Their story began in Bay St. Louis, MS, on January 6, 1855, with the arrival of three sisters from France at the request of Father Buteux, the pastor of Our Lady of the Gulf Church. “They arrived on the day of the Epiphany—what a beautiful coincidence….Are not these sisters the star which comes to lead to Jesus Christ. What a beautiful beginning of the year,” wrote Father Buteux in his diary. After a journey of forty-one days on a sailing vessel, the sisters wasted no time in starting their work. They rented a cottage and set about opening a small school, which was almost immediately filled. They continued to minister to all those in the community, teaching the faith, caring for the sick , and most importantly educating the children. There was so much missionary work to be done that it required more than three sisters, so Fr. Buteux went back to France to see the Mother Superior, and in 1856 three more sisters joined the order at Bay St. Louis. With more help and in order to reach the children in the Waveland community, two sisters walked from the house in Bay St. Louis each morning to teach the children in Waveland.
In 1857 Bishop Blanc of New Orleans invited the sisters to establish a house in New Orleans. They sent Mother Eulalia, whose health palled at Bay St. Louis, to New Orleans where she became the first Mother Superior. With the addition of the house in New Orleans, more sisters were needed to help with all the work the order wanted to accomplish in America. So Fr. Buteux went back to France to see the Mother Superior and explain the expansion and distress at Bay St. Louis and New Orleans. Five more sisters arrived in America to continue the works of the Sisters of St. Joseph.
A few years later in 1861, they were able to open a boarding school in order to reach children from other communities. The boarding school soon numbered eighty students. An advertisement in the New Orleans Daily Picayune on Tuesday, April 30, 1867, noted: “St. Joseph’s Academy for young ladies— Bay St. Louis, MS. This institution has a peculiar advantage of being immediately on the Gulf of Mexico, commanding a full view of the same, and enjoying both sea breezes and the sea bathing. Terms: for board, tuition and washing, per annum $220… . Music lessons, per month, $7 and drawing per month, $4.”
During the War Between the States, the sisters were protected under the French flag that flew over their home, but they were cut off from all communication with the Mother house in France. Food was scarce and difficult to obtain, but the sisters never left, and they never gave up. They did what they could to take care of those in the community– at times having only corn meal for food.
By 1866 there were as many as forty-five boarders registered at the academy. Such an increase called for larger buildings. The sisters remained dedicated to achieving these goals, and in 1871, St. Joseph’s Academy was chartered by the Legislature of Mississippi.
In the coming years the sisters purchased additional land, added buildings, and kept up with the latest methods and developments in education. In a letter from the Sisters of St. Joseph convent in New Orleans concerning the sisters in Bay St. Louis, the following story was related. On the night of November 15, 1907, five years after her arrival in the Bay, Sr. Marie Augustin— the Mother Superior, teacher, and caregiver in Bay St. Louis— supposedly said, “Thanks be to God, the trying period for our convent at Bay St. Louis is over!” Unfortunately a more trying time was about to begin. On the very next night November 16, 1907, a fire believed to have started in the opera house ravaged through downtown Bay St. Louis, and in less than two hours fifty-three years of labor and sacrifice (the Academy, the church, and ten wooden cottages) were destroyed as well as many other buildings in town.
Like the first three sisters who came, these sisters wasted no time in getting to work. First they rented a house in order to continue the school year without interruption. Then, according to reports Sr. Marie Augustin, with broken heart but vigorous spirit, personally drew the plans and supervised the work which rebuilt bigger and stronger the academy she so dearly loved. In 1908 St. Joseph Academy opened the school year in a new three-story brick building with record enrollment Exhausted by this hard work and demanding activity, Sr. Marie Augustin graciously relinquished her position as Mother Superior and humbly resumed her duties as teacher. However, she later took up the duties of Mother Superior again giving direction to the work in Bay St. Louis. She worked tirelessly until her death in 1927.
In 1923 the Academy was also affiliated with Catholic University in Washington, D. C., a mark of academic excellence, and an honorable advantage that the sisters enjoyed and desired for their school. In 1924 Fr. Gmelch, Pastor of Our Lady of the Gulf, had to build an annex on the church property to handle the increased enrollment. On the one hundredth anniversary of the school, St. Joseph’s Memorial Hall was erected. It was a brick two-story building that housed the music and science classes as well as the auditorium and gymnasium.
In the 112 year teaching history, St. Joseph’s Academy grew into a school accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools with as many as ten sisters teaching and 455 students enrolled. It expanded into a multi-campus academy with schools in Baton Rouge, LA., New Orleans, LA. and Cincinnati, OH. Their missionary work also went well into the western parts of the United States— quite a long way from the small one room cottage on the beach in The Bay!
Sadly decreases in vocations forced the closing of most campuses and today only the Baton Rouge school remains open.
There will be a celebration in Bay St. Louis on Jan. 15 [2005], at 1:00 P.M. at Our Lady of the Gulf Church and another in New Orleans at St. Francis Cabrini Church in October of this year to commemorate the work of the Sisters of St. Joseph.
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Quotes and information for this story were obtained through interviews, letters from the sisters that are on file at the Society office, and from a “History of St. Joseph Academy” by Bishop Gerow for the Mississippi Publication, Jan. 1955.