DUANE
Get the App
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this place, right here in Grayson County. Now, picture 1876. The Sisters of St.
Mary of Namur, all the way from Belgium, arrive in association with St. Patrick's Catholic Church, and they have a mission. They purchase a house.
Not a grand campus, not a sprawling institution. A house. And from that house, Sisters Augustine, Adelphine, Anne, and Benedictine open their doors.
Forty-six day students and eight boarders walk in. All girls, coming from Texas and from the Indian Territory, ready to study the arts, the sciences, and the classics. That was the beginning of St.
Francis Xavier Academy, and it was only the beginning of something larger. Because this was not just one school. It was the first of six Texas schools the Sisters would go on to organize.
The first of six. That house had some big ambitions inside it. Then came 1901, and with it a Gothic brick edifice, rising up to become the main structure of the academy.
You can almost hear the echo of it, stone and arch and intention, built to last. The school grew, it changed. In 1924, St.
Francis Xavier consolidated with St. Patrick's School and became coeducational, boys joining the halls that had belonged to girls for nearly half a century. The academy carried on.
But 1968 came, and St. Francis Xavier closed its doors. And then, in 1971, the buildings were razed.
Gone. What the Sisters built from a single purchased house, what stood in Gothic brick on this ground, exists now only in the record, and in markers like this one, holding the story right where it happened.
What the marker says
Founded in 1876 by the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur, Belgium, in association with St. Patrick's Catholic Church, St. Francis Xavier Academy was the first of six Texas schools organized by the Sisters. After purchasing a house, Sisters Augustine, Adelphine, Anne, and Benedictine opened their doors to 46 day students and 8 boarders, all girls, from Texas and the Indian Territory for the study of the arts, sciences, and classics. A 1901 Gothic brick edifice became the main structure of St. Francis Xavier. The academy consolidated with the St. Patrick's School and became coeducation in 1924. St. Francis Xavier closed in 1968, and the academy buildings were razed in 1971. (1998)