History of The Ursuline Sisters
Ursuline Sisters were the first religious women to come to what was then the Western Reserve, now Cleveland, in 1850. Only a month after their arrival, they opened a school enrolling more than 300 day students and several boarders.
This school at East 6th St. and Euclid Avenue flourished, and the facilities expanded until commercial development in downtown Cleveland forced the Sisters to move to East 55th St. at Scovill Avenue, where a Motherhouse was erected in 1893.
The Sisters applied for a Charter to operate educational institutions in 1854. Theirs was the second charter of any kind granted by the State of Ohio, the first having been granted to Society Bank. They bought the site of Villa Angela Academy at 17001 Lake Shore Blvd. in 1874 and opened a school and Motherhouse there in 1941, when East 55th St. was closed. The current Motherhouse, dating from 1958, is at 2600 Lander Rd. in Pepper Pike.
The Ursulines were invited to Cleveland by the first Bishop of the Western Reserve, Bishop Amadeus Rappe, who had served as chaplain for the sisters at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, before coming to Ohio as a missionary.
Five women responded to Bishop Rappe's invitation: four Ursulines and Arabella Seymour, a laywoman who joined the congregation in its first year here.
Mother Mary Annunciation Beaumont was the Superior. Mary Beaumont was from a Norman-English family. She had five brothers and one sister. At age 14, she was sent to France to be educated by the Ursulines at Boulogne-sur-Mer where she entered the order.
She and Arabella Seymour provided leadership for the new congregation throughout its early decades, and, until Arabella died, her family sent money to the American Ursulines from what would have been her dowry fund.
Arabella was from a wealthy, aristocratic English family. While a student at Boulogne-sur-Mer, she entered the Roman Catholic Church. After returning home to England, she could not comfortably practice her new faith, so she returned to France and opened a school for young women in Lille. She closed this school in order to accompany the Ursuline Sisters to America and, in December 1850, entered the novitiate. Her Ursuline name was Mother St. Austin.
The Ursuline Congregation dates to 1535, when Angela Merici founded a company of women in Brescia, Italy under the patronage of St. Ursula. They were the first women religious to live outside a cloister in order to minister more effectively to the people. After Angela's death in 1540, the members of her Society were invited to dioceses in all parts of Italy and southern France.
As French girls joined the congregation, most continued to live in their homes, as had the first members. However, in northern France (especially Paris), parents and civil and Church authorities insisted that the women live a strictly cloistered life, as did all other religious orders. The Ursulines did not accept this change in their foundress's plan without resistance. They complied only when they were allowed to add a fourth vow: to educate young women.
Angela Merici's vision was to transform society through educating women. When she founded the order and for many centuries thereafter, women received little or no formal education. Therefore it is not surprising that in 1639 Ursulines founded the first school for girls in the Western hemisphere, a missionary school for Canadian Indian girls and the daughters of French settlers in Quebec. They also established a convent school in New Orleans in 1727.
The Sisters' first school in Cleveland led eventually to establishing Beaumont School, Sacred Heart Academy, Villa Angela Academy and Ursuline College. Ursuline education emphasizes concern for the individual; a nurturing family spirit among administrators, teachers and students; and education for service in society. These characteristics preserve Angela's charism and vision from 1535 to this day.
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