THE NUNS WHO SERVED FORD CITY

             Captain John Baptiste Ford founded the town of Ford City in 1887. Almost immediately, St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church became a mission of St. Mary’s in Kittanning. The assistant pastor, Father Francis Xavier Kettl, became the first pastor of St. Mary’s parish in Ford City in 1888. The Sisters of Divine Providence, with their mother house in Allison Park, Pennsylvania, was the first order of nuns to teach and serve in Ford City. They arrived in Ford City in 1891, three months before the statue of Captain Ford was unveiled in the Park. That same year, a convent and school were completed and three years later a simple wooden frame chapel was erected. The first pastor, Father Kettl, with the approval of Bishop Richard Phelan of the Pittsburgh Diocese, was successful in bringing an order of nuns to teach approximately ninety children of the Ford City parish at St. Mary’s Elementary School. All children of German descent were required to learn their catechism in German. The Sisters of Divine Providence have been serving Ford City for over one hundred and forty years.
            Prior to 1900, the spiritual and religious needs of the Catholic Slovaks of Ford City were tended to by Father Kettl and his successor, Father Benedict Baldauf. With the knowledge and consent of Bishop Phelan, the petition of forty Slovaks to have their own parish-the Most Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church-was approved in 1901. They completed a wooden frame church on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street in October, 1901. Father Francis Zak (Shea) became its firs pastor on November 9, 1901. Eleven years later, on January 26, 1913, sixty parishioners voted unanimously to build a parochial school. It was completed for the beginning of classes that year. On September 6, 1913, four nuns from the Order of St. Dominic Repcin, Diocese of Olomuc, Moravia, arrived in Ford City to teach the children and moved into their new convent on November 13, 1913. These Dominican nuns remained until June 26, 1913 when they departed to take charge of St. Ann’s School in Homestead, Pennsylvania. They had served the children and parishioners of Ford City for five years.
            On July 27, 1918, Sisters of the Order of St. Francis, St. Joseph Mother House, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, came to replace the Sisters of St. Dominic. They served for twenty-five years, leaving Ford City in 1943.
            The Vincentian Sisters of Charity, from their Perrysville, Pennsylvania Mother House, replaced the Order of St. Francis and have been serving Ford City for the past half century.  The parochial schools of both parishes combined in 1970 and in 1985 all of the children of these parishes have been attending the newer school building on Fourth Avenue known as Ford City Catholic. The children are being taught by both the Sisters of Divine Providence and the Vincentian Sisters of Charity.
            The faithful and dedicated service given to the children of Ford City by the Sisters of Divine Providence, the Sisters of the Order of St. Dominic, the Sisters of the Order of St. Francis and the Vincentian Sisters of Charity total one hundred eighty two years. Over these many, many years, the nuns of these four orders have taught thousands of children not only their basic academic subjects, but also the importance of family, community and Church. They have contributed greatly to the well being of all of us.