The Polish Schools — Nazareth and the Felicians

1899–2018 — St. Casimir, St. Adalbert, St. Stanislaus: three parishes, two orders, one west-side system

St. Casimir’s school: St. Casimir’s, the second Polish parish, opened its school in 1899 in its combination church-school building, dedicated March 4, 1899, at Dunham and Webster streets. Lay men and women taught first; the parish then placed the school in charge of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, six sisters living in a rented house a block away and teaching 543 children, by Alerding’s 1907 account. Enrollment reached 600 by 1910; a convent for the sisters was built in 1919; the school counted 290 students in 1949. It closed in 1975, by the decision of the Rev. Leo Wojciechowski, C.S.C., with 156 students remaining, over the strong objections of the parishioners — the parish’s own centennial history carries the closing and the objection together, and both are printed here. The Felician Sisters lived in the parish’s former rectory from 2005 to 2018 as a residence, the parish history records — a presence in the parish, not a staffing of its school, and printed at that strength.

St. Adalbert’s school: St. Adalbert’s, the last of the four Polish parishes, built its church-school on Olive Street and dedicated it September 4, 1911, Bishop Paul Rhode presiding; the Felician Sisters from Detroit opened and staffed the school that same September, living in a convent addition at the church-school’s west end. The school prospered for seventy-five years, the parish’s anniversary book records, with enrollment peaking in 1929–30 at 1,112 students — the largest documented enrollment of any school in this history. The 1911 convent was replaced by the Felician Convent of 1963, built for 200,000 dollars; the earlier building was razed in 1974, as the National Register nomination for the St. Adalbert Church Complex carries it. The order’s century at the school ended in July 2018, told in the departures entry below. In the school’s later years a Sister of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis, Sr. Dian Majsterek, is listed in directories as its principal — a third congregation’s hand in one school’s course.

St. Stanislaus’s school: St. Stanislaus, in Golden Hills, began as its sister parishes did: from the parish’s beginning the church basement served as the school. A rectory followed in 1902 and a school building in 1905, with more than 500 students by that year — Bishop Rhoades’s account at the parish’s 125th anniversary, March 25, 2025, in Today’s Catholic. The school closed and the sisters left the convent as the twentieth century ended; the parish profiles read name neither the order that staffed the school nor the year it closed, and the gap is printed here as it stands in the record, the parish’s own entry in Religion carrying the same silence.

Sources:

1. St. Casimir parish centennial history, as carried in the parish’s encyclopedia entry and the St. Joseph County parish pages — the 1899 opening, the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth and their 543 children, the 1919 convent, 290 students in 1949, the 1975 closing at 156 students over parishioner objections, and the Felician Sisters’ 2005–2018 residence in the former rectory.
2. H. J. Alerding, The Diocese of Fort Wayne, 1857–1907, St. Casimir history — the combination church-school dedicated March 4, 1899, and the six Nazareth sisters.
3. St. Adalbert parish 75th-anniversary history, as transcribed for the St. Joseph County genealogical pages — the September 4, 1911 dedication, the Felician Sisters from Detroit opening the school, and the 1929–30 peak of 1,112 students.
4. National Register of Historic Places nomination, St. Adalbert Church Complex — the Felician Convent of 1963 at 200,000 dollars and the razing of the 1911 convent in 1974.
5. Today’s Catholic, “St. Stanislaus Community Marks 125-Year Anniversary,” April 1, 2025 — the basement school, the 1902 rectory, the 1905 school building and its 500 students, and the school’s closing and the sisters’ departure.