The Grey Nuns and D'Youville College
It was in 1857 that five Grey Nuns of the order founded in Montreal in 1737 by Saint Marguerite d’Youville, came to Buffalo from Canada. They came at the request of Bishop John Timon, to help the Oblate Fathers of Mary Immaculate in their work among the poor and sick, and to establish an elementary school at Holy Angels Church.
Within four years, in 1861, parents, well-satisfied with their new parish school, were urging the sisters to form a private academy also, one that would be just for girls and extend through the secondary years. And so, Holy Angels Academy came into being and was located in a small rented house on Niagara Street.
The woman who was the foundress of the school and the guiding inspiration was Sister St. Mary St. Julien. In 1859, at just 28 years old, she came directly to Buffalo after serving three years with the Sioux Indian children of the Red River Valley, north of Bismarck, North Dakota. She was an extraordinarily gifted educator and developed the new academy into a school renowned throughout the state. In 1872, she purchased land at the corner of Porter and Prospect Avenues and built a four-story red brick academy, today, the Koessler Administration Building, the core building of D’Youville College.
Bishop Charles Colton recognized the need to establish a Catholic college for women in Buffalo. Father Nelson Baker joined him in his plea to the Grey Nuns to consider offering a college program. At that time, there wasn’t a Catholic institution in New York state offering baccalaureate degrees to women except the College of New Rochelle, located north of New York City. Bishop Colton was keenly aware of the increasing numbers of Irish- and German-Catholic immigrants flooding into Buffalo and he wanted well-educated women, trained in character and formed to be leaders, to work with them. With the sisters’ permission, a bill was introduced in the state legislature to create a joint academy/college corporation. The bill passed the legislature on April 4, 1908 and was signed into law by Governor Charles Evans Hughes on April 5, 1908. This bill gave control over curriculum to the college faculty, and included the right to award all degrees, including doctorates, in all fields save law and medicine.
Sister St. Mary died in the spring of 1907. The Grey Nun who took up the call of leadership from her was Sister St. Stanislaus Burns, a tiny nun filled with a passionate determination to overcome the obstacles to the foundation of the college. The first obstacle was the initial refusal of the Grey Nun superiors in Ottawa to permit the academy/college to add to the already substantial debt on the property. The second obstacle was the fact that the academy/college had no reserve funds to draw on. They were still paying down the indebtedness on the 1889 east wing that had given the sisters their own cloister separate from the academy. Before the congregational leadership would give the necessary permission, they required that the existing debt on the community wing of the academy be paid off. Sister St. Stanislaus and her sisters took to the road, traveling as far as Philadelphia, in search of benefactors. The local community willingly introduced an unbelievable austerity into their lifestyle so that every penny could be applied to the indebtedness.
They succeeded, but at what a cost to the indomitable leader?
Appointed the first president of the college, Sister St. Stanislaus served only from 1908 to 1911 when her health broke. She returned to the Ottawa Motherhouse for rest and less stressful duties. Aware of the continuing financial struggles of the college, she returned to D’Youville as soon as she was able and resumed the office of presidency in 1913. She served with great success until a crippling stroke in 1916. She spent the next several years in the Motherhouse infirmary until her death in 1920 at the age of 69. A colleague wrote of her at the time, “Her courage surpassed her physical strength.”
While Sister St. Stanislaus was heroically leading the drive for financial stability, Sister Mary Agnes Quigley, the first dean of the college, was forging an academic program second to none. She too took to the road, not for money, but to learn what the best colleges for women in the country were teaching. She spent time at Vassar College and returned to D’Youville to establish a demanding classical-college program with strong emphasis on the liberal arts. The only professional program for which D’Youville prepared its students in those early years was teaching at the secondary level.
Among the thirteen presidents of the college who have succeeded Sister St. Stanislaus, some are remarked in college history for their specific achievements: Sister St. Edward Coonly, in 1930, successfully separated Holy Angels Academy from the college by building the new academy building in North Buffalo. Sister Francis Xavier Lynch in the sixties, developed D’Youville’s B.S. in nursing program, and as president, added four new buildings to the campus. In the seventies, Sister Mary Charlotte Barton took decisive steps that opened the college to the future, advancing for co-education and the restructuring of the board of trustees to enhance lay leadership. And the fourteenth president, Sister Denise Roche, has made D’Youville an active force for progress in the Buffalo community, while expanding its campus to support the many new programs created to meet the needs of the times.
And still one president’s name, among all these great leaders, is enshrined in a special spot in every alumna’s heart. During her 23 years as dean and president at D’Youville, (1919-1929; 1934-1947) Sister Grace of the Sacred Heart Wechter was a major figure in the development of D’Youville’s spirit, philosophy and Mission. In her youth, she knew Sister St. Stanislaus and it is perhaps from her admiration of this dauntless first president that she developed the conviction she unfailingly passed on to every D’Youville student, “A D’Youville graduate can do anything.”