicted with the intentions of their father. Frank wanted his daughters to open a music school. The eldest three sisters, however, planned…
Running Off to the Convent, Part One
By Susanna Pyatt Marcia, the Heritage Center assistant, discovered an intriguing story while processing the personnel files of the three Rogers sisters. Sister Elvira, Sister Benedicta, and Sister Casilda Rogers had only basic documents in their respective files, providing just…
Finding Sister Ann Elizabeth
By Roger Goose, Guest Contributor to the LOREtto Blog It’s a bright sunny day in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s June 2018, the 21st as I remember, and I am with my wife and two friends, Don and June, having…