The laundry under St. Angela Hall, picture dated 1914-1926. The piece of wood was likely from the doorframe of this room. COURTESY OF ARCHIVES
Was Mount Saint Joseph originally in Curdsville?
BY EDWARD WILSON, ARCHIVES
Things change. This is a sometimes confusing, sometimes frustrating fact about history. History books and artifacts can often contradict themselves or, wrongly, appear to be incorrect. This is often simply due to changed circumstances or a lack of context. That appears to be the case with this item from the archive at Mount Saint Joseph.
The discovery of this item is nothing short of unbelievable. Almost 10 years ago, the maintenance crew at Mount Saint Joseph was replacing some old wooden doors under St. Angela Hall. The doors were being replaced with large steel doors and the old door frames had to be removed. Upon removing the door frames, the crew notice some writing on a piece of wood inside the frame, “St. Joseph Academy Curdsville Ky.” This was something they believed may need to be kept. So, they took it to Sr. Rita Scott. Sr. Rita made a notation on the back and took it to the archives.
Why does the board say Curdsville? The sisters did teach at a school in Curdsville. So, that may be the first place your mind goes. However, that school was St. Elizabeth, not St. Joseph. The answer is that Mount Saint Joseph, at one time, was located in the Curdsville district. We are so used to the Mount being in Saint Joseph, Kentucky, that we may forget that prior to the construction of Mount Saint Joseph or perhaps even the St. Joseph School that predated and was replaced by the Mount, the area was not referred to as St. Joseph. A review of the 1876 Leo McDonough and Co. atlas shows that, at the time, the Curdsville border went all the way to the border of McLean County. This is also confirmed in the 1880 census. So, for a period the Mount was indeed considered in Curdsville. Only later was it in St. Joseph or Maple Mount, Kentucky. By 1905, the Cram’s atlas has St. Joseph featured on the map.
So, what is the board? Well, there are a few things that it could be. One of the simplest answers could be that the door frame was labeled by the construction workers. However, St. Angela was completed in 1914, almost 10 years after the Cram’s atlas confirms St. Joseph as a separate area. Another possibility is that the board is a sign for the academy. It may have been on the school or on the road leading to the school. The board could have then been reused in the doorframe to avoid waste. Regardless, it does remind us names and places can be tricky things when it comes to history. A good example of this is that the Mount wasn’t always in the Diocese of Owensboro, for much of its life it was in the Diocese of Louisville. It did not change location, the location itself did. With history, almost nothing can change, and yet, everything somehow does.
Edward Wilson is the director of the Diocese of Owensboro’s Archives and the Archives of the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph. Comments and questions may be sent to [email protected].
A board found in the doorframe of St. Angela Hall. It displays the words, “St. Joseph Academy Curdsville Ky.” COURTESY OF ARCHIVES
Originally printed in the May 2025 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
