In 1901, a small group of Sisters of Mercy
moved their convent and school from overcrowded quarters on Second
Street to a new building at 1176 E. Broadway, and the Academy of Our
Lady of Mercy reopened its doors.This year, Mercy Academy celebrates
100 years at its "new" location. In March, the school will
hold an all-class reunion weekend, during which a bronze statue of
the order's founder, Mother Mary Catherine
McAuley, will be unveiled. The statue will be the second of six
produced by Nebraska artist Sondra Jonson, the first of which stands
in front of Mercy High School in Omaha, Neb.
The statue will stand just inside a recently
completed arched entryway that faces Broadway.
The entrance was designed in the style of the
original facade of the building and holds a replica of the school's
original nameplate. A canopy over double doors inside the entrance
is similar to the entrance to the first house of Mercy opened by McAuley
in Dublin, Ireland, and the cross atop the canopy reflects the first
one over the school's original front door.
"We've tried to pack as much history into
about 150 square feet as we possibly could," said Mercy principal
Mike Johnson.
Sister Mary Prisca Pfeffer, a former principal
who wrote "In Love and Mercy," a history of Louisville's
Sisters of Mercy, has been a part of many of Mercy's last 100 years.
She graduated from the high school in 1932 and entered the convent
in 1934.
According to Pfeffer, the Sisters of Mercy
began in Louisville as nurses, not teachers. Six members of the order
-- who were teachers -- arrived in 1869 at the request of a local
bishop to help out at the Old U.S. Marine Hospital in Portland, which
was short of nurses.
Eventually, the hospital stopped accepting
new patients and closed, but the sisters, whose numbers had grown,
decided to stay. They attempted to teach on West Jefferson Street
for a brief time before moving on to a site on South Second Street.
In 1872, the sisters began holding day classes
under the name St. Catherine's Academy, with an elementary school
for boys and girls, an industrial school with night classes for young
women, and later a secondary school for girls. The first high school
diploma from the Academy of Our Lady of Mercy was awarded in 1885.
Pfeffer and Johnson said today's Mercy students
have the same spirit as the girls of that era -- a combination of
hard work, scholarship and openness.
"The girls know that no matter what their
background, they're on equal ground. That's a strong part of the Mercy
spirit," Johnson said.He recalled something one of the workers
who helped with the recent renovations said to him. The man, who had
helped with a previous addition to the school as well, said he loved
working on the building because it was so well-made.
"I think the building in many ways represents
the educational program of the school," Johnson said. "The
foundation is solid. Some things change, but the basis endures.
"It's an ongoing story in a building that's
never finished."
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