User:Ngriffeth/SMS

St. Mary's Episcopal School is an all-girls private college preparatory school for Pre-Kindergarten through grade 12 in Memphis, Tennessee.

History
St. Mary's was founded as the parish school of Calvary Episcopal Church in 1847, making it the oldest private school in Memphis. It was originally called Calvary Church Parochial School but by 1857 the name had changed to St. Mary's School.

Mary Foote Pope was the school's first principal. The school moved several times in its early years, from Calvary Episcopal Church to a location on Madison Street sometime before 1861, then in 1862 to a Presbyterian church in Hernando, Mississippi, where Mrs. Pope sought refuge after being banished from Memphis for flying the Confederate flag after Union soldiers had occupied Memphis. In 1868, the school returned to Memphis, to 350 Poplar Avenue.

By 1873, Mary Pope had retired and the school was directed by the Right Reverend Charles Todd Quintard, Bishop of the Diocese of Tennesse. In 1872, Bishop Quintard had convinced Mother Harriet of the Order of St. Mary in New York and the Bishop of New York to open a Foundation in Memphis, which would include St. Mary's School and a home for orphans. Sister Constance, who had been reared as a Unitarian, was appointed to be the Sister Superior of the Foundation, to run the school in much the same fashion as the New York Schools of the Order of St. Mary. It had four departments: Kindergarten, Primary, Grammar School, and Academic, and to graduate a student had to study English, Mathematics, Science, and Classics. When Bishop Quintard moved to Suwanee, Tennessee in 1873, the school moved to his former home west of St. Mary's Cathedral on Poplar Avenue. The school opening at the new location was planned for October 1, 1873, but the Memphis yellow fever epidemic began on that date and the opening was postponed to November, 1873, while the sisters worked as nurses in Memphis' Cathedral District. When the school finally opened in November, only four students registered, but enrollment grew quickly. Twenty students were enrolled by the end of December and forty by the end of the school year. Eighty students enrolled in the fall of 1874 and 100 in 1875.

A second yellow fever epidemic in 1878 caused such panic in Memphis that thousands left the city by any available means. In this crisis, St. Mary's School ceased operation as a school and was turned into a dispensary. Once again, the Sisters of St. Mary were nursing yellow fever victims instead of teaching young women. Four of the eight sisters died of the fever, and one more became ill but recovered.

Sister Hughetta, the one sister who had survived a bout of yellow fever, entreated the Order of St. Mary to allow the school to be reopened following the yellow fever epidemic. St. Mary's did continue under her leadership, in competition with two other local private schools, Miss Higbee's and the Clara Conway School. In 1888, Sister Hughetta made a report to the Diocesan Convention, saying that "A certain amount of gymnastic exercise was a part of the daily routine" and that "increasing advantages will be secured, such as a more complete apparatus, a chemical laboratory, a valuable herbarium, and additions to the library." Enrollment was around 100 by this time.