Seventy-eight Ursulines assembled on the steps of Ursuline Academy on Fourth Street in Alton for this 1910 photo. Marquette Catholic High School now stands on the site.

ALTON — Friends and supporters joined Ursuline sisters March 22 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Ursulines in Alton at a Mass with Bishop George J. Lucas at Ss. Peter and Paul Church, followed by a reception at the Alton Knights of Columbus Hall.

Ursulines came from Dallas, Springfield and St. Louis to join in the celebration, which included about half the Ursulines in the Central Province.

Concelebrating Mass were Father Joseph Cain, OMI, parochial administrator at Ss. Peter and Paul; Monsignors Virgil Mank and John Ossola; Fathers John Beveridge, William Hembrow, Stephen Pohlman, William Kessler and Christopher Uhl, OMV. Deacon William Kessler assisted at the altar. Many of the concelebrants were taught by Ursulines, or serve in parishes with a strong Ursuline heritage.

Some 300 people comfortably filled the church, which some local residents still refer to as “the Old Cathedral,” as Alton was the diocesan see city in 1859. It was here the first four of what would be a community of seven Ursulines came March 22, 1859, to present themselves to the bishop to begin their work.

Visiting together after the Mass at Ss. Peter and Paul Church in Alton are Sister Dolores Marie Ramsey (in wheelchair) Sister Elisa Ryan and Sister Patricia Faricy, both former Ursuline provincials and former Marquette teachers. Sister Ann Mary Hasting has her back to the camera. Standing in the background are Sister Jane Weissing, Sister Agnes Hermes, Sister Bernadette Marie Fronmueller, Sister Mary Jude Jun, and Sister Mary Jacqueline Pratt. Seated are Sisters Ruth Talty, Teresita Rivet, and Miriam Teresa Graczak, members of the Queen of Peace Healthcare Communty in Alton.

Bishop Henry Damian Juncker, the diocese’s first bishop, crossed the Mississippi River to visit the Ursuline house in St. Louis, to ask the Ursulines to establish a convent and school in Alton. A parish school started in 1854 by Sisters of Charity from Emmitsburg, Md., had closed in 1858, when those sisters left Alton.

Within 11 days of the Ursulines’ arrival in Alton, they opened a school in the old Mansion House at 506 State St., which had housed the former school and convent. In 1860, the school had 10 boarders, 45 secondary school students and 34 elementary students, plus two lay sisters and three choir novices.

Needing both a bigger convent, and larger school facilities, the Ursulines, with the help of the bishop and an interest-free loan from the Ursulines of New Orleans, purchased a site on East Fourth Street at Easton, (now the site of Marquette Catholic High School), where they built Ursuline Academy and convent.

The Ursuline community in Alton increased rapidly in numbers. In 1871 it numbered 25. By the turn of the century, it had 74 sisters, and 96 more professed their vows in the next three decades.

As their numbers increased, so too did their apostolates. On Aug. 1, 1871, they established their first branch house in Litchfield, which was followed by branch houses in Morrisonville, Venice, Ste. Marie, Kampsville, Collinsville, Jerseyville, Mattoon, Staunton, Mount Olive, Livingston, Springfield and Belen, N.M. The Alton Ursulines also established new foundations in Decatur in 1874 and Frontenac, Minn., in 1877.

Ursulines from Alton served in parishes throughout the diocese, teaching in schools and parish religious education programs. They taught in Litchfield; at St. Patrick School in Decatur; in Frontenac, Minn.; at St. Mary School in Mattoon; at Ss. Peter and Paul School in Springfield; at Ss. Peter and Paul School in Collinsville; at St. Patrick in Alton; at the Cathedral School (which became Ss. Peter and Paul Parish Grade School) in Alton; in Ste. Marie, Morrisonville, Venice, and Kampsville; at St. Michael School in Staunton; in Mt. Olive and in Livingston; at St. Bernard in Wood River; in Brighton; at the Ursuline Holy Family Convent on Danforth Street in Alton; at Ursuline Academy and Marquette High School in Alton; and at St. Ambrose in Godfrey.

After Ursuline Academy in Alton graduated its last all-girls class in 1926, the building was razed, and on its site the Ursulines built the new co-educational Marquette High School.

The Ursuline Convent on Danforth Street in Alton hosts the Queen of Peace Healthcare and Retirement Community, where Ursuline sisters of the entire Central Province, from Minnesota to Texas and Louisiana, can spend their final years with the devoted care of other “Ursulines” and a staff of healthcare workers.

In the 1950s, when baby boomers were flooding parochial and public schools, at the Ursuline convent on Danforth, “There were cars pulling out each morning to four parish schools in the Alton area alone — Ss. Peter and Paul and St. Patrick in Alton, St. Bernard in Wood River, and St. Ambrose in Godfrey — and to Marquette High School in Alton. Sisters were also providing Saturday catechetical instruction at St. Alphonsus in Brighton,” said Sister Chabanel Mathison, now the local leader of the Ursulines in Alton.

In the History of the Central Province, published in 1983, Ursuline historian, Sister Ignatius Miller wrote, “These Alton women came from a background where poverty, heavy debt, crowded living quarters, hard work in crammed classrooms, and steadily aging personnel daunted no one.”

In a booklet distributed at the 150th anniversary celebration, Sister Chabanel wrote, “Though the Alton Ursulines no longer serve in such a broad array of ministries, the Ursuline Convent on Danforth Street now happily hosts the Queen of Peace Healthcare and Retirement Community, a lovely setting where Ursuline sisters of the entire Central Province, from Minnesota to Texas and Louisiana, can spend their final years with the devoted care of other ‘Ursulines’ and a staff of competent healthcare workers.”

Currently there are 42 sisters in the combined Queen of Peace and Alton Ursuline communities. “They still enjoy wonderful friendships with the people of Alton and from those places where they have served the church in Illinois,” said Sister Chabanel.

Lowell Brosamer, the first lay principal at Marquette, as well as the first lay principal at St. Teresa High School in Decatur, and now St. Teresa High School Foundation director, was one of the gift bearers at Mass, as was Mike Slaughter, Marquette principal.

“It is good to be here, to see so many friends,” said Brosamer.