St. Rose of Lima Catholic School in De Soto is celebrating its 125th anniversary and will cap off the yearlong celebration with its annual dinner auction March 4 to benefit the school.
Once again, however, tickets are already sold out.
“It’s the social event of the year and sells out within a week,” principal Mike Talleur said.
Last year the event raised $127,000 and over the course of the 22 years, the annual fundraiser has brought in almost $2 million for the school, Talleur said.
Those recent fundraising efforts follow in a long tradition of generosity to the St. Rose of Lima parish which began in 1863, when Thomas C. Fletcher and Louis J. Rankin gave four De Soto lots to Archbishop P.R. Kenrick for the first Catholic Church in town, according to a history of the church and school from the church’s 100th- anniversary program published in 1985.
The original 36-by-24-foot frame church was built in 1864, and then in 1885, a new Gothic-style church was built. Later, in January 1891, a decision was made to remodel the old church for a school and refit the former priests’ residence for the Ursuline nuns who would teach there, the history said.
The cost for remodeling the former church and nuns’ building was $1,325.92, and the school opened its doors on Sept. 1 of that year, according to the history.
The school opened with two large classrooms that seated 60 students each and a third classroom in the convent that could accommodate another 30 children. There were 150 students enrolled the first year the school opened, the history book said.
Former student, the late Mary Elizabeth Norris, born in 1919, remembered going to school in those early years at St. Rose.
“I can remember four years of school in the old frame school house with the pot-bellied stove where those sitting close to it felt scorched, and those in the back of the room felt frozen. Father Rogers would come in on the days when it was too miserable to play outdoors at recess time. He got us involved in playing games on the blackboard, and he would get little points across to us, like hoping we wouldn’t settle for being mediocre people when with more effort we could be so much more,” according to Norris in the history.
Enrollment continued to grow at St. Rose, and in 1929, just before the nation fell into the Great Depression, parishioners worked to raise funds to begin building a new school. In April of that year, the cornerstone was laid for the new building. The new St. Rose of Lima Catholic School, a two-story brick building with five classrooms on the first floor and an auditorium above, was completed in September 1929.
The school was equipped with all new furnishings donated by the parishioners.
Norris remembered the year students started attending classes in the new school.
“The move to the new school was super, but I remember the people of the parish worked very hard for many years to pay off the debt. I am grateful to all who made it possible,” she wrote.
There were years when enrollment at the school reached more than 400 students, and the school was renovated in 1955 to add classrooms, new bathrooms, a new kitchen and other improvements, according to the history.
Giving continued through the years, providing new playground equipment, a new flagpole, new paint, new carpeting and even transportation for the sisters.
“Ever since the first days at St. Rose, the sisters had depended … on the willing assistance of many parishioners who would drive them to and from meetings or to the convent in Kirkwood or to various other places both near and far. When the sisters were allowed to drive, Mahn Funeral Home offered the sisters the use of (its) car any time the car was not in use,” according to the history.
Eventually, in the 1970s, the parish provided the nuns with a car.
Today, enrollment at the school is not as high as in decades past, but donations that support a Catholic education continue to come in, Talleur said.
“It’s a challenge and a sacrifice for parents to pay tuition to send their kids to Catholic school,” he said.
Its costs St. Rose $5,700 to educate each pupil, and the highest tuition a parent is charged is $3,500.
Money raised at the annual auction, along with the generosity of the parish, De Soto residents and businesses, eases the tuition cost for many parents.
St. Rose has seen a steady growth in attendance over the last four years, increasing enrollment by 25 percent – from 69 students to 89 students.
He said St. Rose of Lima’s Catholic School has staying power.
“We’re working hard to let everybody know that we’ve been here 125 years and we plan on being here another 125 years,” Talleur said.
