December 23, 1928
Osage County News
Microfilm Roll: MN00312
On this day in Osage country, the Osage County News published an article on the release of a new book, Life and Times of Mother Bridget, by W.W. Graves.
Margaret Hayden, or later Mother Bridget Hayden, was born in Ireland on August 14, 1814. In 1820, two years after her grandfather immigrated to the United States, Hayden and her family immigrated to Perryville, Missouri. Hayden decided to join the Sisters of Loretto in 1841 and adopted the name Sister Bridget Hayden.
A few years later, a priest by the name of Father John Schoenmakers, an advocate for the Osage, arrived to Missouri with the hopes of recruiting “religious women for his Osage Indian Girl’s school,” located in Kansas (Mother Bridget). Four of the Sisters of Loretto, one of them being Sister Bridget Hayden, agreed to join him. The sisters arrived at the Osage Mission October of 1847. On that same day, the Osage School for Girls opened.
Two years after her arrival, Sister Bridget Hayden became the “superior of the female department of the Osage Manual Labor School,” taking on the title of Mother Superior, and remained in this position throughout the beginning of the Civil War. (Mother Bridget). In 1863, Mother Hayden was called away to lead St. Vincent’s Academy in Missouri where she served as Mother Superior for approximately three years. Upon her return to the Osage Mission, Mother Hayden was greeted with the news that many of her girls would soon be departing. The Osages were being relocated to Oklahoma. The Osage Manual Labor School closed in 1870.
Father Schoenmakers and Mother Hayden stayed in Kansas and lead what became known as St. Ann’s Academy, “a prestigious frontier women’s boarding school,” (Mother Hayden).
Morgan M. Guzman
“Students at Osage Mission.” Osage County News. December 23, 1928, p. 1. Microfilm roll number MN00312. Sequoyah National Research Center, Little Rock, Arkansas.
Further Reading
“Mother Bridget Hayden: the Medicine Woman.” A Catholic Mission. http://www.acatholicmission.org/mother-bridget-hayden.html Date accessed April 30, 2018.
