Founding Mothers of the University of Dallas
Although we often find ourselves absorbed in current campus happenings, our university history stretches back further than we realize. Many religious orders have blessed our campus with their zeal and dedication, but the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur hold a special place in those ranks.
In 1952, Mother Theresa Weber, SSMN (the namesake of Theresa Hall) persuaded Bishop Thomas K. Gorman to found a co-ed Catholic college in the diocese, creating the University of Dallas that we know and love today.
The Sisters of St. Mary had begun covertly in Belgium in 1819, founded by Elizabeth Berger and Josephine Sana (with the help of Cistercian priest Nicholas J. Minsart). Originally called the Pious Ladies of St. Loup, these women taught young Belgian women the art of lace-making in addition to the Catholic faith, seeking to save them from resorting to prostitution. They eventually evolved into the SSMN religious order, and a group of sisters arrived in New York in 1863 with the intent to catechize Native Americans and immigrant children.
When the sisters responded to requests to come to the frontier of Waco in 1873, they were not daunted by threats of raids, anti-Catholic hostility or even the Klu Klux Klan. They established the Academy of the Sacred Heart just a week after their arrival in Waco. In the following decades, the Sisters flourished, establishing seven schools along the early railroad lines from Wichita Falls to Red River, Texas. Ranchers sent their daughters, who otherwise lived isolated from the opportunity and joy of education, to board at these schools, which became known for academic excellence (if that rings a bell).
In 1885, the Sisters founded St. Ignatius Academy, a boarding school for young women, which became Our Lady of Victory College and Academy in 1911. The school enrolled girls from first grade to college! In 1956, OLV coalesced with the long-defunct University of Dallas, and our campus was born here in Irving. Four of the SSMN sisters served on the original faculty of UD: Sr. Mary Margaret O’Connell (registrar until 1973 and the namesake of O’Connell Hall), Sr. Mary Ellen Williams (Dean of Women until 1971), Sr. Frances Marie Manning (English professor until 1985) and Sr. Martin Joseph Jones (librarian until 1961).
The sisters brought spirit and laughter to the fledgling school. Current registrar Mrs. Sandy Morgan (BA ‘68) remembers them fondly, especially Sr. Mary Ellen, who worked in Madonna when Mrs. Morgan was a freshman in 1964. “We had to be in the dorm by 7 p.m.; Sister checked all our names off as we came in. She was like a mother to all of us new freshmen,” she says.
Sr. Mary Ellen recounted the University of Dallas’ birthday (September 22, 1956) as follows: “Resident students were coming in after 1 p.m. At 8 a.m. the ‘waterworks’ had not tied the University in with the city of Irving. At 9 a.m.–still no water! Around 10:30 a.m. you would have thought we struck oil. Everyone was jubilant. ‘We have water!’ was heard from the housetops.”
Sybil Novinski, also a beloved former registrar, remembers Charity Week shenanigans with (yet another registrar!) Sr. Mary Margaret in the ‘60s: “When people decided to arrest Sr. Mary Margaret and put her in jail, she said, ‘Help, help, I’m being taken away!’ in the middle of Carpenter Hall and made a fuss when the kids came to arrest her, kicking the side of the counter and making noise and everything! At the same time, she was telling the registrar student workers what needed to be done if she didn’t come back.”
Mrs. Novinski says that when the Blakely Library was built in 1962, “Sr. Martin Joseph needed students’ help to move books from Carpenter Hall. She got them all to sing along and march along.”
Today, 21 SSMN sisters still live in Fort Worth, and the congregation recently celebrated their 150th anniversary of arriving in Texas. As a student, Mrs. Morgan admired the sisters so much for their kindness and the life they gave UD in its first years: “They were really important in the beginnings of UD. They formed part of UD just by their presence.”