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Moscow's Convent

Writer's picture: LCHSLCHS

This article first appeared in the January/February 2025 edition of Home & Harvest magazine.


By Hayley Noble, Executive Director

Ursuline Convent with parts of the Moore house still visible. LCHS Clifford Ott Collection.
Ursuline Convent with parts of the Moore house still visible. LCHS Clifford Ott Collection.

In many minds, Idaho and Catholicism do not seem like an obvious pairing. But surprisingly, northern Idaho has a long history with the Catholic Church, including what is believed to be the oldest building in Idaho: The Mission of the Sacred Heart also known as the Cataldo Mission, near Coeur d’Alene, which dates to the 1850s. Most of the other catholic connections are not nearly that old. Another well-known catholic site in the region is the Monastery of St. Gertrude near Cottonwood. This Benedictine order established their footprint in 1909 and constructed their current chapel in 1919.


Moore home ca. 1900. LCHS Photo: 01-05-199.
Moore home ca. 1900. LCHS Photo: 01-05-199.

Moscow’s own Ursuline convent was founded similarly in 1908 along D Street between Howard and Monroe Streets. The house on that plot originally belonged to Julia and Charles Moore (See the May/June 2024 Home & Harvest for more info on Julia Moore). When Mother Mary Rose Galvin, Sister Paula Slevins, Sister Theresa Slevins and Sister Mary Carmel McCabe came to town by train, they leased the Moore house and immediately established the Ursuline Academy, which first opened to students on September 14th. Twenty-two students came that first day, ranging in ages from six to fifteen. In 1912, the convent purchased the property with financial assistance from Eleanor A. Galvin in Toledo, Ohio, where the sisters hailed from.


Soon the Ursulines were also teaching music and art lessons and taking in boarders, both on a permanent basis and temporarily if a parent had to leave town. In 1908 boarders paid $20 a month, which roughly adjusted is around $685 today. The sisters attended mass at St. Mary’s, taught routine classes and specialty lessons, and stayed busy cooking and cleaning their convent building. Occasionally they would also visit neighboring towns like Potlatch and Troy.


Convent ca. 1930
Convent ca. 1930

The Ursuline Academy served students at all grade levels with classes instructed by the nuns, and a school board appointed by Bishop Glorieux. The school was open to all regardless of religious affiliation. In 1940, the sisters also opened a nursery and kindergarten, St. Rose’s Garden, which specialized in early education at a time when early education opportunities were rare. By 1952, nine sisters taught roughly 200 students. But in 1955, high school enrollment dipped and the Ursulines decided to discontinue high school classes.


St. Mary’s Catholic Church saw the need for a larger school and purchased the adjacent lot from the Ursulines, between Monroe and Lincoln Streets along D Street in 1954. It was agreed that in the new St. Mary’s Catholic School the sisters would teach, and the parish would assist the school financially. The lot was originally used by the Ursuline Academy as a playground, and construction began for the new school in spring 1956. St. Mary’s opened for students first through eighth grades in the fall of that same year, and the sisters continued to offer the daycare and kindergarten in the convent. Classes at St. Mary’s soon after transitioned to be undertaken by both nuns and lay people, alike.


Ursuline Academy yearbook from 1947, donated by Robert and Clara Lee, with a 1936 class ring, donated by Jerry Deely.
Ursuline Academy yearbook from 1947, donated by Robert and Clara Lee, with a 1936 class ring, donated by Jerry Deely.

Eventually St. Mary’s ended seventh and eighth grade classes in 1966 after the public school district reconfigured the Moscow Junior High School to house seventh, eighth, and ninth grade students. The school has continued to operate under this model and the convent celebrated its 100th anniversary in September 2008.


Many of the nuns had long careers as teachers and were highly respected members of the Moscow community, buried in the catholic section of the Moscow Cemetery. The sources related to the Moscow convent detail an emphasis on music, education, and charity, which is evident in the work they did throughout the region. Several women touted long years with the Ursuline Academy, then with St. Mary’s. One of the first four women to establish the convent, Mother Mary Rose Galvin taught for more than 25 years at the Academy before she died in 1934. 2017 and 2018 saw several sisters pass away who served more than a combined 200 years with the Ursuline Order: Sisters Mary David Hartse, Dolores Helbling, and Maura Murphy. Facing declining members of their order, the Sisters decided to sell the convent with the 1962 building and 1900s masonry fence. In 2018, the Ursuline Sisters sold the property to Archimedes: A Center for the Arts. Now the property is owned by Mark Beale. St. Rose’s moved across the street and is now part of St. Mary’s Catholic School.    

1904 Sanborn map showing the Moore house.
1904 Sanborn map showing the Moore house.

Because not many photos exist of the convent, resources like Sanborn maps can illuminate property histories and changes to buildings. The Sanborn Map Company created intricate maps of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century towns detailing building materials for fire insurance purposes. These maps are invaluable for creating timelines of structural histories, especially in the absence of photographs. These maps declined in use during the 1950s and the Sanborn Company printed its last maps in 1961, and with one last update in 1977.


1909 Sanborn map showing the convent.
1909 Sanborn map showing the convent.

Sanborn maps can be accessed online via the Library of Congress, or the University of Idaho Library has conveniently compiled Idaho-related maps at https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/sanborn/. The Latah County Historical Society also has a select few paper copies of Sanborn maps for reference of county towns. LCHS staff regularly consult Sanborn maps for research questions. The maps aren’t without their limitations though. Early iterations only include the most populous parts of towns, so more rural areas are left out, and few maps detail areas beyond the 1920s. LCHS has a couple of maps that were printed in 1928, and 1963 and 1955 maps were pasted over the original printed ones. When held up to the light, one can view the 1928 version underneath the more recent edits. 


1928 Sanborn map.
1928 Sanborn map.
1928 Sanborn map with 1955 edits pasted over the 1928 map.
1928 Sanborn map with 1955 edits pasted over the 1928 map.

The map entries for the Moore House first date to 1904. Then in 1909, the Ursuline Convent is clearly delineated with renovations to the Moore farmhouse. The next map is from 1928 showing the expansion of the property, with an added chapel, and a separate building for classrooms and an auditorium. The convent soon needed more space and constructed a new building in the 1940s over the original Moore house footprint. A gymnasium, added in 1934, is included on the 1955 map too. The Sisters again erected a new building in 1962 and that is the structure that still exists today, visible on the 1963 map. The wall around the property from the early 1900s also remains. These maps illustrate the multiple iterations of the convent and the evolution of the buildings over time as needs and building materials changed and renovations were made.


1928 Sanborn map with 1963 edits pasted over the 1928 map.
1928 Sanborn map with 1963 edits pasted over the 1928 map.

Similarly, many of Moscow’s buildings can be traced through time this way by using the Sanborn maps. These maps are incredibly useful when trying to determine remodels, types of buildings, and materials. Their online availability also makes them easy to look up for those who cannot always make it into a reading room. It’s also fun to see how our built environment and community has changed. Without many photographs, these maps can help fill in gaps in our knowledge, particularly in this case regarding the Ursuline convent. The convent building and Ursulines themselves are in interesting look at the early Moscow history in a place not known for Catholicism. The legacy of the Sisters lives on in St. Mary’s School with its dedication to education that the nuns invoked early in 1908, when they moved from Toledo to Moscow.



Sources


The First Hundred Years: A Centennial History of St. Mary’s Church Moscow, Idaho by Kenneth J. Arnzen 1982.


Latah Legacy Vol. 25, No. 2 Fall 1996. “From Novenas to Nutmeg: An Excerpt from the Journal of an Ursuline Nun by Julia Monroe.


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