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| Early view of St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in San Antonio, Florida . (Photo credit: Jeff Miller, Flickr) |
Home schools were often a necessity on the Florida frontier, much as the domestic church was a necessity. Home schooling was especially important for parents who wanted their children to have a Catholic education.
In such cases, the home school became an extension of the domestic church. One pioneering example of this in Florida is a school launched by a widow named Cecelia Morse.
Mrs. Morse, the mother of six, arrived in Florida from Texas a few years after Bishop John Moore's 1877 appointment to the St. Augustine Diocese. Catholics comprised about 4 percent of the state's population at the time. They were spread out across thousands of miles.
At the start, Bishop Moore had about 10 priests to serve a diocese that covered most of the Florida peninsula. The diocese had seven parishes, 17 missions and 70 stations. Stations were usually in the house of a Catholic homeowner. Local Catholics would gather there for Mass whenever a priest could visit the area.
In such conditions, the home became the center of catechesis and devotions. Catholics took the responsibility seriously. Some, like Mrs. Morse, went several steps beyond.
Cecelia Morse lived in the south central Florida town of San Antonio, some 150 miles from the diocese's St. Augustine base. It was a rural as frontier Florida could get.
San Antonio was established in about 1881 as a Catholic colony. It's believed that, before being able to buy land, the earliest residents had to present a document from their hometown priest stating they were Catholics in good standing.
In 1883, construction began on a parish church. Bishop Moore dedicated the new St. Anthony of Padua Church on St. Anthony's feast day in June of that year. He then said the first Mass in the church in early 1884.
Mrs. Morse saw a need for more, mainly a school. In 1883, she asked the colony's founder to start a Catholic school. He refused and told her to wait until more people moved to San Antonio. She is reported to have told him, "The minds of the children who are here now won't wait."
Wait she didn't. Mrs. Morse set about combining religious education with a wider curriculum of study. She began to teach her children and other local youngsters in 1883. Fourteen children gathered in her home for lessons.
A year later, she moved her classes into the newly built church and continued to teach. By the end of 1884, the school was in a new 12x24 schoolhouse constructed with funds supplied by Bishop Moore. Mrs. Morse continued to teach.
In his 2020 biography of Bishop Moore, Fr. Michael J. McNally writes that, by 1885, Mrs. Morse had 35 students. They were primarily of French, German or Irish descent. Fr. McNally writes that Mrs. Morse taught them reading, writing, arithmetic, Bible history, the Catechism and Catholic moral values. He cites her school as an extension of the domestic church.
In 1889, Benedictine nuns took over administration of the school. A while later, Mrs. Morse and her family relocated to the Tampa area. She died on the feast day of St. Anthony in 1926. Her newspaper obituary noted she was a devout Catholic.
Unsung heroes. So many local histories have them. I wish all their stories could be told.
