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Fortresses of Faith: The Story of Sacred Heart Academy

by Dianne M. Danz; Illustrated by J.A. Ruof

140 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #07-0211; ISBN 1-4251-1799-6; US$14.97, C$17.22, EUR11.67, £7.74

The story of a Catholic girls' school from the standpoint of its place in history, the background of it founders and the personal stories of its graduates.

About the Book

Sacred Heart Academy in Lancaster, Pennsylvania had a relatively short life in terms of its time of existence. It began as a music conservatory in 1873, was chartered as a girls boarding school in 1877 and was torn down in 1963. In 2007, the Alumnae Association is still thriving and all 300 members are determined to keep the memory of their school alive. This book was commissioned by that determination, and its purpose is to commemorate the love that those women have for the school and for the Sisters who taught them. This is the story of how the idea of the Sacred Heart academy began, the spirit that made it possible and the amazing gifts that the Holy Cross Sisters brought to their students. It begins in 1842, with a group of religious pioneer women and the men who supported them, both priests and laymen. These holy people found in the wilderness of Indiana, a way to provide young women with moral guidance, intellectual freedom and the life skills necessary to survive in the world of their time. They used their individual gifts to spread the Catholic faith in a way that no amount of preaching could do.

In their amazingly forward - thinking philosophy of educating the whole woman, the founders of the Holy Cross Sisters in the United States offered their students preparation to assume their places in a world that was primarily dominated by men. The girls were taught to have the courage and confidence that came from an assurance of their own values in the eyes of God. They learned to recognize and nurture their own talents, to accept natural limits but never senseless restrictions.

The second part of the book shares the personal memories and photographs that the alumnae have provided.

Includes a list of all the graduates of the Academy, beginning with 1880, as well as names of every Holy Cross Sister who taught there.

About the Author

Dianne Danz grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and spent eight years at St. Anthony parochial school, across the street from Sacred Heart Academy. She began piano lessons at the Academy in 1950 and continued them for 8 years. Although she graduated from Lancaster Catholic School, both her mother and her aunt were graduates of the Academy, and their stories always made life at that school seem vibrant and real.

Dianne obtained a B.S. in Education and Library Science from Millersville State College, moved away from home and lived in five different states in the next twenty years. She traveled extensively and spent a year as an elementary librarian at Misawa Air Base in Japan, with the Overseas Dependent Schools. When she moved back to Lancaster in 1983, Dianne took a job as an elementary librarian in Oxford, PA and retired from that position in 2006.

She also became active once again at St. Anthony of Padua church and took over as church historian in 1993. In organizing the archives, she found so much interesting material that she put it into a book entitled Personal Moments in History; The Story of St. Anthony of Padua Church and its People. Many of the stories from the book were used in a parish play that she wrote to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the church in 1995. The play's success commissioned two more shows that she wrote, performed in the parish in 1997 and 1999.

Dianne joined the Holy Cross Alumnae Association of Sacred Heart Academy and also became historian of that organization. It took her four years to compile the information for this book, and she is grateful to everyone who helped her, from the archivists at St. Mary's in Notre Dame to the graduates themselves, who shared their precious memories and photographs to complete the story.