Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, September 30, 1997

Academy of Sacred Heart has 175-year history

by Jim Bradshaw

Much of its popular history revolves around the donation of land in 1821 by Mrs. Charles Smith to the church for a convent. The convent was founded by Mother Eugénie Aude and was called Grand Coteau. The Jesuit fathers followed in 1837, when St. Charles College was built.

The settlement that grew up around the two schools was originally called St. Charles Town, but later became known as Grand Coteau.

Opened in October, 1821, the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau has continued in operation for 176 years, despite flood, fire, yellow fever, cholera, civil war, and a few lesser travails.

In 1821, Mrs. Smith, widow of a wealthy Opelousas planter, offered the Religious of the Sacred Heart a two-story building, 50 acres of land, and fund for the journey of two nuns from St. Charles, Mo., to Grand Coteau.

Those two nuns would be Mother Eugénie Aude and Sister Mary Layton, the first Religious of the Sacred Heart in the United States.

The nuns had begun their journey from St Louis on the steamboat Rapides, arriving in Louisiana 2 ½ weeks later. They left the steamboat at Plaquemine in Iberville Parish, and continued their travel across the Atchafalaya Basin by flatboat, horseback, and ox cart.

Mother Eugénie Aude had been a member of the Napoleonic court in France before entering the Society of the Sacred Heart there. She came to America in 1818. Sister Mary Layton was the first American postulant (candidate for admission) received into the order.

Upon reaching the home of Mrs. Smith, the two nuns moved into the house that had been prepared for them -- albeit with some dismay. They had expected to find something a little more imposing than the dirt-floored, barn-like building that would be their new home. Two small buildings adjoined the residence. One served as the kitchen, the other the dining room.

Nonetheless, the women made their preparations, and they began classes at the beginning of October 1821 at what was first called the Institute for the Education of Young Women. Eight students were enrolled. One of the students was from Philadelphia, two were from New Orleans, two from Opelousas, one from Grand Coteau, and two others were enrolled in the school but were traveling in France when the school term began.

The main building of the present academy was begun in 1830. Bricks were made from the soil of nearby fields and laid in a Flemish Bond pattern that is not seen much in south Louisiana. Other construction materials included cypress from nearby swamps and the native bousillage, a mixture of plaster, moss, and deer or horse hair. Glass for the windows was imported from France.

The formal gardens that can still be found in front of the main building were begun in 1835. The design is modeled on the garden of Archbishop Boussuet in Paris. These formal gardens were restored in the middle 1980s after a severe freeze damaged many of the shrubs, including some 100-year-old camellias.

Old slave quarters once stood near the main building, used to house the personal servants of the wealthy young girls who came to the school.

The alley of oak trees that runs from the front gate of the Academy to the town of Grand Coteau was planted by the first Jesuit rector of nearby St. Charles College. The Religious of the Sacred Heart were cloistered at that time, and the Jesuit priests served as chaplains for the nuns and students of the school. The rector planted the trees to protect the visiting priests from the blazing summer sunshine as they rode horseback between St. Charles College and the Academy.

During the Civil War, thousands of Federal troops under Gen. Nathaniel Banks camped in the fields surrounding the Academy, but the school was left alone, partly through the intercession of Mother Aloysia Hardey, superior of a school run by the Sacred Heart sisters in New York. Gen. Banks' daughter attended the New York School, and Mother Aloysia asked Mrs. Banks to tell her husband to look after the nuns and students at Grand Coteau.

Gen. Banks responded by issuing orders to his Commissary Officer to supply the Academy with flour, sugar, coffee, tea, and other staples and told his other officers to make certain that nothing untoward happened at the school. Because the school was allowed to remain open during the war, the Academy is now the oldest continuously operating Sacred Heart school in the world.