Re-establishing a tradition: Group aims to preserve memories of all-girls’ high schools

By John Shaughnessy

The smile of Rosie Thomas Houk kept growing with each memory she shared from her Catholic high school experience.

She started with the story of the two special friends she met during her freshman year at Saint Agnes Academy in Indianapolis in 1959.

“Provi Tantillo Chase sat in front of me in homeroom class,” Houk recalled. “Nancy Trimpe Shepard sat behind me. I’m still friends with both of them.”

Then there’s the story of what happened when she was riding in a cable car in San Francisco several years ago.

A woman approached Houk, tapped her and said, “Did you go to St. Agnes?”

“I said, ‘How did you know?’ ” Houk recalled. “She said, ‘I saw your ring.’ ”

Houk is part of a committee that is trying to preserve the stories, the memories and the symbols of the six former all-girls’ Catholic high schools that shaped the lives of so many women in the Indianapolis area for more than a century: Saint Agnes, Saint John Academy, Saint Mary Academy, Ladywood School, Ladywood-Saint Agnes Academy and Our Lady of Grace Academy.

The group will have a ceremony on April 20 at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis to dedicate a museum area to the six schools. Former teachers and alumnae are invited to the event which begins at 2 p.m. with a tour of Cathedral, located at 5226 E. 56th St.

“The girls’ academies gave us the gift of making us the people we are,” said Houk, a member of Holy Spirit at Geist Parish in the Lafayette Diocese.

“We were always told we were to be women of worth. We have felt that when we combined with the boys’ schools, these academies no longer had a home,” Houk said. “The girls’ traditions got left behind. We want to re-establish that tradition.”

Molly Hahn’s office at Cathedral is marked by yearbooks, class photos, school rings, diplomas and prom booklets from those six schools—mementoes that will be put on display in glass cases in Cathedral’s Loretta Hall.

“The high school years are such a period of growth, emotionally and socially,” said Hahn, who is helping the committee in her role as Cathedral’s director of annual fund and alumni programs. “High school is where some of the deepest friendships are formed. These women have such deep and lasting memories of those relationships that they want to keep the experience alive.”

That’s the goal of Dorothy “Dot” Ryan, a 1952 graduate of St. Mary Academy who is a member of the committee.

“I don’t know if I knew it at the time, but being at an all-girls’ school, we got to do it all,” said Ryan, a member of St. Matthew Parish in Indianapolis. “Then we had the feeling that we could do it all. The whole experience fostered faith and friendship. I still get together with some of the kids from high school.”

Committee members especially recognize the influence of the different religious orders that shaped the girls’ academies, including the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, the Congregation of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis and the Sisters of St. Benedict.

A souvenir booklet from the junior prom at St. Agnes on May 9, 1952, shows how faith was connected to nearly every aspect of life at the girls’ academies. The booklet notes that in the middle of the prom there was a May crowning ceremony of the Blessed Mother.

“We want to preserve the rings, the yearbooks, the newspapers and most important of all—the memories,” Houk said.

She laughed at the memory of an unusual tradition surrounding the marble steps at St. Agnes.

“The tradition was you could not go on those marble steps unless you were a senior,” said Houk, who graduated in 1963. “If you were caught on them and you weren’t a senior, you had to clean them with a toothbrush.”

Such stories will undoubtedly be shared again at the April 20 ceremony. Another opportunity will come on Aug. 5 when graduates of the all-girls’ academies are invited to a reunion lunch at Cathedral.

“I have a lot of deep feelings for St. Agnes, and those feelings are the same of everybody at the other girls’ academies,” Houk said. “At our lunches in August, we all have our clusters of girls. The best part is sharing the memories and connecting again.”

(For more information about the April 20 ceremony or the Aug. 5 reunion, call 317-968-7370.) †