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Students talk with Carolyn Osiek, RSCJ, and Mary Charlotte Chandler, RSCJ.

Villa students visit Society Archives

By Michael Pera, Provincial Archivist for the Society of the Sacred Heart United States – Canada Province

January 27, 2025

Mary Charlotte Chandler, RSCJ, talks to students. Photo courtesy of Jen MacArthur.

On January 15, the Villa Duchesne sophomore class visited the United States – Canada Province Archives to learn more about their school’s history. Villa Duchesne has a house system, in which students are grouped into Maisons. Each Maison is named for an RSCJ patron: Madeleine Sophie Barat; Rose Philippine Duchesne; Janet Stuart; and Mamie Jenkins. The archives put out a display featuring a number of artifacts and documents for each patron.

Among those treasures featured:

  • In honor of the centennial of Madeleine Sophie Barat’s canonization in 1925, an original invitation to the Canonization at St. Peter’s in Rome.
  • A beautiful letter from Philippine to a Grand Coteau Student, Félicie Chrétien, 1830
  • Several examples of Janet Stuart’s writing of fiction, her poems and plays
  • A set of articles regarding Mamie Jenkins’s guitar classes at Villa Duchesne in the 1970s

Some of the students also had relatives who were Religious of the Sacred Heart, and so we were able to pull the files on those individuals for them. Genealogy is a frequent request of the staff at the archives, so it’s always a joy to make those connections.

On January 23, Villa’s senior class visited to learn more about the Society’s spirituality and history. We had a chance to dive more deeply into the experience of past and present Sacred Heart students. We viewed clips of Life at the Sacred Heart, a film from the early 1960s profiling life at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at El Cajon, California. Students were particularly enamored of the school uniforms from the 1940s. 

The students were accompanied by Villa teachers Jen MacArthur and John Powell. It was a particular pleasure to see these seniors, as they had first visited as sophomores two years ago, when Villa was beginning regular visits to the archives.

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Who We Are

Overview

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Our guiding calls

Our internationality

Our provincial leadership

Our related organizations

Our heritage and traditions

Our Mission Lived

Overview

Education

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Overview
Spirituality Centers
Children of Mary

Justice

Overview
Stuart Center
Ethical investing
Healthy Waters

Community

Overview
Welcoming communities
RSCJ retirement communities

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Duchesne Fund

Connect

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Request a prayer

Ways to give

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Our spiritual library

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Heart magazine

Revealing God's Love in the Midst of Uncertainty

RSCJ Blogs

Quotes from RSCJ

Our History

Overview

History of Enslavement

Key figures

Archives

Miracle at Grand Coteau

New Province Foundations

News

In Memoriam

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