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| Early Parish History 1820's - 1830's |
| 1820's - 1830's |
"As far as can be ascertained there was no village, no group of houses then. An area called Gravois comprised the rich farm land extending north from Fenton. At that town there was a ford and a mill. A permit to build a bridge across the Meramec River at the ford was granted in 1828. At what is now Valley Park was another ford called Meramec Station , and over the rolling hills to the north lay Manchester. Due east was St. Louis, and to the southeast lay the community of Carondelet with its nucleus of Jesuit priests. Wagon roads connected one farm with the next. Of the present routes only Manchester, Gravois, Geyer and Sappington, formerly called Collins, existed. Even the town of Manchester was so far a drive with one's family in a spring-bottom wagon that the people had the opportunity to assist at Mass in one another's homes only when some visiting priest from the Cathedral of St. Louis, or a Jesuit from Florissant or Carondelet came through. The earliest record of a visit of one of these priests to families settled in this area occurs in an unsigned newspaper article in the now defunct Suburban Leader. This article states that previous to the assembly recorded in the second paragraph of Father Aelen's History "the town was known as Gravois parish, and Father Luty [sic] called the settlers together at the home of James Holmes using a bell from the neck of a sheep for that purpose".
Since there was no diocesan or Jesuit priest by that name in the area at that time, and since Father Joseph Lutz, a native of Germany, was with Father Philip Borgna at the Cathedral of St. Louis, it is reasonable to suppose that he said the first Mass in this vicinity. He had been authorized by co-adjutor Bishop Joseph Rosati and General Clark to ascend the Missouri River on a missionary trip in 1828.
In 1829, three years after St. Louis became a separate diocese, Bishop Guillaume DuBourg finally put the Gravois territory under the charge of the Jesuits. To those members of the Society of Jesus who explored the Mississippi Valley as missionaries much well-deserved credit has been given in histories of the period. The men who helped in the formation of St. Peter Parish are Father James Oliver Vandevelde, Father P.J. Verhaegen, the pastor Father H.G. Aelen, and Father Philip Borgna.
By 1833 there were enough Catholic families permanently established to assert their need for a permanent church. So, 'the congregation of the faithful who had settled to the westward' bought eighty acres of wooded land laying to the west of the present Geyer Road and extending approximately from modern Argonne Drive to Woodbine Avenue. For it they paid one hundred florins. On the assumption that these coins were Spanish currency, the price per acre was about $1.28.
When the title to the eighty acres purchased for the church had been transferred to Bishop Joseph Rosati of the St. Louis Diocese, whose name is written on the earliest plats, the first parishioners again contributed money and labor and raised a little stone church in God's honor, with St. Peter the Apostle as its patron. Father Edmond Saulnier, who had encouraged the people to organize, became their first missionary pastor. He probably 'commuted' by muleback to the old Cathedral at Second and Walnut, where he was rector. A native of France, Mr. Louis Blankemeier says of him in his careful history of the parish that he was 'of great learning and full of missionary zeal...the true type of the early pioneer priest'."
Father Saulnier was burdened with a limitation which must have been fairly common in pioneer days in a state such as Missouri where quite distinct racial groups were settling simultaneously. He spoke no English.
For three years from 1833 - 1835 Father Saulnier came out from his post at The St. Louis Cathedral. Such a journey was taken in stride by this man accustomed to the rigors of missionary work. Middle-aged or older, he had served under Bishop DuBourg before the Diocese of New Orleans had been divided and St. Louis was established as a separate see. In his earliest days, he had been professor of languages at the Jesuit seminary in Carondelet. There followed years of Missionary work in Missouri and Arkansas, and now he had the 'work' as pastor at St. Louis Cathedral with the fledgling St. Peter to care for in his spare time. For a while he came as visiting pastor, but when affairs at the cathedral prevented his coming, he never failed to send some other priest in his place.
Source: The History of St. Peter Parish Mary Chomeau |
| Early Parish History 1830's |
| 1830's |
"St. Peter Parish was founded in 1832-33 as a mission. It would be helpful if some priest or parishioner of that earliest decade of Catholicism in Kirkwood had saved a Mass bell, a candlestick, a missal or a crucifix as a relic. But people of 1832 were busy making history, not preserving it."
"The History of the Church of St. Peter in Gravois
near the city of St. Louis, 1833-38'"
The Latin script of Rev. H.G. Aelen, S.J. is translated as:
"In the beginning of the year of our salvation 1833, the congregation of the faithful who had settled to the westward in the county of St. Louis bought for the sum of one hundred florins eighty acres or jugera from the United States of America. After title to the property had been transfered to the Most Reverend Bishop Rosati of St. Louis, the following trustees were elected: Joseph Sappington and H. Owen Collins, by means of whose efforts and contributions together with those of others, the church was begun for the greater glory of God and under the patronage of St. Peter.
In August of 1833 the laying of the cornerstone of the first Catholic church in Kirkwood occurred, in the presence of a vast multitude of the faithful who gathered here from all sides. Present at that event in an officiating capacity was a Jesuit whose name occurs often in annals of early Missouri... Father Peter Verhaegen. As a missionary and educator (he was the first president of St. Louis University) he had done much to stimulate expansion in landholdings and educational programs. Father Alphonse Schwitalla says of him "In all his activities he left imprints on places, persons and projects that somehow predestined them to success - a man with the habit of success, and the character to sustain it to a phenomenal degree.
"Reverend Father Saulnier from Carondelet first undertook its care, aided by the following Reverend Fathers form the Cathedral of St. Louis: Borgna, Le Fevre, Condamine, Jamison.
In the year 1835 Elisabeth Wells, the wife of Joseph Sappington, having been a Methodist, was converted to our Faith in her twenty-first year by Father Borgna.
In the year 1837 Reverend Father Jamison unconditionally baptized Ethelinda Mary Parmerley, the wife of Newton. She was fifty-one years old and had formerly been a Methodist.
In the year 1837 William Reinick was washed in the waters of regeneration. He was twenty-five years old, a convert from the Anglican Church.
From the beginning of the year 1838 the care of the parish or mission was undertaken by Reverend Father Aelen. On the second Sunday after Easter of this year, for the first time in public, fifteen persons ranging in age between fourteen and twenty-two years were refreshed with their First Holy Communion. On the fifth Sunday after Pentecost in this year, the Most Reverend Rosati, Bishop of St. Louis, visited this mission in person, attended by Fathers Verhaegen and Aelen, and anointed twenty-two people of all ages and nationalities with the unction of Holy Chrism. Of these twenty-two, two were converts to the Catholic Faith. Towards the end of this year, the following list of spiritual fruit was reported to the Bishop:
Number of souls 60
Baptized infants 6
Baptized adults 1
Converts 2
Marriages blessed 3
Number of Easter Communions 40
Number of First Communions 15
Number confirmed 22
Deaths 1
source: History of St. Peter Parish Mary Chomeau
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| Parish History 1850's |
| 1850 |
"The mid-century years were troubled and changing, not unlike their counterparts one hundred years later. Famine in Ireland had started the second great Irish migration, and whole villages took ship and crossed to America. Great number of Irish were employed in the laying of the Pacific Railroad which was then pushing westward from St. Louis. Surveyors had plotted its course through the farm of Owen Collins which was now called "Collins Depot". Continuing west to the line of hills before the grade down to Valley Park, the new rails cut through St. Peter's eighty acres. On the 29th of October, 1851, the Most Rev. Peter Richard Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis released to the Pacific Railway for the unbelievable sum of five dollars about five acres for the proposed right of way. So property values had not risen at all since the purchase of the first eighty acres from the government twenty-eight years earlier.
On January 21, 1852, forty landowners, headed by Hiram Leffingwell and Richard Smith Elliott, agreed to the incorporation of their small community, naming it Kirkwood in honor of James P. Kirkwood, the engineer in charge of laying the railroad. Among the forty landowners were two members of St. Peter- William Matthews and Francis Berg.
The parish was still widely scattered and mainly agricultural. A random sampling from peripheral districts at this time would show, for instance, a Frenchman called Xavier Arni who farmed in the rich river bottoms of the Meramec near Barrett's Station, Antony Deutschmann, recently arrived from Alsace Lorraine, and his brother George, and Ambrose Klein who lived just half-way between St. Malachy's in Manchester and Kirkwood. From Germany came the three Vogelgesang brothers, August, Melchior, and Nicholas, who settled immediately north of Kirkwood on the Manchester Road. To the south and east of them, the H. B. Vennemans were established. There were a German family who had migrated from the east a little before the middle of the century. Still farther east on the banks of the River Des Peres in what is now Rock Hill Village was the Charleville family, whose name first appears on the parish records in 1842. South was the Sappington land, the McLoughlin tract, and the farm of Mr. and Mrs William Matthews.
The central area of the town had been laid out into blocks extending over 240 acres, with streets named for the presidents of the United States. The Irish who came to Kirkwood settled mainly in the town proper . Brief mention of a representative few of these families will bring into focus the Catholic portion of the town of a hundred years ago. There was Michael Walsh who had a farm on Barrett Station Road and tended the two tunnels and the station on the railroad. Another was Patrick McCullough , a stone mason, who built Grace Episcopal Church and the great chimneys of the Bodley house. This later became the Randolph house which stood in the section of town now called "Homewood" and was the Bodley farm. McCullough's brother-in-law, John Ryan was another early Kirkwood citizen. John died in his prime leaving his widow and six children, two of whom were early employed on the railroad. There was Michael Kane, whose six children are now buried in St. Peter's Cemetery with him and whose grandchildren are now in business in Kirkwood. Felix Daly was another. He was road master on the Pacific Railroad project. He died in 1890. His son William was mayor of Kirkwood from 1900 to 1904. William married Mary McLoughlin, the granddaughter of one of the earliest settlers. Their son John was the second native of the parish to become a priest. There was James Kelly , the progenitor of the many Kelly's who are good neighbors to Kirkwood inhabitants to the present day. The Donworths in Kirkwood today rare descendants of William Donworth, who came to America in the 1850's. To mention just one more there was William Cahill, who died in 1864. His son James kept the little signal hut at the Kirkwood station for years. Once on the eve of St. Patrick's a group of pranksters bedecked his little house with a wide band of orange paint. The verbal fireworks indulged in by Mr. Cahill on the 17th of March, are still remembered. An Englishman established in business in Kirkwood by this time, should be mentioned both by way of condiment and because one of Kirkwood's streets bears his name. He was George Couch who ran a furniture repair store.
These Irish were some of the Catholic citizens of Kirkwood in the 50's. Theirs was not too enviable a lot. Economically, life was probably more secure than in Ireland, but only the hardest work yielded fruit. A pathetic entry in one of the parish books is most revealing. In 1851, the tally for the collection on six Sundays ran thus:
Trinity Sunday June 15th .60
4th Sunday after Pentecost .85
5th Sunday after Pentecost .70
6th Sunday after Pentecost 1.75
11th Sunday after Pentecost 1.20
12th Sunday after Pentecost 1.20
Source: One Hundred and Twenty Five Years, A History Of Saint Peter's Parish 1957 by Mary Chomeau |
| Parish History 1860's |
| 1860 |
In 1862 the regime of another hustling priest began. Father Henry Van der Sanden was born in Ersel in the Archdiocese of Utrecht, Holland in December 1832. He was educated for the priesthood at Carondelet. After ordination in 1860, he was appointed assistant to Father Walsh in Jefferson City. His next post was Kirkwood. From 1862 through the twelve years he remained in Kirkwood he wrestled with the building problem. He secured one by one, a school, new ground for a church site, the new church, and a very modest rectory. Parishioners had been very reluctant to support the pastor's plans for a school in the old stone church. The building was not centrally located nor suitable for a school, and the distances to be traversed daily in all kinds of weather and with no warm lunch or central hearting were enough to dampen any ardor for education. But in 1863 Father Van der Sanden succeeded in launching a parochial school in a small building near the church on the highest ground at the cemetery. Two Franciscan Sisters from Lafayette, Indiana were engaged. This was but a beginning of his efforts. The next step was the purchase in May, 1865, of the three acre site of the present church, grade school and sister's home. Two thousand dollars at ten per cent interest was borrowed on the Geyer Road church and the cemetery to pay for this land. In the post-war and reconstruction days, this was a tremendous burden to assume. A paragraph in the parish records of 1865 gives towering scale to that two thousand dollars.
"By reason of the very bad condition of this graveyard, for want of fence, etc. the Rev. Father Van der Sanden called a meeting on the 23 of August, 1865 to provide means to repair it. This meeting having failed in its object, the same Rev. Pastor made the following regulations and published them on Sunday, 30 August, 1865.
I. Persons wishing to procure lots in said graveyard could have them until the 1st of October, 1865 for $0.75 per grave.
II. Persons buying lots after the 1st of October, 1865 must pay one dollar per grave...
III. Persons having no lots must pay $1.00 cash for each grave, and this must be paid before the grave is dug. Persons entirely unable to do this, by poverty, are exempt from this rule."
These were the same parishioners who could scarcely afford to die and yet had bought three acres for $2,000, and were now embarking on the further project of raising a large church thereon! Income to meet these debts was increased by selling off lots in the original tract purchased in 1833 but now south of the railroad. This section was sub-divided under the name "Kenrick Addition to the City of Kirkwood" and records of its disposition by sale and raffle are extant.
In 1867 the cornerstone of a new church was laid on the 26th of May. The very Reverend Joseph Melcher, who had served St. Peter in 1845 - 49 when it was without a resident priest officiated. Within that cornerstone, unearthed in the first course of masonry when this church was razed in the fall of 1952, was a jar with a wide cork fitting into its opening. The jar contained amongst other items, coins, paper money now no longer issued, and a copy of the St. Louis Republic badly damaged by moisture but still fairly legible. It carried an article on the dedication of the second St. Peter church with the information that a special excursion train would leave Union Station on the morning of the 26th of May to carry people to the great festivity in Kirkwood.
When finally finished, after labor and money troubles, in the fall of 1868, it was a brick structure one hundred feet long by forty feet wide with space for a high altar and two side altars. The style of architecture was called "Romanesque" but like most copies by a later age of an earlier style, it was far from authentic. The church was to have a spire, but because of lack of funds and a weakness of construction in the belfry which showed up later, it was never built. Though this building in the eyes of later more critical generations left much to be desired in both authenticity and beauty, it gathered to itself through the passing years and with the procession of great moments in the lives of many in the community a real loveliness with which all well-worn cherished things become imbued.
History of St. Peter Parish by Mary Chomeau 1957 |
| School History 1862-1886 |
| 1862 - 1886 |
To the Hollander, Father Van der Sanden, goes the credit for the establishment of St. Peter Parochial School. In 1862, the first year of his pastorate in Kirkwood, he made arrangements for the Franciscan Sisters from Lafayette, Indiana to teach in the first little stone church. Their quarters were a small wooden building also in the cemetery. Parishioners had been very reluctant to support the pastor's plans for a school in the old stone church. The building was not centrally located nor suitable for a school, and the distances to be traversed daily in all kinds of weather and with no warm lunch or central heating were enough to dampen any ardor for education.
In 1867 when Father Van der Sanden had built the rectory next to the new church and moved into it, the two Franciscan sisters found conditions in their little house in the cemetery by the school-house intolerably frightening. A committee of vigilantes was organized to watch over them after several bad scares, but in the fall of 1867 they returned to their Motherhouse in Indiana.
Mr. Klinkhardt, a Kirkwood resident, taught the children for a short time. Then the Sisters of Mercy taught the school from 1867 - 1875. Mr. John Ryan (died Feb. 1957) remembered his first school days in the stone house at the cemetery and the massive nun, Sister Ambrose, who taught him. He recalled his class cronies from a sing-song list of "bad boys" which became a by-word. "Kane, Kelly, Ryan, Shine, Devaney, Daly, Dunn, out in the aisle."
In 1875 the sisters had just settled in September for their year's work when the first St. Peter Church, now used for a school only, was destroyed by fire. For a year the parish school was non-existent. Then Father Bonacum did the only thing he could, with his parishioners struggling to pay for a large church, and with no school available. He partitioned the south end of the church into two school rooms -- one for boys, one for girls. The Misses Timon, ladies residing south of Kirkwood across from the Matthews farm were engaged as teachers from 1875 to 1886. History of St. Peter Parish Mary Chomeau |
| School History 1877 - 1900 |
| 1877 - 1900 |
From 1877 through 1880, Father David Doherty was pastor at St. Peter. He is to be commended for moving the parish school out of the church and into the rectory, and for tearing out the unsightly partition in the church. Eventually a two-room school-house was built (at the site of the current OFFM building) and in 1886 it was enlarged hurriedly to accommodate the Ursulines who came to Kirkwood to teach in 1886. That faculty consisted of Mother Mary, Sister Hildegarde and Sister Christine. The Ursulines remained until 1900 when a disagreement in teaching policy between them and Father Stemker caused the appointment of the Congregation of the Sisters of the third Order of St. Francis from Oldenburg, Indiana to the post.
With the arrival of Father Coyle in 1915, the Ursulines were recalled and have remained to the present day (1957). This teaching group has behind it over one hundred and fifty years of faithful service to St. Louis and the state of Missouri. Their Motherhouse has been located in Kirkwood since 1926, in Oakland on an estate purchased in 1915 for the girls' school, "St. Angela's Academy", now called Ursuline Academy. St. Peter Parish History Mary Chomeau |
| School History 1900 - 1955 |
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The 1907-built school was enlarged in 1922 -23. under the direction of Fr. Coyle. A second floor auditorium and four classrooms were added. In 1945 the second floor auditorium was converted into four classrooms; the cafeteria and a good kitchen established in the basement and thorough renovations made in sanitary arrangements. A change in the front entrance was also made. Remodeling work at this time included a library room, a principal's office and school nurse's quarters, fireproof stairways and clothes wardrobes. $45,000 in all was spent. In nine years, however, another renovating program was necessary, and was this time undertaken and brought to a very successful conclusion by the men of the parish, inspired by the Key's Club. They installed modern windows, corrected brickwork, refinished the floors and desks, put up new 'green boards' and applied wisely chosen and expertly mixed fresh paint to all rooms.
Special features of the school include the well-organized cafeteria under Mrs. Thomas Bisch, and a staff of paid helpers as well as a volunteer group of mothers. Between five and six hundred lunches are served every school day. There is a school nurse maintained by the Women's Guild. The faculty in teh present year (1957) consists of 13 nuns and 7 lay teachers and a choir master, Mr. Rudolph Kremer. Mother Eileen Wiegenstein O.S.U. is principal.
By 1949, the bumper crop of war babies was entering school and making the improvements of 1945 inadequate. In 1952 the eighth grade was moved to a room in Coyle High School to accommodate the tremendous increase in enrollment. In the fall of 1953, the even more drastic measure of half day sessions had to be adopted for the first three grades. The present (1957) enrollment is 750, a rise from 420 in 1937. The First Communion Class, (First Graders) numbered 118 in 1953. A building committee appointed in the spring of 1953 had considered various alternatives and decided that the best step was to build a second school next to Coyle for the use of the upper grades. This committee was composed of Mr. John Boland as chairman, Mr. William Dorley, Mr. Fred Harris, Mr. John McCormak, Mr. Leonard Schmitt, and Mr. Alfred Weber. Since a new sisters' house and auditorium were needed almost as much as the school, it was decided to have a pairsh drive for building funds. With the counsel of the archbishop, the help of a professional fund-raising firm was engaged. The organization of solicitor teams under parishioner John Niehause, began at the beginning of 1954. With a final soliciting group of 625 men, the parish was canvassed on Sunday, February 28. A total of $315,774 of the hoped for $400,000 was pledged by 1132 people, the first day. On Sunday May 2, 1954 ground was broken for the new school, on land where years before the old Jefferson Avenue Public School had stood. The building was designed by Charles M. Leisse of Kirkwood. It is a two-story, fireproof building of brick, stone and steel, and is attached to and conforms with Coyle High school in design. There are six classrooms and two basement meeting rooms. Oscar Schneiderhahn was the general contractor. The ground breaking was a familial affair with the ceremonial spade passing from Father Westhoff to Mother Eileen to a Boy scout and so on down the line till the crowd adjourned for May Devotions with an admonition from the pastor to leave some dirt in the hole for the contractor to move!
The school was ready for use when classes began in the fall of 1955. The blessing of the new building occurred on September 11, 1955 with an interested and large crowd in attendance.
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| Blessed Martin Mission in the Meacham Park Neighborhood |
| 1936 - 1957 |
Father Cornelius Falvin arrived at St. Peter in June of 1936, and once more the parish was blessed with a young newly ordained priest. In the seminary a sensitive racial conscience had been developed in Father Flavin and in a very short time at St. Peter he found that his superior (Fr. Westhoff) entertained similar ideas. Together they worked to establish the Mission of Blessed Martin de Porres.
With the pastors consent Fr. Flavin rented and opened as an instruction center two rooms in the Ming house on Alsobrook and Shelby in Meacham Park. Beginning December 8th, 1937, classes were conducted for children and for adults weekly, by the Ursuline nuns headed by Mother Teresa Joseph and also by Miss Lyda Connors, Miss Ellen Casey and the priests. Miss Casey, a school teacher at Shephard School in St. Louis had charge of the twenty-five children. By 1939, plans for a building were afoot. Ground was bought directly north across the street from Mr. Ming's house and Msgr. Steck gave a prefabricated portable building to the enterprise. Other donations poured in. Father Julian Meyer built the baldachino and part of the altar. Stations were given by the Little Helpers of the Holy Souls. Mother St. Ida, then the superior of this order in St. Louis used to come out to visit the little mission. It was called Blessed Martin de Porres in honor of the Peruvian Dominican who may some day be raised to saint-hood. The first Mass at the mission was said February 16th, 1940. Customs early established at the mission were a Christmas Party, and Easter Egg Hunt , a summer picnic usually held at St. Elizabeth's Orphanage in Normandy as a climax to the summer session for the children, and of course, the December 8th mass for the benefactors.
In 1940 Father Flavin was called to Holy Rosary Parish and Father Patrick J. Molloy took his place. Here was another young priest fresh from the seminary. One of his main concerns was to provide funds for the Catholic education of the children. He made arrangements for various youngsters to be sent to St. Malachy's in St. Louis.
When Father Molloy was moved to Pine Lawn in 1945, a third and well-liked priest took his place. Father Clarence Hesseldenz continued the customs of his predecessors. In the nine years of his tenure, he organized the De Porres Men's Club, A Women's Club, and a Boy Scout Troop and Bugle Corps. In 1948 he undertook the building of a much needed recreation and dining hall. Donations of kitchen equipment, draperies and furniture provided the mission with a fine room for its recreational activities. At this time an adequate heating plant and gas and water were also installed. He improved church grounds by having the lot to the west macadamized for a game center and for Sunday parking. The surfacing of the adjacent lot provided a sorely needed area for free play of the neighborhood children. In 1952 he remodeled and redecorated the chapel with the help of the parishioners. Also a nice little organ was purchased. The annual carnival after having been rained out several summers by bad weather, has been replaced by monthly fish-fries and bingoes, both well attended.
When Father Hesseldenz became an Air Force chaplain in 1953, Father Richard Rolwing was appointed second assistant at St. Peter and thereafter had the mission under his particular care. In spite of his many commitments at the Kirkwood church, the chapel in Meacham Park had a full share of his attention. Clubs, committees and the suppers, dances and programs which they created claimed his time and thrived. The fish-fries became so popular that the kitchen was greatly improved in order to expedite service. Father Rolwing's care for the mission covered a great range, from polishing the floors of the little chapel till they shone to saying the weekly Mass for his flock with a real and greatly appreciated pastoral concern given to each act.
In the spring of 1956, Father Rolwing was transferred and the newly ordained Father George Griesedieck replaced him. In July of 1956 the parish boundaries of St. Peter were fixed by the Chancery after a period of some indecision as the four new parishes grew up around St. Peter. The Meacham Park area with the Mission of Blessed Martin are now just within our southern-most borders.
For all who work at the Mission, the problems and needs are only too patent. A most courageous solution to one of the pressing dilemmas was made in the fall of 1947. Both St. Peter Grade School and Coyle High School opened their doors to black children. This is history for St. Louis and Missouri. Desegregation proceeding in public schools are only now taking place slowly in most communities after the United States Supreme Court decision of May, 1954. Six months after Father Westhoff's decision to welcome black children in the parochial schools, Archbishop Joseph Ritter , newly established in this see, announced that all parochial and diocesan schools were to be opened to black students.
source: History of the Parish of St. Peter Mary Chomeau 1957 |
| Coyle High School |
| Feb 05, 1939 |
In the spring of 1938, an unprecedented opportunity to obtain a good site for the new school offered itself. The old Adams High School, used for elementary grades since 1921, when the Jefferson Avenue Public School was razed, was to be offered for sale to help provide funds for building the outlying grade schools of Robinson and Keysor. This parcel of land lying just across the street from the parish property seemed excellent for a compact parish plant. Archbishop John Glennon gave his approval for purchase of the property, if it could be arranged and also for the use of Father Coyle's personal gift to the parish of $20,000 towards this educational project. A committee of twelve men was appointed to handle this matter. They were: George Deutschmann, G.E. Donnewald, George Etzkorn, John F. Gillespie, Henry C. Hatenbach Jr., Raymond Julius, Daniel Kelly, Joseph V. Masterson, John E. Niehaus, Dennis Phelan, Michael Shea, and John I. Wheeler.
The original plan was to purchase both site and building and to use the old school after extensive renovations. Representatives of the committee met with the school board of the Kirkwood system with such a proposition. It was refused 1. because an option on the ground had already been given the City of Kirkwood for a proposed City Hall and Library and 2. because the grant which had been given the Kirkwood School System from the Public Works Administration stipulated that the building should be demolished because it was not fireproof. P.W.A. authorities in both Washington and Omaha were contacted and after three weeks recommended that the demolition of the building be delayed to give the parish committee time to obtain the necessary information on rehabilitation of the old building. Mr. Raymond Maritz of the firm of Maritz, Young and Dusard, Inc. Architects was asked to make recommendations and draw up remodeling plans. Within a month such plans were drawn up and approved by the Building Commissioner of Kirkwood, and the Fire-Underwriter's Inspection Bureau. Through the summer, the Public Works Administration interviewed all interested parties and prospects for favorable action looked bright, especially when the City of Kirkwood did not exercise its option to buy. On October 5 for the consideration of $20,000 the contract of sale was drawn up, conditioned still on the rescinding of the demolition clause in the W.P.A. contract. On October 11, Fr. Westhoff and Mr. Maritz received approval in Omaha, from the W.P.A. Regional Director for the remodeling of the old school. Then the Land Title Insurance Company refused to certify title since the sale had been made privately without formal advertising. So the original contract was voided, and after due notice of public sale, in the Kirkwood Monitor, the proverty was auctioned at the front door of the school at noon on October 24th, and was sold to the only bidder - St. Peter Parish. Purchase price was paid immediately by certified check, the funds being taken from the gift of $20,000 by Very Rev. Eugene Coyle V.F. before his death in 1935. The lowest bid on the remodeling was $33,857.00 which was far more than expected. So the building committee after deliberation asked Mr. Maritz to draw plans for a new building which would meet the needs of a modern high school. The plans, after a winter of hard work by the committee , were submitted to the men of the parish on Sunday morning, February 5, 1939 and a unanimous vote was cast to abandon the old building and construct the new at a cost of approximately $60,000. In March, the bid of the A.P. Daly Construction Company for $52,228 was accepted and on Monday, March 20th, the day on which the Feast of St. Joseph was celebrated, ground was officially broken, after High Mass, in the presence of sisters, children and a small group of people. On May 21st, the cornerstone was laid by the Dean of St. Louis County Deanery, the Very Rev. Peter J. Dooley, pastor of Holy Redeemer Church in Webster. The principle speaker was the Very Rev. Sylvester P. Juergens, SM, Provincial of the Society of Mary who had shown great interest in the project from the beginning. Other talks were made by Father Dooley, and Dr. George Donovan, then President of Webster College.
On Sunday, September 10th, less than six months after ground was broken, His Excellency, the most Reverand Christian H. Winkelmann, then Auxiliary Bishop of St. Louis officiated at the dedication. Bishop Leo J. Steck, then a Monsignor, preached the sermon. The next morning the school opened its doors to its first ninety pupils. The girls' division was staffed by Mother M. Marcella Difani, O.S.U., Mother Teresa Joseph Bauss, O.S.U., and Mother Assumpta Dendinger, O.S.U.; the boys by Brother William Baer, S.M., Brother James Young, S.M., and Brother Thomas Schelble, S.M.
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