The Postwar Ring — Holy Family, St. Jude, St. John the Baptist, Corpus Christi, Our Lady of Hungary, St. Anthony

1949–1962 — the Felicians from Livonia, the Sisters of St. Joseph at St. Jude, the Daughters of Divine Charity, and the Franciscans from across the river

Holy Family School: Holy Family parish, founded in 1945 out of gatherings that reached back to the 1930s and a mission from 1941 first called Holy Trinity, opened its school on September 6, 1954, with 236 students in grades one through six, as the fourteenth Catholic grade school in the diocese — staffed by five Felician Sisters from Livonia, Michigan, in Today’s Catholic’s account of the bishop’s visit. The first teaching sisters had arrived on August 23, 1954, and the diocesan paper’s archive photograph names them: Sister Firmina, Sister M. Adonia, the superior, Sister M. Marietta, Sister M. Bernice and Sister M. Francesca. Grades seven and eight followed in 1955 and 1956, kindergarten in 1978 and preschool in 1991. The Felician presence in the school ran long: Sister Joan Marie Shillinger, a Felician, was principal from 1993 and remained in that office in the accounts of 2012, when four Felicians remained in South Bend. The school stands today on Mayflower Road at 278 students in the 2026–27 directories.

St. Jude School: St. Jude’s parish was carved from an overcrowded St. Matthew’s, its first Mass on December 5, 1948. Toward its 1950 church the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration gave materials from a chapel they had razed — the Mishawaka motherhouse’s first documented gift into this web. The school’s groundbreaking came on April 8, 1956; four Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis arrived on September 7, 1956, and the school opened three days later with 100 students in grades one through four. Its kindergarten opened on October 10, 1956, under a parishioner, Irene Pilarski, who held the post until 1990 — thirty-four years in one classroom, the longest single teaching tenure documented in this web. One sister of the founding faculty taught a third-grade class of more than sixty children. All of it stands in the parish’s own published timeline and history.

St. John the Baptist School: St. John the Baptist School’s own site states its founding plainly: “Founded in 1956, Saint John the Baptist Catholic School… From our beginnings under the leadership of our first pastor, Rev. Joe Jacobs.” The current directories carry the school as founded in 1893, and the banked Schools roster repeated that year; the school’s own account governs here, and the conflict is printed rather than settled silently — 1956 on the school’s word, 1893 in the directories, the school’s founding generation otherwise undocumented in the records read. Its web strands are documented at classroom size: Sister Clarice, a Sister of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, taught at St. John the Baptist School in South Bend in the course of an eleven-year teaching career in her order’s schools, her 2019 jubilee profile in Today’s Catholic records — she had entered the novitiate on August 12, 1939, and after her teaching years served twenty-three years as principal of Our Lady of Grace in Highland.

Corpus Christi School: Corpus Christi is Sacred Heart’s successor: when Bishop Pursley suggested the Belgian parish move from Thomas Street, the diocese bought a twenty-nine-acre farm in northwest South Bend; groundbreaking came in June 1961, the school was finished in September 1962, and Mass was held in its basement until the church was dedicated on June 9, 1985 — the parish’s own history. The school the parish built thus predates its church by twenty-three years. The Daughters of Divine Charity held the convent at 2836 Corpus Christi Drive in the diocesan directory of about 2005, Sisters M. Martin and M. Geraldine named; their departure in July 2019 is told in the departures entry. The school stands in the present web at 170 students, in Today’s Catholic’s May 2026 account, under principal Johnnathan Combs; the parish history also dates the school’s founding to 1961, against the building’s documented completion in September 1962, and both are printed.

Our Lady of Hungary School: The Hungarian parish’s school was built in 1927 and staffed by the Daughters of Divine Charity — religion’s record and the school’s own 2026–27 handbook, which states the school was “established in 1927 and founded by the Daughters of Divine Charity,” agreeing. The Daughters served the parish’s school across the order’s whole South Bend century, and the school continues in November 2026, the parish now mainly Hispanic in Today’s Catholic’s September 2025 account, its school carrying the founding mission to a new population in the same building.

St. Anthony de Padua School: St. Anthony’s parish began in 1949 on the east side, at Ironwood Drive and Jefferson Boulevard, and worshipped first in its own small school building, whose community room served as the worship space until the church was built in 1960 — the parish’s own account, carried in Religion. The school’s course therefore begins with the parish in 1949, at about 250 children in the parish’s current account. The year its teaching sisters arrived, and which congregation first staffed it, are not carried in the records read and are named among its gaps; what is documented is the school’s place in the living web: in August 2011 Today’s Catholic recorded three Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration teaching in its classrooms — Sister M. Lissetta in second grade, Sister M. Cecelia Clare Stoffel in music, and Sister Mary Vianney Grau in sixth grade — all residing at the Mishawaka motherhouse across the city line.

Sources:

1. Today’s Catholic, the Bishop Rhoades Holy Family visit — the school’s opening on September 6, 1954, with 236 students as the diocese’s fourteenth Catholic grade school, the five Felician Sisters from Livonia, and the additions of 1955, 1956, 1978 and 1991; and the paper’s archive photograph caption naming the first sisters of August 23, 1954.
2. Today’s Catholic (2012 accounts) — Sister Joan Marie Shillinger, Felician, principal of Holy Family from 1993, and four Felicians then remaining in South Bend.
3. St. Jude parish, the parish’s own timeline and full history, stjudeparish.net — the parish carved from St. Matthew’s, the Sisters of St. Francis’s gift of chapel materials, the April 8, 1956 groundbreaking, the four Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis arriving September 7, 1956, the opening with 100 students, and Irene Pilarski’s kindergarten of 1956–1990.
4. St. John the Baptist School, the school’s own site, stjohnspartans.com — “Founded in 1956” under the Rev. Joe Jacobs; against it, the current directories’ 1893.
5. Today’s Catholic (2019), the jubilee profile of Sister Clarice, O.S.F. — her teaching at St. John the Baptist School, South Bend.
6. Corpus Christi parish, the parish’s own published history — the descent from Sacred Heart, the 1961 groundbreaking, the school finished September 1962, the church dedicated June 9, 1985; the diocesan directory of c. 2005 for the Daughters of Divine Charity’s convent; Today’s Catholic (May 2026) for 170 students and principal Johnnathan Combs.
7. Our Lady of Hungary School handbook, 2026–27, and the banked Religion fragment — the school of 1927, founded and staffed by the Daughters of Divine Charity; Today’s Catholic (September 2025) for the parish and school today.
8. St. Anthony de Padua Parish, “Get to know St. Anthony,” stasb.org, as carried in the banked Religion fragment — the parish from 1949, worshipping first in its school, the church of 1960, about 250 children in the school; Today’s Catholic, the feast of St. Clare (August 2011) — Sisters Lissetta, Cecelia Clare Stoffel and Mary Vianney Grau teaching at St. Anthony School.