Two Hundred Years at the Academy

Grand Coteau’s storied school considers its past as it looks to the future.

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A little town steeped in rich history, Grand Coteau’s story can’t be told apart from its geographical and mythical center: The Academy of Sacred Heart (ASH). The idyllic all-girls Catholic school, which celebrates its bicentennial this year, is almost as old as St. Landry Parish itself and holds as many stories.

Over the past two hundred years, upon these 250 acres of oak-and-moss-draped grounds, girls who would become powerful women walked, as did the people their institution enslaved. During the Civil War, a Union general whose statue now overlooks the azalea garden ensured the school did not fall. And one year later, there was a miracle.

During the Civil War, a Union general whose statue now overlooks the azalea garden ensured the school did not fall. And one year later, there was a miracle.

It was 1866, and the postulant Mary Wilson, who was from Canada, was not adjusting well to South Louisiana’s climate. Just before taking her final vows to join the Society of the Sacred Heart, she found herself on her deathbed. For forty days, feverish and vomiting, she refused food—subsisting only on coffee and tea, and things were looking grim.

“I endured the pangs of death,” Wilson wrote in her detailed account of the events. She prayed for the intercession of Blessed John Berchmans, the patron saint of students, and placed an image of him on her mouth. “I can say without scruple or fear of offending God: I heard a voice whisper, ‘Open your mouth.’ I did so as well as I could. I felt someone, as if they put their finger on my tongue, and immediately I was relieved…I closed my eyes and asked: ‘Is it Blessed Berchmans?’ He answered: ‘Yes, I come by the order of God. Your sufferings are over. Fear not!’” Wilson’s strength was instantly returned, confounding her doctor, who wrote in a sworn statement: “Not being able to discover any marks of convalescence, but an immediate return to health from a most severe and painful illness, I am unable to explain the transition by any ordinary natural laws.”

[Peruse John Slaughter's photo essay of Grand Coteau, written by James Fox-Smith, here.]

The site upon which Wilson was healed, which has been transformed into a chapel, is now open to visitors, and is considered one of Grand Coteau’s most spiritually significant spaces. Now called The Shrine of St. John Berchmans, it is just one of many places on the school’s property that remind you that ASH is in many ways a place outside of time.

A Woman’s Place

“I think [the school’s] being two hundred years old, we all feel the weight of those who came before us,” Aimee Cotter, an alumna from the ASH class of 1999, said. “We feel the pressure to hold ourselves to a higher standard and pursue lives that are meaningful. We want to make meaningful change in this world. Knowing that there are two hundred years of women behind us, that sets the expectation for us.”

This sense of a collective—of women feeling united by this place—is evident in the school’s tradition of return. Families’ enduring passion for the school is founded in faith, but also in the bonds forged there. Cotter is one of many alumnae on staff, and many of the current attendees are the daughters of former students. And every year, from all over the world, women return to celebrate their landmark reunions.

Acadiana has no shortage of private, Catholic schools, so what is it about ASH’s particular legacy that so prevails?

“The key difference is the deep level of independent thought,” Cotter said, describing the school’s long-held educational philosophy—which being independent from the diocese, is distinct in the region. “There’s never memorization or just regurgitation. You have a deep understanding of the relevance of the material. When you have the deepest understanding of why we are learning things, it creates a real, authentic faith for our students.”

“I think [the school’s] being two hundred years old, we all feel the weight of those who came before us,” —Aimee Cotter

Part of this distinction, Cotter posed, comes from the simple fact of the school being a women-only environment—a rare sort of space in today’s world that, when properly fostered, removes certain internalized pressures of our larger patriarchal society. “In all-girls environments, women are better able to find their voices,” she said, pointing out that seventy-five percent of ASH’s 2021 graduates went on to study in STEM fields. “In most co-ed schools, that’s a male-dominated area. I think it’s because they weren’t afraid to fail here.”

Empowering women to succeed through education is the foundation upon which ASH was built, from the very beginning. The academy was the first Catholic school in Acadiana, but its origins are straight from France. The first ASH girl, Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, founded the Schools of the Sacred Heart as a testament to her own education as a young woman of faith. During a time when Catholic schools and convents were being shut down in France as a result of the French Revolution, Saint Madeleine received a secret education from her brother, who was a Jesuit priest.

Families’ enduring passion for the school is founded in faith, but also in the bonds forged there.

“Women were displayed as property, not educated,” said Cotter. “It was in secret. She was just a real academic and felt so strongly that girls were worthy of education.”

In 1801, Saint Madeleine was one of three postulants who, along with Father Joseph Varin, founded the Society of the Sacred Heart, a religious congregation for women with a mission of providing education for girls. The Society opened schools across Europe, and in 1818, Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne opened the first of the Sacred Heart schools in the New World in Saint Charles, Missouri. In the years to follow, the Society opened several schools across Missouri and Louisiana. Mothers Eugenie Aude and Sister Mary Layton founded Acadiana’s campus in 1821, and today it is the oldest of the Society’s houses in continuous existence.

Confronting the Sins of the Past

While holding fast to these values upon which the academy was built, ASH and the Society of the Sacred Heart have in recent years worked to confront and acknowledge the uglier parts of their history, too.

From its founding all the way to the Civil War, the Society enslaved hundreds of people at the Academy in Grand Coteau and other institutions across Louisiana and Missouri. In 2016, it created The Committee on Slavery, Accountability, and Reconciliation—an effort dedicated to: “recover[ing] the story of slavery in our early days in this country, to shar[ing] this historical fact as widely as needed, to assist[ing] in the attempt to locate the descendants of enslaved persons who lived on property owned by the Society of the Sacred Heart, and to tak[ing] appropriate steps to address this painful chapter in our history while also working to help transform racist attitudes and behaviors.”

At ASH, this work is ongoing, and includes plans for remodeling the property’s former slave quarters—which were previously used as storage—to reflect their original designs, and then opening them to the public as a museum. “It’s important to have an understanding of how this building came to be,” said Cotter. “It wasn’t the nuns [who built the school]. It was enslaved people.”

Thanks to genealogical research conducted by The Society—which used resources like sacramental records and sisters’ journals—many of the descendants of people enslaved at ASH have learned previously-unknown details about their ancestors’ lives. A plaque on the former quarters bears the names of the enslaved who resided there, at least the names that could be discovered. Many of these descendants are deeply involved in the former slave quarters’ restoration plans, Cotter said.

“It’s important to have an understanding of how this building came to be,” said Cotter. “It wasn’t the nuns [who built the school]. It was enslaved people.”

Beyond acknowledging its past, ASH is also making efforts to promote diversity and equity on its campus today. “The greater organization of nuns [The Society of the Sacred Heart] gave us $1 million to improve diversity on campus, specifically in the African American population,” Cotter said. “There are descendants of the enslaved who are students now, and the school community is so much richer.”

ASH Today and Tomorrow

As such an integral part of Grand Coteau’s history, ASH’s influence reverberates beyond the lives of its students and alumni to those of the school’s immediate surrounding community. Unlike most Catholic schools in Acadiana, because ASH is independently operated, funds don’t flow from the diocese, so the school hosts fundraisers that have become synonymous with the area, including Christmas at Coteau and the Gumbo Cook-off.

In an age where Catholic schools are losing students at record rates, the Academy continues to assess its relevancy in the modern world. Having those conversations, “helps to sharpen our tools and make sure we are offering what a twenty-first century girl needs to be successful in life in who she is,” said Cotter.

“The school was founded in the principles of being cutting edge and pushing the envelope beyond our comfort levels,” she said. “At the core of all our missions are five goals: faith, academics, service, community, and character. It’s woven into everything we do … Saint Madeline started these schools for girls who wanted to learn and devote their lives to study and service. And that has remained true for two hundred years.” 

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