St Josephs College - Phase Yearbook (Rensselaer, IN)

Page 18 text:

GWHREQHBIJD il9PE6fl-WET Two exceptional gymnasia are prominent in the chronicle of Collegeville. The building above, which also houses the college theater, science, music and library departments, was completed in 191 S. In the views below are shown the first gym, erected in 1905. On the morning of April 2, 1914, fire swept through the newly renovated home of sport, resulting in a nearly total loss. The old gym is pictured below in the process of being elevated. A third story was being added at the ground line to furnish room for the newly inaugurated departments of Chemistry and Physics. The work of rebuilding was prac- tically completed when the holocaust struck.

Page 17 text:

fl Qs .f N ...MN Beneath the twin towers lies the focal center of St. Joseph's-the college chapel. Here forty Masses are read every morning. Here likewise is the oft-resorted-to mecca of students. Here for thirty years have come the troubled and the low in spirit. if UV... hx K Here has taken place the observance of the Passion during Holy Week, the three Masses of Christmas morning and the joys of the feast of Easter. And every morning there is the multiple reiteration of the Sac- rifice of Calvary. What better leavening element could there be for education than the comfort, inspiration and reassurance offered by religion. - Y In ,,V4- ggi? f LI The roots of Collegeville history are imbedded in austerity. Students V, ii 5 Q le ,atl were accustomed to rising daily at live a. m. They looked forward to a J 'Yr Qui: if regular morning study period-before breakfast. Nightly at nine in the QE, H old days, tomb-like silence spread like a pall over the campus. Students ' -'a' -'-5 if J never had regular town permission. They saw Rensselaer only on special is 1 46,3 V occasions. VV ' , yy 'i N, gk s I 1 :K ,......K i fx it K . Q a Here is an early view of a local study hall, taken before 1900. Younger students nearest the camera were called uminimsf, This name was applied to young- er-than-high-school-age students who pursued courses here before the turn of the century.

Page 19 text:

With the advent of the third decade, actual physical expansion continued as before. With the completion of the chapel, work began im- mediately upon the present Sisters' buildings. In 1913, after twenty years as president of St. Joseph's, Father Seifert relinquished his duties to Father Hugo Lear. Father Seifert, before his death in 1937, was certainly entitled to happy memories in his declining years. Stern enough to marshall his forces efliciently, he was at once fair and kind in the minds of his ad- mirers and associates. There were 300 students to bid farewell to their former leader. The year following had its disappointments. Athletics, since St. Joe began inter-collegiate sports ten years before, was gradually increas- ing in stature. Students of the time, possessed with a more than intense desire to carry out the old college slogan of 'imens sana in corpore sano, were sowing the seed in all present major sports. On March 24, 1914, the entire student body, fortihed with picks, shovels, barrows, and the like, in a single day con- structed the present quarter-mile practice track in the highway grove. Rensselaer High School had a high-caliber team that year, but were set down in the college's initial venture in this sport. With athletics on the upswing, it is easy to estimate the blow brought about by the burning of the old gym on the morning of April 2, 1914. Eight years' collection of equipment was destroyed in the blaze. On the strength of an appropriation from the Precious Blood Society, work began at once on the present building. Order was re- l l in 3 l fl f . FF Ss f l i XX -4,5--.. .-. ,J f ' K 1? 'l ,y 3 y ,p Q 'xx ' ZA 4, xx V ll -'mb' l,1C2 Y9 X , -fr . .ff b - ei . ,,..- WFS V W NN il .af ...--M , , . , x . stored once more on the campus by June, 1916, when the college called in her old friends and students for the observance of the Silver Jubilee. And so the tumult and shouting of the fes- tive occasion faded into summer, only to as- sume a new lease on life with the arrival of fall. Much after the manner of today, reverb- erations of imminent war echoed over the campus in the year following. Student Emil Goettemoeller put away his books and joined forces with Uncle Sam. A plaque at the rear of the St. Joseph's chapel testifies to the mem- ory of the local grads who lost their lives in the fields of France. x Looking east from the Administration Building, around the year 1910.