Holy Cross High School (New Orleans)
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A high school and middle school founded in 1879 by the Congregation of Holy Cross in New Orleans, Louisiana. Holy Cross High was originally named St. Isidore College.
Holy Cross School enjoys the distinction of being the second oldest sustained foundation worldwide in the Congregation of Holy Cross. The first brothers were sent by Father Basil Moreau in 1849 to assume responsibility for St. Mary's Orphanage. On May 18, 1849, Brother Vincent Peau wrote to Father Moreau:
"I went there (New Orleans) on April 25 (1849) and entered the orphan asylum on May 1. Our establishment is composed of five brothers, two for the classes (Brother Basil and Louis), one for the dormitories (Brother Francis de Sales), one kitchen director (Brother Theodule), and finally I, who am in charge of the house and am liaison with the administration of which the bishop is spiritual head and the other members, all lay, are temporal heads."
During the early years of the foundation, New Orleans was devastated by a series of epidemics: cholera, yellow fever, and malaria. The city suffered privation as a result of the northern blockade during wars between the States. There was the continuing aggravation of the climate which Brother Vincent called unhealthy, especially for strangers. More than once, consideration was given to withdrawing the members of the Congregation from New Orleans. In the late 1850's, Father Moreau was prompted to write:
"I have followed your progress in mind and heart all along and if there is one place in which I am deeply interested and for which I have great affection, it is most certainly New Orleans. This place has experienced various kinds of hardships from the day of its foundation, but that is proof that it will also become a place of great blessing."
By 1871, the Brothers moved the older orphan boys to St. Isidore's Farm, a river-front plantation purchased in 1859. This plantation is now the present site of Holy Cross School. In 1879, as the need for an orphanage diminished, St. Isidore's College, a boarding and day school, took its place.
First chartered by the State of Louisiana in 1890, the name was changed to Holy Cross in 1895 when the present Administration Building was dedicated. A boarding program, which continued until 1973, attracted as many as 150 students annually from across the South as well as from Central and South America.
With the exception of the Administration Building, the present physical facilities date back to the 1950's through the early 1960's when the last of the old plantation buildings were torn down. A gazebo, formerly a turn-of-the-century trolley stop, is a quaint remnant from the past which serves as a focal point for the campus.
The Congregation of Holy Cross took its name from a district of the city of LeMans, Saint-Croix or Holy Cross, where it was founded. Today the neighborhood surrounding the school is called the Holy Cross Historic District Neighborhood, having taken its name from the Congregation and the school serving this area. A Senior Service Learning Seminar, together with faculty and staff volunteers, provide neighborhood services including the painting and repairing of homes for the elderly and handicapped and the building of the first neighborhood playground in the area.
Today Holy Cross serves the families of over 500 young men enrolled in grades five through twelve. More than half of the young men that attend Holy Cross are students enhancing legacies created by a Holy Cross graduate that preceded them in their family. This legacy is embodied in the school code, The Holy Cross Man, that was first formulated in the 1940's and quoted from memory by Holy Cross Men young and old.
With a middle school and a high school on the same campus, Holy Cross has a unique opportunity to educate boys to men. The school's legacy is summed up by by Holy Cross's motto: "Become the Man You Are."
The school is located in the lower 9th Ward of New Orleans (in the Holy Cross Historic District) on the banks of the Mississippi River, but was flooded during Hurricane Katrina. A few months later, Holy Cross made the decision to permanently relocate.
After Hurricane Katrina, Holy Cross was the first school in the New Orleans area to field a football team
Following a meeting of the Holy Cross Board on Saturday 7 October 2006, Holy Cross High of New Orleans announced its decision to move to the St. Francis Cabrini/Redeemer-Seton campus on Paris Avenue between Filmore and Prentiss avenues. Many connected to the Holy Cross family - students, parents, alumni, faculty and friends - are very excited about the decision, and look forward to the move. Full-scale logistics of the move have not yet been finalized (as of 9 October 2006), but it looks as though after this year the school will move its temporary buildings to the new campus, where construction of permanent new buildings will begin.
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