The Ursuline Western Province Collection

Over a century of records amassed by Ursuline nuns with a focus on Catholic missions to Native Americans and non-Native schools in Montana and the West.

Ursuline Western Province Archives are currently restricted to individuals researching family records and to tribal governments. Academics who have gone through an internal review by their university and independent researchers will be welcomed after. HIPAA and FERPA law as well as Cannon law must be considered by staff when facilitating visits. Archival boxes, acid-free folders, and other preservation materials are needed for this project as well as funding to continue the digitization work that Great Falls Genealogy began years ago.

Under Care of The History Museum & Research Center

This special example of records and material culture objects leave us with windows into the Catholic boarding school era. When combined with Ursuline Western Province prolific record keeping, individual and collective stories emerge. With just 12 sisters remaining and no archivists in their order in Montana, Ursuline Western Province Sisters needed to decide where to house their holdings and chose to have them remain in Great Falls while the other two provinces opted to move their collections to Boston College. Our museum and research center has catalogued and created finding aids for a small portion of the records, and is continuing the digitizing efforts began by Great Falls Genealogy. St. Labre school hired a team of researchers to investigate Northern Cheyenne and Crow student records who attended the mission schools in their region, and several Blackfeet researchers have set appointments for personal research at our center. Here is what some folks have to say about the collections:

  • Opportunity for Healing

    The Roman Union Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province have long lamented the suffering caused by Native American boarding schools and the generational trauma that continues to this day. With many others, we continue to take a hard look at the issues of racism in our country and our part in the harm that colonialism played in our own history. We are working to make the extensive archives of our schools in Montana and Alaska available through the Cascade County Historical Society where the archives will reside and be accessible to all. Our hope is to take steps in truth telling that will bring some healing.

    -Sister Dianne Baumunk, OSU, Ursuline Western Province Provincial

  • Accessibility for Decendants

    The Ursuline Collection at the History Museum and Research Center proved invaluable to our work researching the history of several boarding schools. The records, some dating back over a century, provide a unique look into mission life for both school staff and students. I am grateful to the Cascade County Historical Society for taking custody of these records at their state-of-the-art research center, so they can remain accessible to the Tribal communities who attended these schools.

    -James Grant, Little Shell Tribal Member & Historian, Historical Research Associates, Inc., Missoula, MT.

  • Benefit for Communities

    … I was pleased to know that the History Museum has become the repository for the Ursuline Center archives, including St. Peter’s Mission. Due to your office’s work in outlining the scope of the entire Ursuline archives, I now realize the depth and breadth of available records, be they annals, accounts, letters, journal entries, or photographs. In scanning the inventory I readily see how much the Ursuline archives might benefit other Blackfeet, Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Gros Ventre, and Assiniboine tribal genealogists and historians.

    -Greg Hirst, Blackfeet Tribal Member & Researcher.

  • Important Context

    We may never know all the details of life for Native children in boarding schools, either federal or parochial. While it would be important to have the voice of those children available to scholars, it is rare to have access to those kinds of records. We have, then, only the archival records of others, such as the Ursuline nuns who served at the boarding schools, to help us understand arguably one of the most significant periods in Native history.

    It is within that context that the Ursuline Western Province records collection will prove valuable to researchers. Church schools, together with the government boarding schools, educated fully 2/3rd of all Native people between 1880 and 1934. Thus, access to the records of the Ursulines’ housed at the Cascade County Historical Society may provide valuable insights into the educational process. But, for Native people, knowing more about the experiences of their ancestors who survived their experiences at boarding schools can lead to a deeper understanding of choices made in order to survive, and with that knowledge, perhaps a reconciliation with the past. For Native people, it is often said that in order to know where you are going, you have to know where you've been. These records will, in part, shed light on that journey.

    -Walter Fleming, Kickapoo, Director of Native American Studies, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

     

  • A Central Location

    The ever-increasing need for research and documentation of our Tribal encounters and associations with others is becoming more urgent each passing year. Having a centralized repository with access to family historical records would be of the greatest value to all who desire to learn about their extended families, religious affiliations, births, deaths and life circumstances.

    -Steven Lozar, Tribal Member and Historian, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation

     

  • Significant Collection

    The significance of this collection to our neighboring tribal nations cannot be overstated. For over 100 years this collection has been cared for and maintained by the Ursuline Western Province yet was quite challenging to access. They contain content important to the Tsetsehesestahase and So’taa’eo’o/Northern Cheyenne, Apsaalooke/Crow, Niitsitapi (Pikuni)/Blackfeet, Aaniiih/Gros Ventre, Nakoda, Nakona/Assiniboine, Seish/Salish, Ksanka/Kootenai and Qlispe/Pend d’Oreille, Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians and Metis people as well as others who attended the Ursuline schools.

    -Kristi Scott, Executive Director, Cascade County Historical Society

For more information, please contact the Research Center.

archives@greatfallshistorymuseum.org
406-452-3462

422 2nd Street South
Great Falls, Montana 59405