Hiding behind the imposing Second Empire façade of the original Maryville College on Meramec Street in Dutchtown, the Gothic Revival chapel exuded a sense of calm among the hustle and bustle of students rushing between classes. The curriculum of the women’s school, founded by the Religious Society of the Sacred Heart in1872, featured a very different range of classes than most modern-day universities. Based on the French education system, it taught young ladies how to fit into the upper echelons of St. Louis society, where many of their families already belonged. The chapel where they worshipped could similarly boast a lofty pedigree: Munich’s famed Mayer family produced its stained-glass windows. Among their later commissions, the Mayers could also claim the restoration of the stained-glass “Holy Spirit Window” above the altar in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome—not too shabby, considering it was originally part of a commission by the great Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. But times changed, and Maryville moved to West County, leaving the chapel and its stained-glass windows behind. (It became Maryville University in 1991.) Students worked to save some of them, and a few reside in the present campus chapel. But others, the story goes, ended up in houses in Lafayette Square. The chapel served the Augustinians and their academy for around a decade before they moved into the Immaculate Conception parish, where a future Pope Leo XIV would join his colleagues in 1977.
St. Louis nonprofit Fork in the Road hosts Mother’s Day breakfast with artisan treats by refugee chefs
The Fork in the Road Foundation is celebrating Mother’s Day with a community breakfast and handcrafted dessert boxes, while helping refugee women build businesses and share their stories.
