I wonder what Br. Basil Moreau would say today if he were here.
The first Holy Cross was founded on the banks of the Mississippi River in what is now known as the Ninth Ward. It was at first an orphanage, then became a boarding and day school and college. Sons of the owners of plantations upriver and downriver boarded there year round.
The Ursuline nuns had a convent and boarding school nearby known as the plantation convent. From the photos I have seen (my grandmother attended that Ursuline convent and my father attended boarding school at Holy Cross College)it was a quiet, happy time when education, civility, religion and tradition were uppermost in people's way of life.
One hundred and thirty-two years later Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters from broken canal levees destroyed the school on the Mississippi. The Ursuline nuns moved to uptown New Orleans in the early 1900's when the Corps of Engineers took their property to build the Industrial Canal. They now have a beautiful Convent and Academy on State Street.
Katrina and its aftermath were terrible tragedies. However, Holy Cross was able to find a beautiful location a few miles from Lake Pontchartrain to build this magnificent campus (see previous photos on this gallery). For every thing there is a reason.