A Fortunate Sale A Fortunate Sale
On January 24, 1924, the Sisters of Mercy of California and Arizona purchased the Kohl Mansion, furnishings, and 40 acre grounds from Marian gamf.net Louderback Lord, inheritor of The Oaks estate, for $230,000. This newly formed community of five formerly independent groups of Sisters of Mercy from San Francisco, Rio Vista, Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix that united in 1922, was encouraged by Archbishop Hanna of San Francisco to acquire the property and building for a Motherhouse (administrative center) and Novitiate (formation program for women entering the order.)
Carriage house was Frederick Kohl’s and an original part of the property that was kept for many years and used as a gym for the students when the high school was founded.
Written by: Liz Dossa, Sister Marilyn Gouailhardou, RSM and Catherine Wilkinson
Turning a Mansion into a Convent
The Sisters of Mercy administration (the Superior General and her council), community sisters, and novitiate sisters moved in to the mansion one month after the January 1924 purchase. They were delighted with the adaptability of the mansion to a convent. From the Sisters of Mercy Annals:
“Much time was consumed for a satisfactory arrangement. The music hall seemed planned for a chapel…the library has become a reception room for the sisters’ visitors; the dining room is now the novitiate common room; the breakfast room makes a wonderfully bright and cheery refectory; the billiard room is the professed sisters common room; all the guest rooms on the third floor have become dormitories for the novices and postulants, a novitiate study room, and an office for the Mistress of Novices. The servants’ quarters on the fourth floor serve as cells for the professed sisters. Commodious closets, baths, lavatories are numerous throughout the house and the plumbing is excellent.(!)”
Written by: Liz Dossa, Sister Marilyn Gouailhardou, RSM and Catherine Wilkinson
Sisters Connect with the Community
On January 9, 1927, Capuchin Franciscan Fathers of Our Lady of Angels Parish, founded the previous November, become chaplains and confessors to the sisters, and began saying the daily Mass in the convent chapel. Previously, Mass was celebrated by the priests from St. Catherine’s Parish, founded in 1908, which was the only parish in Burlingame and was founded the same year the City of Burlingame was incorporated.
Our Lady of Angels School opened August 27, 1927, staffed by the Sisters of Mercy. Professed Sister Sister Mary Rosarii Wood was appointed principal. The four original teachers were novices: Sisters Mary Euphrasia Butler, Mary Clarence Norton, Mary Petronilla Gaul, and Mary Ernestine Schafer. These novices professed their vows in 1928.
Written by: Liz Dossa, Sister Marilyn Gouailhardou, RSM and Catherine Wilkinson
Sisters Celebrate and Open Mercy High School
More than 150 sisters came together at the Motherhouse on December 8, 1929, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Sister Mary Baptist Russell and seven Sisters of Mercy from Kinsale, Ireland, landing in San Francisco in 1854. The sisters immediately began ministry to the residents of California in gamf.net health care, education, and social services.
The sisters brought the charism of education to the campus beginning with a groundbreaking ceremony on April 16, 1931, for a four-classroom wing to be added to the Kohl Mansion for the new Mercy High School. A month later prospective pupils of the high school enjoyed a picnic on the grounds. Our Lady of Angels eighth grade girls and girls from Millbrae, San Mateo and Burlingame were present. A tempting lunch was served under the trees near the green.
Mercy High School, Burlingame, opened on August 10, 1931, with 14 students from Our Lady of Angels School and 22 other students from the north Peninsula. The teaching staff included Sister Mary Lorenzo Murphy, principal, and Sisters Mary Angela Huber, Mary de Chantal Perz, and Mary Marcella Burke.
Written by: Liz Dossa, Sister Marilyn Gouailhardou, RSM and Catherine Wilkinson