Holy Cross History Assn. meets in Salt Lake City

NOTRE DAME, Ind. — The Holy Cross History Association will hold its annual conference June 12-14, 2008 at the Red Lion Hotel in Salt Lake City. Founded in 1984, the association exists to promote historical study of those religious communities which trace their origins to Blessed Basile A. Moreau of Le Mans, France. The association is meeting in Salt Lake City because of the important role the Sisters of the Holy Cross have played and continue to play in Utah.

In 1835 the Very Reverend Basile Moreau joined the Brothers of St. Joseph and the Auxiliary Priests of Le Mans together as a religious community, the Congregation of Holy Cross. Moreau sent a contingent of seven members to the United States in 1841 in response to a request to help the bishop of Vincennes, Indiana in the United States. In 1842 they founded the University of Notre Dame. Women were admitted to the community in 1841 and in 1843 Moreau sent four Sisters to help the Priests and Brothers at Notre Dame. The Sisters began working with the local girls in Bertrand, Michigan, and established a school, which eventually became Saint Mary’s College at Notre Dame, Indiana.

The primary focus of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in the United States became education. They established more than one hundred academies, schools, and colleges throughout the United States. The Sisters of the Holy Cross also established hospitals and orphanages across the country. The sisters’ service in the Civil War opened the door to continued service in health care. Holy Cross hospitals provided assistance to Catholics and others on the frontier. They opened their first hospital in Cairo, Illinois, and eventually operated hospitals in Salt Lake City, Utah; South Bend and Anderson, Indiana; Columbus, Ohio; Fresno and Mission Hills, California; Boise, Idaho; and Silver Spring, Maryland. By 1918 each hospital offered nurses’ training.

In 1875, two Sisters of the Holy Cross, Augusta Anderson and Raymond Sullivan, arrived in Salt Lake City, the first of almost 1400 Sisters who have served in Utah over the past 132 years. They came to serve Catholic immigrants in the mining towns of the territory. They quickly began to assist all the citizens of Utah through schools, hospitals, orphanages and other ministries. For example, the first sisters opened Holy Cross Hospital (now Salt Lake Regional Medical Center) and established a school of nursing in 1901. The Sisters continued to provide diploma three-year nurses’ training to young women in the Intermountain West until 1973. The Sisters also operated Saint Mary of the Wasatch College, and another hospital, Jordan Valley.

Twelve Sisters of the Holy Cross work in Utah today. Holy Cross Ministries provides after school programs, immigration services, pastoral care, counseling, and programs which offers outreach services in health, prenatal, and life skills education.

The public is invited to attend the Holy Cross History Association meetings. On Thursday evening, June 12, 2008 the Salt Lake Regional Medical Center has graciously invited Holy Cross Father James Connelly, President of the Holy Cross History Association, to celebrate Mass at 6:30 p.m. in the hospital’s chapel. Following the Mass, the Holy Cross Ministries in Utah will host a program and reception at 7:30 p.m. in the basement of the Moreau Medical Center (formerly Moreau Hall, the dormitory for the Holy Cross Sisters and nursing students). The hospital will allow those attending to walk through the tunnel that connects the two buildings (the way that the nursing students used to travel). Graduates of the nurses’ training program and Saint Mary of the Wasatch are especially invited to attend.

The conference sessions will be held in the Wasatch Rooms of the Red Lion Hotel on Friday and Saturday morning with field trips to LDS sites on Friday afternoon and Catholic sites in Park City on Saturday afternoon. Registration is $5 for half a day and $10 for a day. Local people may also attend the meals at the Red Lion on Thursday evening, Friday lunch and dinner, and Saturday dinner. Lunches are $25 apiece and dinners are $35 apiece. Advance registration for meals is required at least three weeks in advance by contacting Sister Kathryn Callahan, CSC, Holy Cross History Association, 101 Bertrand Hall-Saint Mary’s, Notre Dame, Ind., 46556-5000, (574) 284-5902, kcallahan@cscsisters.org. Graduates of the nurses’ training program or Saint Mary of the Wasatch who would like to share brief memories of their experiences with the Sisters of the Holy Cross should contact Jessie Embry, 366 SWKT, BYU, Provo, Utah, 84601, jessie_embry@byu.edu, 801-422-7585.