A Brief Timeline of Community History
of Mount St. Scholastica

ca. 480 Saints Benedict and Scholastica are born in Nursia, Italy.

1035 St. Walburga Abbey is founded in Eichstätt, Bavaria.

1852 The first Benedictine women come to the United States from Eichstätt to St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania.

1863, November 11 Benedictine sisters come to Atchison, Kansas, to teach school for girls, at the request of Benedictine monks who are already here teaching school for boys. An icon of Mother Evangelista Kremmter, our founding prioress is pictured at the left. (The icon was written by S. Paula Howard.)

1863, December The sisters open Mount St. Scholastica Academy for girls.

1877 The sisters purchase Price Villa, an empty mansion, and move their community and the Academy there. The building, which today we call St. Cecilia’s, is on the present-day Mount campus.

1877, Aug. The first mission is established outside of Atchison: Sisters go out to live and teach in Seneca, Kansas. The sisters spread to other towns in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado, on teaching missions.

1900 Building of the monastery and choir chapel, which we continue to use today.

1904/1906 Mount St. Scholastica receives eight Benedictine sisters from France, who are refugees from the 1904 expulsion of priests and religious in that country.

1923 Mount St. Scholastica College opens on the Mount campus.

1933 Two Mount sisters, S. Anthony Payne and S. Mary Theresa Brentano, become the first women ever to receive doctorates from the University of Kansas.

1939 St. Scholastica Chapel was built to serve the needs of the sisters and the students at Mount St. Scholastica College. View the beautiful stained glass windows.

1944 The Mount sisters establish their first daughterhouse, Monasterio de San Benito, in Mexico City. It becomes an independent monastery in 1950.

1948 The Mount sisters auction off their last herd of dairy cows. No more cows are kept on the Mount campus.

1949 Donnelly College, a ministry of the Benedictine sisters, opens in Kansas City, Kansas, where it continues to this day.

1952 The sisters establish a daughterhouse, St. Lucy's Priory, in Glendora, California. It becomes independent in 1956.

1960 Another daughterhouse, Benet Hill Priory, opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It becomes independent in 1965, after which the Mount sisters operate no more organized teaching missions in Colorado.

1962-65 The sisters change from Latin to English as their language for celebrating the Divine Office and Eucharist.

1963 Celebration of Mount St. Scholastica’s centennial year. S. Mary Faith Schuster writes the community history, The Meaning of the Mountain.

1964 Sisters establish a daughterhouse Irmas Beneditinas in Mineiros, Goias, Brazil. It remains a dependent priory.

1968 Sisters begin to be involved in some ministries other than teaching, such as health care and chaplaincy work.

1971 Mount St. Scholastica College merges with the College of St. Benedict -- which has been operated by the Atchison monks -- to form Benedictine College. Classes continue to take place on the Mount campus until 1989, when all operation of the college moves to the north campus.

1975 Mount sisters record themselves singing Gregorian chant. The record is broadcast around the country and later made into a tape (1989) and a CD (1994) entitled “Chants of the Church.” (Hear some selections from the CD)

1980 Benedictines around the world celebrate their sesquimillenium.

1984 A daughterhouse, Covenant Monastery, is established in Harlan, Iowa. It remains a dependent priory. This marks the end of the Mount sisters’ organized teaching missions in Iowa.

1990 Inauguration of the Mount Conservatory of Music housed in the St. Cecilia’s building.

2000 Mount sisters host “The Great Return,” when all former members of the community are invited to visit the monastery.

2002 Mount St. Scholastica Academy merges with Maur Hill, which has been operated by the Atchison monks, to become Maur Hill-Mount Academy. Operation of the new school moves to the former Maur Hill campus.

2004 Former Mount St. Scholastica College and Academy building emptied of contents and sold at auction. Atchison USD 409 Public Middle School leases the building while their building is remodeled.

2004 Wangeri Maathai, Kenyan environmental activist and a 1964 graduate of Mount St. Scholastica College with a major in biology, wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

2005 Covenant Monastery changes from a dependent daughterhouse to become a mission house of the Mount.

Current Community statistics

View slide shows of our early community history:
(Created by Sister Marie Louise Krenner, community archivist)
The beginning to 1879
1880 to 1884( or as a Flash movie)
1884 to 1897
1897 to 1903
1904 to 1907
1907 to 1912