By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
Some might question why—in a city Brigham Young founded—there are several streets, a Latter-day Saint ward, and even a whole neighborhood honoring a Catholic saint named Mary. The answer to that question is a century old this year.
At the invitation of Irish priest (and soon to be bishop) Father Lawrence Scanlan, the Holy Cross Sisters arrived in Salt Lake City from Notre Dame, Indiana in 1875. Sister Raymond Sullivan and Sister Augusta Anderson then opened a school near where the Salt Palace now stands and christened it St. Mary’s Academy to honor the mother of Jesus.
St. Mary’s grew and flourished so well that a half century later the Holy Cross Sisters decided to build a new and even larger school. They bought some land on Salt Lake’s east bench at about 13th South and 30th East Streets.
The Sisters constructed their new school (for grades 1-12) on land originally set aside for a country club and established a Catholic college for women on the same site. They dedicated the new St. Mary’s Academy and College of Saint Mary of the Wasatch in October 1926.
The ceremony attracted Catholic luminaries like Cardinal Patrick Hayes of New York City and several other bishops. University of Utah President Dr. George Thomas attended too, praising the accomplishments of the Holy Cross Sisters and adding, “In this new and larger building…I am sure you will do even better and greater work.”
The Sisters chose an acclaimed twentieth century poet—Holy Cross nun Madeleva Wolff—to lead the new institution. Sister Madeleva later described her seven years in Utah as her “happiest mission.”
Madeleva, who went on to serve as president of Saint Mary’s College in Indiana, studied under J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. She also befriended Bernard DeVoto—the first Utahn to win the Pulitzer Prize—after they met at an Ogden bookstore.
The 400-acre Saint Mary of the Wasatch campus included a huge four-story main building, a convent for the sisters, rooms and a dining hall for boarders, a gymnasium, a social hall, and a reservoir. The beautiful grounds featured a stone wall tower and gate, pine trees, wild roses, and even a private canyon in the mountains.
Madeleva wrote a wonderful description of the place: “We had often been cold, sometimes hungry. Coyotes had cried under our windows at night. Water shortages had left us parched and unwashed during all but unbearable months in summer…Days at a time we lived literally in the clouds and above the clouds. We watched weather in the making….We followed the silver path of the sun in its setting behind the mountains beyond Great Salt Lake. After its long, rose-colored afterglow, two firmaments awoke in the darkness: the stars above us and the twinkling lights of Salt Lake City and its five suburbs covering the valley below.”
The new Catholic college—then the only such institution for women between San Francisco and Denver—offered a full liberal arts program for undergraduates. It also operated a pre-nursing program taught in conjunction with another revered Utah institution started by the Sisters, Holy Cross Hospital.
One of my favorite high school teachers went there. So did Patricia “Pat” Murphy Pignanelli, who attended from 1956 to 1958 and then enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a Utah teacher, school principal, and member of the Holladay City Council.
Originally from Rawlins, Wyoming, Pat enrolled at Saint Mary of the Wasatch because her parents wanted her to get a quality Catholic education. Pat’s favorite memories from those bygone school days include being close to the mountains, her introduction to literature and culture, excellent teaching, lasting friendships, and learning the importance of kindness and equality.
Pat also met and fell in love with Frank Pignanelli—her husband for over 67 years—at a dance held on the Saint Mary’s campus. Frank has his own war stories about navigating around the ever vigilant and watchful eyes of the Catholic nuns when he tried to visit Pat.
Those memories include early curfews and intense questioning from Sister Ann Josephine, the formidable woman who later ran Holy Cross Hospital. Frank persisted and his happy union with Pat produced many good things, including their son and my longtime friend Frank Pignanelli.
In the 1950s, a sharp decline in enrollment and some serious financial problems plagued Saint Mary of the Wasatch. The college closed in 1959, and the high school followed a decade later.
In 1972 the Holy Cross Sisters sold the land to a developer who tore down the buildings and replaced them with houses, giving birth to the St. Mary’s neighborhood. The school’s iconic stone gate tower was incorporated into a home—nicknamed the Castle House—located at 1319 South Roxbury Road.
Today, at least two neighborhood streets bear St. Mary’s name, and two other streets honor a couple of beloved Holy Cross Sisters (Augusta and Mercedes) involved with the school. The local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints even calls itself the St. Mary’s ward.
Invoking those Catholic names in a Utah town established by Brigham Young is unorthodox, to say the least.
The neighborhood’s unique history certainly explains it. But enshrining Mary’s spirit high on Salt Lake City’s east bench to watch over all of us in the valley below also appeals to me in a much deeper way.
Catholics venerate Mary as a loving and caring mother for everyone. The “Salve Regina,” prayed by Catholics since the Middle Ages, implores Mary—“our life, our sweetness and our hope”—to help us “poor banished children of Eve” who are “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.”
I know something about that valley of tears. My 2021 book Monastery Mornings explains why I believe Mary probably saved my life during the most horrific moment of my childhood.
But what about my Latter-day Saint friends who now occupy most of the homes in the St. Mary’s neighborhood? Do they like having her up on that hill too?
I think so.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles also answered that question a half century ago, a bit after the neighborhood started. In 1981 he wrote, “Can we speak too highly of her whom the Lord has blessed above all women? There was only one Christ, and there is only one Mary.”
Who wouldn’t want a little mother’s heavenly love in the neighborhood?
(Collage from photos in Saint Mary’s yearbooks in the 1950s.)
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022. Mike’s new holiday novel, tentatively titled “The Merry Matchmaker Monks,” will be published in time for a future fun Christmas read.
