{"id":8004,"date":"2017-09-09T17:31:36","date_gmt":"2017-09-09T22:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/?p=8004"},"modified":"2017-09-11T12:43:03","modified_gmt":"2017-09-11T17:43:03","slug":"back-to-school-a-letter-from-immaculate-conception-academy-1873-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/2017\/09\/09\/back-to-school-a-letter-from-immaculate-conception-academy-1873-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to School: A Letter from Immaculate Conception Academy, 1873 – Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week we continue with our \u201cback-to-school\u201d theme, learning about the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center resources that help us place Immaculate Conception Academy student Ada Sala\u2019s 1873 letter to her father, E.M. Sala, in historical context.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Imma Conception, Davenport, Iowa, Mar. 5, 1873<\/p>\n

Dear Pa,<\/p>\n

I received your kind letter and was so glad to hear from you, as it was the first letter I had from you since you were here.<\/p>\n

We were examined last week, and I will get a certificate in all of my studies; when we receive our certificates I will send you mine, for I know you will be glad to see one.<\/p>\n

Lizzie Blacksmith is coming to live with Mary, because she is not able to do her own work. I think I will write to her this week. Please excuse the shortness of this letter, as I have nothing more of interest. I will conclude with fondest love to all.<\/p>\n

Your loving child,<\/p>\n

Ada Sala<\/p>\n

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We are fortunate to have a photocopy of the registration records for Immaculate Conception Academy from 1867-1887<\/a> in our collection. Here we find Ada Sala listed among the 24 girls enrolling in September of 1872. The records indicate she is from Rock Island, Illinois. This suggests that Ada\u2019s home base at that time was with her older sister Mary, whom we had previously found to be living in that city then (recently married in 1871 to Henry Boggess, pregnant with her first child Vinnie, and attended by her peer Lizzie Blacksmith from the Salas\u2019 former residence in Lee County, Iowa) thanks to census and family tree information obtained via the Ancestry Library Edition<\/a> database.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Ada thanks her father E.M. Sala for writing, saying  \u201c\u2026it was the first letter I had from you since you were here,\u201d we may imagine that \u201chere\u201d was with his other daughter and son-in-law in Rock Island. It is not likely that Ada lived with her sister\u2019s family and traveled back and forth daily to the Academy, since she says \u201cI think I will write to her this week\u201d in reference to Mary. This and the fact that she writes using Academy stationery suggest Ada was one of the 61 \u201cpupils in Boarding School\u201d for the 1872-1873 year. <\/span><\/p>\n

The registration records (the running title in the ledger is actually \u201cAttendance during Academic Year 1872-73) show that the city of Davenport supplied the majority of the 97 \u201cpupils in in Day School.\u201d Ada\u2019s fellow boarders were girls from LeClaire, Clinton, DeWitt, Iowa City, Wilton, Washington, Bellevue, and McGregor in Iowa; Rock Island, Moline, Geneseo, Prophetstown, Chicago, and several illegible places in Illinois, as well as Mississippi River towns in Wisconsin and Missouri.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two publications available at the RSSCC, <\/span>History of the Immaculate Conception Academy of Davenport Iowa…<\/span><\/i><\/a>by Sister Mary St. Joan of Arc Coogan, B.V.M. (SC 371.0712 MAR) and <\/span>Immaculate Conception Academy 1859-1958<\/span><\/i><\/a> (SC377.82 Imm), provide insight into the life of boarding school students like Ada Sala during the 1870\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cHill House\u201dat Main and 8th Streets in Davenport was occupied by the members of the order that ran the Academy, the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is unclear if the boarding school students also lived in the Hill House, but we do know that their classes were held in the \u201clarge frame building\u201d just to the north along Main Street. To get there, they \u201cascended an outside stairway\u201d so as to remain \u201creligiously segregated\u201d from the day students on the first floor (History<\/em>, 75).<\/span><\/p>\n

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A.T. Andreas\u2019 Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa. Chicago: Andreas Atlas Co., 1875.<\/p><\/div>\n

Ada likely received the certificates she mentions in music, drawing, painting, and needlework, as those subjects were available both in the 1860\u2019s and and in the year 1875. The account book kept by Sister Mary Gonzaga McClosky suggests that the study of geography and natural science was also also possible: $20.00 was spent on maps and $199.65 on \u201cPhilosophical Apparatus\u201d in 1873 (History<\/em>, 77).  According to the author of  Immaculate Conception Academy:<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cStudents of the [18]\u201870\u2019s had their grades published in the [student newspaper] Portfolio<\/i>. A twofold mark was registered: one for \u2018excellence of deportment, amiability and politeness\u2019 and another for examination averages (15)”<\/p>\n

Students were also required to participate in daily \u201ccalisthenic exercise\u201d for which the nuns sewed special \u201ccalisthenic suits\u201d (History<\/em>, 72). Otherwise, <\/span>Ada and her peers would have worn \u201chigh-necked, long-sleeved, ankle-length black dresses” as a uniform <\/span>(Immaculate<\/em>, 20).<\/span><\/p>\n

Ada Sala did not go back to school. Her name does not appear in the registration records after 1873, and in the 1880 Census we find her back in Grant County, Wisconsin, living with her father, his new wife Phoebe, and her younger siblings.<\/span><\/p>\n

(posted by Katie)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week we continue with our \u201cback-to-school\u201d theme, learning about the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center resources that help us place Immaculate Conception Academy student Ada Sala\u2019s 1873 letter to her father, E.M. Sala, in historical context. Imma Conception, Davenport, Iowa, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[1721,41,1728,1719,1720,1726,1727],"class_list":["post-8004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy","category-local-history","tag-ancestry-library-edition","tag-davenport-iowa","tag-hill-house","tag-immaculate-conception-academy","tag-sala-family","tag-school-records","tag-sisters-of-charity-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXc-256","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8004"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8014,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8004\/revisions\/8014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}