St. Barbara
by Sister Carol Marie Wildt, SSND

Although School Sisters of Notre Dame had been in St. Louis since 1858, these missions had been established from the Milwaukee Province, many of them by Mother Caroline Friess. St. Barbara’s became the first mission opened in the newly established St. Louis Province. Just two years after the beginning of the parish, three SSNDs arrived on August 30, 1895, to teach the German children. Sisters Blase Fitterer, Laudina Trost and Melchiora Neuner were the first of more than 150 SSNDs who ministered in the school and parish. Although there is no chronicle relating the first days of the sisters, the parish history mentioned that the pastor, Rev. John Schramm, vacated the frame rectory for a combination school and sisters’ home. A new brick rectory was built and Rev. Schramm occupied it by December 1895.

The parish property had originally been sold by George and Mary Prendergast in 1877 to St. Louis University. A frame chapel [St. Rose] and building were constructed while the Jesuits ministered to the people of the surrounding area of the Rose Hill neighborhood. In the 1880s, the former St. Rose’s Chapel was entrusted to the diocesan clergy and a frame rectory was built. By 1891, a new St. Rose Church was constructed and the property transferred back to George Prendergast and put up for sale. However, Mr. Prendergast did not want to sell the property for a German church. So Rev. Schramm resorted to a strategy. The property was bought by Theodore Fehlig, a landholder in the vicinity, on June 1, 1893. The next day it was transferred to Rev. Henry Muehlsiepen, vicar general of the Archdiocese for the same price, $8,000.

The new parish was named after Mrs. Barbara Mohrmann, the wife of Henry Mohrmann, who helped organize the parish and furnished the loan of $8,000 to purchase the property. The parish was surrounded by a largely wooded and poorly developed area. These early parishioners, with their pastor, made many sacrifices to repay the debt and to improve the parish surroundings. Their faith, courage and tenacity of purpose sustained them in the early years. After 11 years of struggle and growth, the parish was in need of a new church. Rev. Schramm asked to be re-assigned and was transferred to Sacred Heart parish in Rich Fountain, Mo., where he again served God’s people with the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

By 1908 a new school building was built and the sisters occupied a new home in 1916. The old frame rectory, which had served as a combination school and sisters’ home, was razed to make room for a new parish hall.

As the years progressed and the migration of ethnic groups occurred in the St. Louis area, the early German settlers were replaced. By October 1964, the entire school body was African-American. On March 5, 1965, permission was granted by Mother Ambrosia Roecklein “to the Sisters at St. Barbara to visit the homes of the Negroes who are in need of help. This permission was granted for Saturdays and free days and in emergencies.” The sisters made their first visits on March 13 and began taking a census on May 8. They were the first mission in the St. Louis province to do home-visiting among their parishioners. In 1966, Sister Mary Paul Niemann, recently returned from Japan, opened a thrift shop and gave out food – the beginnings of a social ministry in what is now the Wellston area.

Due to financial constraints, the school was closed and SSNDs left the parish in 1972; 20 years later the parish was closed.

[Sources: 50th Anniversary of the Founding of St. Barbara’s Parish, 1943; St. Barbara Chronicle, 1965]

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