A Century of Sisters of the Holy Cross in Utah: A look at the first five years: 1875-1880
Michael Courtney
Archivist, Diocese of Salt Lake City
SALT LAKE CITY — On June 5, 1875, the first two sisters of the Congregation of the Holy Cross came to minister in Utah, arriving in Salt Lake City. At the invitation of Father Lawrence Scanlan (bishop 1891), who oversaw the early Church in Utah, Mother Mary Augusta and Sister Raymond came from St. Mary’s in Indiana. The Salt Lake Herald announced the sisters’ arrival in the Utah Territory, declaring “it is their intention to establish in Salt Lake City a day and boarding school, which will be open to all, it is to be hoped that they will meet with good will and co-operation of the public.”
During their first five years in Utah, public co-operation did indeed help the Holy Cross Sisters build the foundations of a successful ministry in the Beehive State, where they established five schools and two hospitals between 1875 and 1880.
Within a month of coming to Salt Lake City, Mother Mary Augusta and Sister Raymond started working on the first of their five schools erected in Utah. By the end of August, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that St. Mary’s Academy for Girls would open on Sept. 6, 1875. The new school, the article continued, was “beautifully and healthfully located, with spacious playgrounds. It will be thoroughly ventilated and furnished with all the modern appliances conducive to the health and comfort of its inmates.” Moreover, the school “will be conducted by competent and experienced teachers from the East. The course of studies will comprise all the ordinary branches of knowledge usually taught in first class educational institutions; and also music, vocal and instrumental, languages, painting, drawing, plain sewing, fancy work and etc.”
A year later, Fr. Scanlan, writing to the Propagation of Faith, stated that St. Mary Academy “has been wonderfully successful to the great credit of the good Sisters. The average attendance is about 100 [students]. ...”
Soon after founding St. Mary’s Academy, the Holy Cross Sisters began to expand their educational mission in the Territory. In November 1875, they established a second school in Salt Lake City: St. Joseph’s School for Boys. Two years later came a second girls’ school, Sacred Heart Academy in Ogden, which provided for the educational needs of that growing community. The Sisters also started a school for boys as an auxiliary to the Sacred Heart Academy. On Sept. 1, 1879, the sisters embarked on their most southern educational undertaking, St. Mary’s School in Silver Reef, which served the children of miners.
Although the Holy Cross Congregations’ original mission in Utah was educational, with their charism they brought a second ministry: health care. Mining caused many injuries, and the need for a hospital to care for miners was great. On Monday, Oct. 25, 1875, the Holy Cross Sisters inaugurated the first of their two hospitals in Utah: Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City. Patients were charged $1 per visit or $10 per week for a private room. Destitute patients paid nothing.
In 1879, the sisters opened St. John’s Hospital in Silver Reef to serve its mining community.
The Holy Cross Sisters’ early success in developing educational and medical institutions drew support from the community. When they first arrived, the scattered Catholic community in Utah was estimated to be about 2,000 individuals. Despite the Catholic population’s small size, the sisters’ institutions flourished as community members came to respect the Holy Cross Sisters. Fr. Scanlan noted that large enrollment at St. Mary’s Academy after its first year of existence was due to the sisters, “by their exemplary lives, their industry, their holy conversations, their solitude and ever love for the children and the good advice they give.”
This respect was seen with their work at Holy Cross Hospital. In 1878, a ball was held to support the financial needs of the new hospital. Although it was not well attended, The Salt Lake Herald stated that “the attendance was no criterion for the financial benefit which would result to the charitable purpose for which the ball was inaugurated, many purchased tickets who did not attend.”
The sisters also catered to the needs of the larger community. Father Dennis Kiely, who worked alongside Fr. Scanlan for 40 years, explained in a report that “shortly after Sisters arrived in Salt Lake City, petitions were received from several ming camps asking for the construction of a hospital to care for the sick miners. The requests were so urgent that we were compelled to build one.”
He continued, “I say that we were compelled because the miners refused to donate a single dollar to us unless we build a hospital for them.” The sisters agreed to start Holy Cross Hospital; their clientele were primarily miners.
Education was important to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who comprised the majority of the state’s population. All Holy Cross Schools allowed non-Catholics to enroll as students, providing them with a first-class education paying “special attention to neatness, cleanliness, general deportment and morality of those committed to their care” as reported in the Salt Lake Tribune. These educational ideas appealed to all members of the community.
The wider community was willing to work with the Holy Cross Sisters to make their mission possible in other ways, as well. At Silver Reef, a committee was formed to establish a hospital for miners. To fund the undertaking, the sisters requested that employees and owners of mills and mines pay $1 a month. This early form of insurance was agreed upon, and St. John’s Hospital successfully treated miners until the sisters closed the hospital in 1885 when the town was abandoned after silver prices collapsed in the early 1880s.
Despite the closing of St. John’s Hospital and St. Mary’s School in Silver Reef after they had operated only six years, the first few years of the Holy Cross Sisters’ ministry in Utah was successful. Holy Cross Hospital, St. Mary’s Academy (later St. Mary of the Wasatch), Sacred Heart Academy, the ventures in Silver Reef, St. Joseph School for Boys and Sacred Heart School for Boys all laid the groundwork for other successful endeavors of the Holy Cross Sisters: Kearns-St. Ann Orphanage, St. Joseph Elementary School and High School, Bishop Glass School, Our Lady of Lourdes School and Judge Memorial School and High School. Today, the legacy of the Holy Cross Sisters in Utah continues with Holy Cross Ministries, as well as the three Holy Cross sisters who minister in Utah: Sister Celine Dounies, who teaches at St. John the Baptist Middle School; Sr. Patrice McGee, who teaches kindergarten at Kearns St. Ann School; and Sr. Laura Guadalupe Tiburcio Santos, a licensed clinical social worker who provides mental health services to the Latino community in Utah..
Holy Cross Ministries of Utah will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the presence of Holy Cross sisters in Utah during the 2025 Fiesta 150 on Saturday, Oct. 4 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the University of Utah Alumni House, 155 S. Central Campus Dr., Salt Lake City. The guest speaker will be Sister Sharlet Ann Wagner, CSC, who is president of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. For information, contact Andy Cier, HCM director of development and communications, acier@hcmutah.org or 385-257-2425.
More information about the event will be published in this newspaper as the event draws near.
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