Los
Angeles County
Biographies
MARYMOUNT SCHOOL
Marymount School, located on Beverly
Boulevard, Bel-Air, in Los Angeles County, is a
modern and well equipped resident and day school for young ladies, under the
direction of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. The order was founded by l’Abbe
Pierre-Jean-Antoine Gailhac, in the town of Beziers,
following the Napoleonic period in France.
It was the founder’s zeal for souls that moved him to provide means of
Christian education for young girls, to train them to become good mothers,
devoted wives, centers of good Catholic influences. Pontiffs Pius XI and Leo
XIII blessed the work and finally the Holy See gave its approbation to the
constitutions of the Institute of the Sacred Heart of Mary, February 24, 1899.
Overlooking the lordly Hudson in
Tarrytown, New York, stands Marymount College, the vicar-house of the North
American Vicariate, established December 8, 1907, through the munificence of
James Butler, K. G. C., of New York City.
“Reynard Estate,” the gift of Sir James Butler, comprises four buildings
and a most valuable expanse of property, accommodating a chapel, auditorium,
gymnasium, swimming pool and conservatories.
On December 8, 1922, Marymount celebrated its fifteenth
anniversary. The same year the Right
Reverend John J. Cantwell, D. D., invited the faculty to open a branch house in
Los Angeles. The first home of the new
school was located in the John Brockman home on Twenty-Eighth Street, in the
West Adams district, in September, 1923.
The first pupil to enroll was Barbara Mott, daughter of John G. Mott, a
prominent attorney of Los Angeles. Other
early pupils were daughters of W. H. Keller, Isidore B. Dockweiler
and Irving Walker. The present school
was established September 15, 1931, and dedicated February 2, 1932. The school in Los Angeles had forty-five
pupils and the students at Bel-Air now number eighty.
Marymount has an ideal setting amid
gardens and winding roads, a lake skirting the property, hills rising gently
until they command the blue Pacific, the Sierra Madre Mountains standing like
sentinels in the distance. Many miles of
riding paths and the proximity of stables which boast of the finest
thoroughbreds render horseback riding especially attractive to the pupils of
Marymount. The school is close to the
University of California at Los Angeles, and the exterior of the building is in
the Italian villa style. It has a
chapel, administration, reception and music rooms, a library and a dining
room. The extensive grounds afford space
for tennis courts, hockey and basketball.
The curriculum embraces preparatory, academic and post-graduate courses
and courses in music and art. Marymount
School is accredited to the University of California.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 517-518, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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