In 1865, Father Bernard Donnelly, pastor of Immaculate Conception Church at 11th and Broadway, wrote to the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, near St. Louis, requesting the Superior send some sisters to open a convent school for girls.
Father Donnelly promised the Sisters that a school built in 1859 from bricks made in Father Donnelly’s brickyard would be ready for the Sisters’ use. Sister Francis Joseph Ivory, described as “a strong, enduring, educated woman with interpersonal skills and the ability to speak English,” by STA President Nan Bone, arrived first, and quickly procured free railroad passes for five of her fellow Sisters. They found the promised building empty and had to scramble to acquire the necessary beds, desks and chairs. They purchased a cow and threw a party, raising enough money to furnish St. Teresa’s Academy, which was opened and dedicated by St. Louis Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick, Sept. 1, 1866, under St. Joseph’s patronage.The curriculum during its early decades included Analytical Grammar; Mythology; Sacred History; Botany; Criticism of English authors, and Mental and Moral Philosophy. According to the Prospectus of St. Teresa’s Academy, c. 1866, “Whether in class or recreation, when permitted to converse at table, or during their walks, the pupils must endeavor to improve the purity of their language and cultivate urbanity of manners. A few years in an Academy would be well-employed if nothing else were learned than to converse with the dignity and propriety of a lady.” And Kansas City is called a “cow town!”
Students wore black alpaca dresses with red-trimmed black hats in winter and buff chambray dresses with blue trimmed white hats in summer. The Sisters wore the floor length habit, wimple and veil, and Kansas Citians weren’t used to nuns in habits. In fact the Sisters from Carondelet were the only religious order in the region to wear the habit. Sister Francis Joseph recalled later that people thought they “were the circus.”
As the city grew, it grew wilder. The neighborhood surrounding the church and Academy had been nicknamed Quality Hill when Kersey Coates and other elite families began building homes in the area in the 1850s. But following the Battle of Westport in 1864, the still unpaved Broadway, Pennsylvania and other streets around Immaculate Conception Church and St. Teresa’s Academy became home to numerous saloons, other businesses and frequent shootouts. In 1880, the Sisters had iron gates set into the stone wall surrounding the Academy; they were locked nightly at 8 p.m., to keep out bad guys like Jesse James.
https://catholickey.org/2016/01/21/st-teresas-academy-celebrates-sesquicentennial/