Catftolic Ed11cational Endea1Jors
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to see and examine everything. They talked freely to the Nuns. After their visit they frankly admitted that the Ursulines were "amiable and highly educated ladies," and that they had neither seen nor discovered any arms, dark chambers, dungeons, or secret passages." 18 Growt/i and Development in San Antonio. Minor alterations to accom- modate the increasing number of students were beginning to be made when the panic of 1856-1857 caused a temporary setback. But the depression did not last long and the Academy soon grew beyond the capacity of its physical plant. The San Antonio community was spared many of the privations of the Civil War, due largely to its location, distant from the coast and far away from the battle fronts of the great struggle. Father Dubuis, their beloved Chaplain, went to Europe at the outbreak of the war and was prevented from returning as soon as he had expected. Fathers Sarry, Faure, and other priests from St. Mary's and San Fer- nando's took his place for longer or shorter periods until his return. The enrollment increased steadily. The demand for additional teachers was providentially met by a group of young Sisters who were brought by Mother St. Pierre of Galveston to San Antonio at the outbreak of the Civil War to remove them from the active front that the island had become. Early in 1863, three additional teachers were placed on the staff from Ursuline communities in Ireland and France. They replaced the young Sisters from Galveston, who were returned to their Convent after the Battle of Galveston. That same year a small chapel, a new refectory and a dormitory were added. On September 14, 1866, the fifteenth anniversary of their formal installation in their new home, the cornerstone of the present structure of the Ursuline Academy in San Antonio was laid and blessed by their former Chaplain, Bishop Dubuis, now the second Bishop of Galveston, consecrated while in France in 1862 after Bishop Odin was promoted to the Archdiocese of New Orleans. The Bishop visited the Ursulines in San Antonio again on January 20, 1867, to bless the corner- stone of a new chapel which was completed in 1870. 19 In addition to the Academy, the zealous daughters of St. Ursula had opened and maintained a free day school principally for the benefit of Mexican children. When the Diocese of San Antonio was created in 1874, and the Most Reverend Anthony Dominic Pellicer was named its first Bishop, there were only St. Mary's College for boys, under the direction of the Brothers of Mary, and the Ursuline Academy for young ladies.
llParisot, Reminiscences of a Texas Afissionary. 19 Sister M. A. Ursulina, "Excerpts,' 1 2-3; Friesenhahn, op. cit. . 18.
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