The Benedictine Sisters of Annunciation Monastery are local priory branch of the Order of St. Benedict. The Benedictine Sisters are noted for establishing St. Mary’s Academy and Church, Saint Alexius Hospital, and today’s University of Mary.
History
In 1878, five Sisters from St. Joseph, Minnesota arrived in Bismarck to establish St. Mary’s Academy and Boarding School. The school housed 21 boarders and 80 students in three classrooms.
Saint Alexius
Seven more St. Benedict Sisters arrived in 1885 to establish the first hospital in Dakota Territory, today known as CHI Saint Alexius, inside the never-opened Lamborn Hotel. They treated 65 patients in its first year, despite no formal medical training, at a standard fee of $1 per day. Chief Sitting Bull, future President Theodore Roosevelt, and Medora de Mores were noted patients of the frontier hospital.
Permanent Local Order
By the 1940s, more than 100 Benedictine Sisters operated in Bismarck from their original Minnesota chapter. Bishop Vincent Ryan invited the Sisters to establish the first permanent North Dakota Foundation in 1944. Three years later, in 1947, a motherhouse known as Annunciation Priory was established inside a former mansion owned by the diocese located at 304 W Avenue A, recognized today as a historic landmark. The name changed to Annunciation Monastery in 1997.
Convent of the Annunciation, Mary College
The motherhouse at 304 W Avenue A soon became overcrowded. By the early 1950s, land was acquired seven miles southwest of city limits along Apple Creek for the Convent of the Annunciation. The first permanent building belonging to the prior was completed soon after.
At the same site, the Benedictine Sisters planned for a high school and college. Originating in 1947, Mary College began offering formal two-year degrees in 1955 inside the permanent building at the new convent building. Mary College was chartered in 1959 when it began offering four-year degree programs, mostly focused on nursing and teaching. Originally an all-female institution, men were admitted to Mary College for the first time in 1963.
