The URSULINE SISTERS OF CLEVELAND are members of an international Roman Catholic religious community dedicated to Christian education, founded by St. Angela Merici. Bp. AMADEUS RAPPE, who had served as chaplain of the Ursuline nuns of France, invited the sisters to staff Cleveland's parish schools. In 1850 5 Ursuline nuns arrived, with Mother Mary of the Annunciation Beaumont as the superior. The sisters took charge of the Catholic girls' school on Euclid Ave., the forerunner of the Cathedral school. By 1853 they were staffing an academy and St. Patrick's school in OHIO CITY. Receiving special dispensation from the Vatican to travel outside the convent in 1853, the Ursulines expanded to outlying schools. The sisters also maintained boarding schools, opening URSULINE COLLEGE for women in 1871. By the mid-1870s, the growing order purchased property on the shores of Lake Erie at the mouth of Euclid Creek and opened Villa Angela, a boarding school and academy for girls. In 1876 the Ursulines opened a school for boys, St. Joseph Seminary, at the same location. They sold the Euclid Ave. property in 1890 and purchased land at Scovill and Willson Ave. (E. 55th). The cornerstone was laid on 8 Aug. 1892 for a new Ursuline motherhouse, an imposing English Gothic structure.
The E. 55th property was sold in 1941, and the motherhouse relocated to Villa Angela. The next year the order purchased land in CLEVELAND HTS. for what became BEAUMONT SCHOOL. By the 1950s, the motherhouse for the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland was located next to Ursuline College in PEPPER PIKE.
Francis, Sister M. Michael, OSU. The Broad Highway (1951).
See also RELIGION; CATHOLICS, ROMAN; WOMEN; PAROCHIAL EDUCATION (CATHOLIC).