Ursuline Sisters have 140-year history in Valley
By LINDA M. LINONIS
YOUNGSTOWN
Sister Mary McCormick, the 21st general superior of the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown, recounted the order’s founding to its current ministries during the Mahoning Valley Historical Society’s Bites and Bits of History lunch program Thursday at the Tyler History Center, 325 W. Federal St.
The Ursulines marked their 140th anniversary in the Valley in September. The founder set the tone — to meet the needs of the people. The Ursulines have adapted their ministries to changing times to fulfill that directive.
The order, named for St. Ursula, was founded in 1535 in Brescia, Italy, by Sister Angela Merici, who is now a saint. Ursuline life, Sister Mary said, spread in Europe. The first women religious to come to North America were the Ursulines, who arrived in Quebec in 1639 and New Orleans in 1727.
Members of the order came to Cincinnati in 1845, Cleveland in 1850 and then to Youngstown in 1874 at the request of the Rev. Patrick Brown, St. Columba Cathedral pastor, who wanted the nuns to teach elementary school.
Sister Mary divided her talk into four segments: growth and experience, 1874-1950s; beginnings of change, 1950-70; new ministries, late 1980s; and future directions.
“The Ursulines arrived to stay in a house by St. Columba on Sept. 18 [1874],” she said. They went to teaching assignments at churches including Immaculate Conception, Sacred Heart, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, St. Joan of Arc and later St. Patrick.
In 1905, the Ursulines founded the all-girls Ursuline Academy, which became co-ed in 1931. The academy became Ursuline High School. When the Diocese of Youngstown was established in 1943, the Ursulines were asked to help organize diocesan offices. “The Ursulines played a prominent, instrumental role,” Sister Mary said.
In the 1950s, as religious life and the church changed, the Ursulines did, too. Education was a priority, and almost all of the nuns have degrees from Youngstown State University. But they took classes at the Motherhouse. “The first time they visited the campus was to graduate,” Sister Mary said. “Education helped us be professionally prepared.”
Sister Mary said Vatican II “affected everyone.” The Perfectae Caritatis in 1965 directed religious to “renew lives, rediscover the charism [gift] of the founder, update habit and life with the sign of the times.”
Sister Mary said it is important to understand that these changes for the Ursulines were happening concurrently with civil-rights and emerging women’s-rights movements. She noted in American culture, men held positions of leadership and authority such as a school principal. But in their world of education, nuns held these positions, too. Sister Mary observed that at some points, the religious life offered more opportunities for women than society at large.
When the Motherhouse was built in 1963 in Canfield, it provided a central base and site of new ministries. The Ursulines revamped their habits (dress) multiple times until settling on contemporary clothing.
The Ursulines were forerunners in the field of preschool and kindergarten education, Sister Mary noted. As they expanded ministries, they became parish directors of religious education, pastoral associates and taught in higher education; they also minister in social services, rehabilitation and nursing-home facilities and as chaplains.