Catlzolic Ed11catio11al Endeavors
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Mary of Namur, had its beginnings in 1885 as· St. Ignatius Academy on Throckmorton Street in Fort Worth. By 1910 the enrollment in both boarding and day schools far exceeded the accommodations offered. It was then that Our Lady of Victory College and Academy was opened in South Fort Worth, which in 1911 was chartered and authorized to confer degrees under the laws of Texas. Teachers training and college courses for the Sisters were taught at Our Lady of Victory since the establishment of the Western Province in 1922. But not until 1939 did the College open its doors to outside students in response to the urgent demand of its patrons and friends, who strongly felt the need for a Catholic institution where young women could pursue their studies after the completion of a high school course. Sisters of Divine Providence, 1866. The Congregation of the Sisters of Divine Providence was founded in Lorraine, France, in the year 1762 by the Venerable John Martin Moye, whose cause for beautification begun in 1880 is still pending. It was the intention of the founder that its members dedicate themselves to the founding of schools for children, the care of the sick and the practice of other works of mercy. 58 After suffering persecution during the French Revolution, the Motherhouse was re-estab- lished at Saint-Jean-de-Bassel in Alsace-Lorraine, not far from Nancy. It was from there that, at the urgent appeal of Bishop C. M. Dubuis of Galveston, the first two Sisters of Divine Providence were sent to Texas late in the summer of 1866. The two volunteers from Saint-Jean-de- Bassel, Sisters St. Andrew Feltin and St. Alphonse Boegler, upon arrival in Galveston, were taken by the Bishop to Austin in October, 1866, where Father Nicholas Feltin, a brother of Sister Andrew, was parish priest. During the next two years a modest building that served as the Convent was put up, a parish school was opened, two candidates were received in the Congregation, and a mission school was begun in Corpus Christi. 59 Permanent Establislzment in Castroville, 1868. Bishop Dubuis sug- gested to Mother Andrew the advisability of establishing a permanent convent in Castroville, a few miles west of San Antonio, a settlement largely of Catholics from Alsace-Lorraine. The Bishop had been its parish priest years before. Following the suggestion, Mother Andrew, accom- panied by one of the new members, Sister Agnes Wolf, set out for Castro- ville, where she arrived on September 9. 1869. The parish priest, Father 51 Dehey, o;. cit., 599. 59 Sister Mary Generosa Callahan, C.D.P., Tlte History of t/u Sisters of Dn,i,u l'rm1ide11Cf!, p. 125 et seq.
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