Ironton’s Catholic School History Rooted in City’s Religious Past
The Catholic schools have existed in Ironton since their founding almost 150 years ago. Here’s “The Story of Catholic Education in Ironton,” a previously published history of the school system, as submitted by the Ironton Catholic Schools.
Catholic education came to Ironton with Father Richard Gilmore, the founding pastor of St. Lawrence parish. That was in 1853, and education in those days was simple (some say primitive) compared with the process of the same name we know today.
A schoolroom, a schoolmaster with a tout stick and a few pupils were the requirements for an accredited school in the United States of America a hundred years ago.
When the first German schoolmaster came to Ironton is nowhere recorded. His connection with the founding of St. Joseph parish for the Germans is equally obscure. But because the history of parochial education in America is inexorably bound with the desire of German-speaking immigrants to preserve their language, it can be assumed with certainty that the 1864 birthdate of St. Joseph parish approximates the birthdate of St. Joseph school.
Catholic Directories for the United States were printed on and off beginning in 1817, and every year since 1864, but their school information is sketchy at best. In the issue for 1861, we read that St. Lawrence has a school for boys and girls with an average attendance of 90. In 1864, Ironton is listed as having a “St. John’s School” with 120 boys and girls while an additional 150 children were enrolled in the Sunday School.
St. Mary’s at Pine Grove had 127 students in its school that year. In 1865, “St. Mary’s School” in Ironton had 130 students and St. Mary’s in Pine Grove had 150. After 1869, these directories list both St. Lawrence and St. Joseph schools, giving them a rather constant attendance of 90 and 100 respectively, an indication that the schools existed, but that the sense of accuracy and documentation was still in the one-room schoolhouse category.
The story of St. Joseph School begins to come into clear focus in 1878, when on August 25, four Sister of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of the Congregation of Our Lady of Lourdes came to take charge of the school. Little is known of the coming of the Sisters to teach at St. Lawrence School. Sisters of St. Joseph of Ebensberg, Pa., were there for a time, followed by Dominicans who remained to the end of the century.
The St. Lawrence School was closed for a few years until the new building at the corner of Seventh and Center (still in use) was opened in 1908. From that time to the present, the same order of Sisters has staffed both schools.
In 1883, a neat, four-room school was built in the 500 block of South Third Street at a cost of $2,455.00. That building served St. Joseph parish for school purposes until the present building was opened in 1925.
Just as one-room-one-teacher education gave way to four teachers and four rooms, so, the four yielded to eight and eight to sixteen.
Whereas “seven or eight grades of school and then to work” was the standard for children at the turn of the century, during the years following World War I, the standard became a high school diploma. Since World War II, the process has been moving toward an ever increasing demand for a college education.
The ill-fated venture of the Sacred Heart Institute, which projected high school and college training for Ironton’s Catholics, has been recounted elsewhere. After the failure of the venture, attempts were made to add additional grades to the school on Third Street and at times there were nine, ten and eleven grades in various makeshift combinations of outbuildings and rectory parlors. By 1920, it became necessary either to build a new school, or to abandon efforts to provide the highest grades in the Catholic School.
On Tuesday, November 28, 1922, the Daily Register announced the purchase of the present school property from Mrs. Nannie Wright for $25,000. The same article mentions that alternate sites were considered at the Marting property west of Beechwood Park and lots at the corner of Third and Oak.
On May 27, 1924, it was announced that bids were being let for the construction of a $100,000 school and that the house at the corner of South Sixth and Chestnut would be remodeled and beautified for use as a convent. The bids were opened on the evening of June 3 and the contract was awarded to Taylor & Lynn of Portsmouth for $98,568 exclusive of heat, electricity and plumbing work. Frank Scherer was the plumbing work and Fischer Bros. of Covington the electrical contract.
Work got underway at once, and had progressed to the point of cornerstone blessing by September. The building was completed during the summer of 1925, and on Wednesday, July 1, a public inspection of the building was held.
The day began at one o’clock in the afternoon with a Christian Mothers’ sale of family goods for the benefit of the building fund. That evening, beginning at 5:00, a dinner was served in the gym-auditorium and tours of the new building were conducted.
The new school opened for classes on Monday, September 14, and was solemnly blessed by Bishop Harley on Sunday, October 18. The total cost of the building, without equipment, was $140,000.
The 37 graduates of the class of ’37 were the first to complete 12 years in the new building, and they were the first not to graduate in the gym-auditorium, which had been converted to a church that spring due to flood damage to the property at the corner of Third and Adams.
In November 1948, St. Joseph and St. Lawrence Schools lost their parochial status and became Diocese institutions, governed by a board of the local pastors. The first board included Fathers Schillin, Pickard, and Ruef. Father Maurice Smith, assistant at St. Joseph parish, was named first priest principal.
On Aug. 14, 1952, Father John Nadzum was appointed principal to be followed in almost alternating years by Father Howard Litts, George Kramer, Nobel Connelly, William Cornelius, Ronald Clouston, Richard Maciejewski and William Hilliker.
The school years 1953-1954 saw the effective centralization of the Catholic schools in Ironton. Until that time, St. Lawrence had eight grades and St. Joseph had twelve grades. After centralization, St. Lawrence was used for the first six grades and St. Joseph for the last six.
Source : Ironton Tribune, 25 February. 2001, page 4E
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