Encyclopedia Dubuque
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IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ACADEMY
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ACADEMY. School. Established in 1907 by the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family, Immaculate Conception Academy offered four tracks for students. The Preparatory offered "a thorough training in the grammar grades." The Academic offered a complete four year high school course. The Commercial involved a "thorough course in book-keeping and stenography." The Normal was for those preparing to take teacher examinations. The last was the department of Music and Elocution. (1) Shortly after the establishment of this program, courses in art, sewing, and "domestic science" (cooking) were added.
The first location of the Academy was on 17th Street, the site of OUR LADY OF LOURDES. The building. established as a "female seminary" in 1854 by Catherine Beecher, was remodeled for its use as an academy. The first class consisted of twenty-four students, twelve of them residents at the school.
In 1925 it was decided to move Immaculate Conception to a site on Davis Avenue in the former Motherhouse of the order. Students and sisters in the school may have opposed the move because they offered a Novena to "Our Lady" requesting that the transfer would fail. Sisters at the Motherhouse, however, offered their own Novena asking that the transfer would be successful.
The relocation to Davis Avenue was successful, and the school grew. In 1950 the campus was expanded to include St. Colette Hall and surrounding land.
At the time of its closing, it was stated that the school would remain open as a convent preparatory school. Regular high school and pre-college subjects would be taught with an emphasis on academic and fine arts courses. Girls attending the school would be those who planned to become Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family.
In 1959, four Dubuque high schools ended their year on a solemn note. This would be the last classes to graduate from Immaculate Conception Academy, ST. JOSEPH ACADEMY, the high school association with SAINT COLUMBKILLE CATHOLIC CHURCH and LORAS ACADEMY. Aging Catholic high schools became too expensive to repair and maintain. Officials of the ARCHDIOCESE OF DUBUQUE decided to close them and build WAHLERT HIGH SCHOOL, a new, state-of-the-art high school for all of the city's parochial students to attend. (2) In 2009 the building of the former academy was the Shalom Retreat Center.
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Source:
1. Immaculate Conception Academy: An Ideal School for Young Ladies, Boarders and Day Students," Telegraph Herald, Aug. 30, 1907, p. 11
2. Nevans-Pederson, Mary, "Academies Evoke Fond Memories After Fifty Years," Telegraph Herald, May 26, 2009, p. 1