From Rome Back Home: Keepsakes of Ursuline Sisters

Ursuline Sisters dressed in traditional habits pose seated for a photograph while in Rome, Italy. In the bottom row is Mother Amadeus with Mary Kolinzuten, a Blackfeet child seated to her left. Amadeus and Sisters visited the Mother House and Pope Leo XIII on this trip. [Courtesy Ursuline Western Province Archives]

The Ursuline Order arrived in Quebec in 1639, marking the first Catholic sisters in the New World. Founded in Italy nearly a century earlier, they expanded across North America, establishing missions in Louisiana, New York, Ohio, and California. Their influence grew, leading to Ursuline missions coast to coast and the formation of three U.S. provinces: Eastern, Midwestern, and Western. A small group of Ursuline Sisters came to Montana in 1884, and by the early 1900s they were well established in Montana. There was a girls’ school in Miles City, St. Labre Mission in Northern Cheyenne Country, and St. Ignatius at the base of the Mission Mountains on the Salish Kootenai Reservation. They were also present at St. Peter’s Mission in Cascade County, Holy Family further north among the Blackfeet and at St. Paul’s at Fort Belknap Reservation to the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre.

“Fun at St. Peters,” A group of young graduates enjoy an afternoon on the grounds at St Peter’s Mission and School. [Courtesy of Ursuline Western Province Archives, L1999.16.3, p. 7]

Students at the Holy Family Mission to the Blackfeet at their First Communion, 1910. [Courtesy of Ursuline Western Province Archives, L1999.016.3]

By 1905, an expanding Catholic influence established a second Montana diocese in Great Falls. Responding to a request of the Bishop of Great Falls, the Ursulines opened a school in Great Falls in September 1912, the present Ursuline Centre. Ursuline Western Province joined the Roman Union in 1900; recruitment kept their missions alive with postulants from Irish, Italian, German, and other European backgrounds. Frequent trips to Italy strengthened ties with their leadership in Rome while securing more sisters for mission work on the frontier. A striking photograph shows Ursuline sisters with a young Blackfoot child, Kolinzuten, during a Rome visit. Gifts to their mother superior in Europe—mittens from the Arctic, moccasins from the Northern Plains, and industrial symbols like a copper letter from Butte—reflect layers of unique relationships.

Photograph of Mary Kolinzuten, also known as Marie Stuart in regalia on ship to Europe. [Courtesy Ursuline Western Province Archives, L1997.2.119]

St. Joseph was founded in 1894 by Jesuit missionaries along the Akulurak River in Alaska but lasted only four years. By 1905, the Ursuline Sisters joined them at St. Mary’s Mission to operate a school and boarding house for indigenous children. Utilitarian objects were collected by Ursulines at St Mary’s and then displayed in the provincial house in Rome for nearly a century. A beaded wall pocket bearing the moniker Alaska and decorated with fur and colorful felt joined a pair of child’s moccasins created by Mary Jane Running Crane. These keepsakes and 21 others returned home in 2024 with Sister Dianne Baumunk, O.S.U. She serves as Provincial for the Ursuline Western Province, which at its height had 150 members. A fire destroyed most of the records housed at her community in Santa Rosa, CA, but those that were left in Great Falls remain intact at The History Museum & Research Center where they are being thoroughly catalogued and readied for research.

Indigenous Alaskans pose with salmon harvest in Akulurak, AK at St. Mary’s Mission [Courtesy Ursuline Western Province Archives]

Ursuline devotion to missionizing in the West, particularly Montana, began over 140 years ago under Mother Amadeus Dunne’s leadership. In March 1884 three Ursulines braving a harsh winter on the Tongue River began ministry among the Northern Cheyenne. In October of that same year, traveling by horse-drawn wagon from the railroad’s final stop in Helena, six sisters began at St. Peter’s Mission. In 1890 Holy Family Mission further north in Blackfeet Country was built on Two Medicine Creek and expanded to include a boarding house, bakery, and school thanks to an Eastern benefactor.

“Alaska” wall hanging with fur and bead work, unknown artist, circa 1905. [Courtesy Ursuline Western Province Archives, L2025.3.21]

Beaded baby moccasins made by Mary Jane Running Crane, Blackfeet, 1928. [Courtesy Ursuline Western Province Archives, L2025.3.8]

Beaded leather pouch made by Louise Black Bone, Blackfeet, 1925. [Courtesy Ursuline Western Province Archives, L2025.3.10]

“Louise Black Bone, Holy Family Mission, 1925” label which was kept inside the beaded leather pouch.

Utilitarian objects from Holy Family Mission bare the names of their makers. This is a somewhat unusual occurrence in museum collections from this time and while we do not know if these were gifts, tuition payments or purchases made by the nuns, personal relationships with the makers are evident. The Ursuline Centre on Central Avenue in Great Falls houses many additional significant artifacts; their entire building embodies a living history museum suspended in time. The Ursuline collection, under care of The History Museum & Research Center, expands our understanding of post contact indigenous history, individuals’ personal narratives and the varied history of the Ursuline Western Province.

-Kristi D. Scott