The sisters as a workforce: St. Stanislaus Kostka's school

BRANCH · WOMEN'S HISTORY · TERRE COUPEE · A CONFLICT PRINTED WHOLE

Lead: Who taught the children of Terre Coupee is a question the record answers two ways, and both answers print here unmerged. The parish itself was organized in October 1884 under Father Valentine Czyzewski of St. Hedwig's, South Bend; its cornerstone was dedicated 31 August 1884, the church dedicated 12 October 1884, and the church building was used as a school for the children of the parish. The school ran, in the parish's own history, in the old wooden church until it burned in 1908, then from the fall of 1910 in the purchased No. 5 Public School building, until 1925. The banked dates stand: 1884–1925, and a reopening on 11 September 1995.

Answer one is male and Holy Cross: Brother Aidan's Extracts at the Notre Dame Archives, citing Alerding's Diocese of Fort Wayne, state flatly that when Terre Coupee was a mission, 1884–1888, Brothers of Holy Cross taught the school. Answer two is female and Holy Cross: the Diamond Jubilee history of St. Hedwig's Parish (1877–1952) prints a chronology in which the 1884 Terre Coupee organization is followed, under 1885, by “Sister M. Hedwig, C.S.C., and Sister M. Wilfride, C.S.C., of the Congregation of the Sisters of Holy Cross, take charge of the elementary school.” Whether that 1885 entry belongs to Terre Coupee's school or to St. Hedwig's own South Bend school — the chronology interleaves the two parishes throughout — cannot be settled from the jubilee text as read, and the parish's own history names no sister at any point: when the school reopened in 1995, its first teacher was a laywoman, Mrs. Jen Sosinski, with Mrs. Joy Lach as teaching assistant and fifteen preschool students. The sisters-as-workforce question therefore closes mixed: a named sister workforce of two, Sisters M. Hedwig and M. Wilfride, C.S.C., is documented in a diocesan-parish source at 1885, at contested assignment; no order roster, sister count beyond those two names, or span of years for Terre Coupee was found in the parish or diocesan record reached. The settler is named in the closure: the Congregation of the Sisters of Holy Cross annals and the diocesan school reports, where a Terre Coupee assignment, if it stood, would be listed year by year.

Sources:

1. St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, “Parish History” (ststansnewcarlisle.org) — 1884 organization and dedications, church used as school, 1908 fire, No. 5 school from 1910 to 1925, 11 September 1995 reopening with its first lay teacher and fifteen students.
2. Brother Aidan's Extracts 539, Notre Dame Archives, citing Alerding, Diocese of Fort Wayne, pp. 369–370 — Brothers of Holy Cross taught the Terre Coupee school, 1884–1888.
3. Saint Hedwig Milestones and Highlights, Diamond Jubilee 1877–1952 (Polish American archives, Orchard Lake) — the 1884 Terre Coupee entry and the 1885 Sisters M. Hedwig and M. Wilfride, C.S.C., entry, printed in sequence.