Frogtown Farms in St. Paul was once House of the Good Shepherd

At 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, 1903, more than 4,000 fans gathered at the Lexington Park baseball stadium (at Fuller and Dunlap) to see the St. Paul Saints take on the Minneapolis Millers. Some said it was the largest crowd that had ever gathered for a baseball game in the Midwest, and they were particularly festive with St. Paul fans in white ribbons and Minneapolis fans in red. The game did not disappoint.

The Millers were up by four runs in the seventh inning, fell behind, and tied it up in the bottom of the ninth before going on to win it in the 10th. The real winners, however, were the Sisters of our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd. They were the beneficiaries of all ticket sales, including the tickets that hundreds had purchased without ever intending to attend the game.

At that time, the sisters ran a House of the Good Shepherd at Minnehaha and Victoria in St. Paul and another at Bloomington and South 27^th Street in Minneapolis. The mission of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd was to provide rehabilitation and education of girls and young women who had demonstrated delinquent behavior. Some of the youngest girls were orphans or were sent to live with the sisters by desperate families, while the women who joined the sisters for reformation often chose to come on their own or were committed by the local court. Despite being run by a Catholic religious order, the local community considered it a nondenominational institution because of their good works.

The sisters and their charges supported themselves with laundry, sewing, and fine embroidery. Fashionable St. Paul brides would have all the clothing and linens they brought to their new homes made and embroidered by the women at the House of the Good Shepherd. They would return to purchase dainty layettes for their babies. In addition to learning a trade, young girls under the sisters’ charge attended school lessons each day, and the sisters mixed prayer with their work. The schedule was rigid. Some residents appreciated the structure so much they stayed for years or even the rest of their lives; others plotted escapes.

Although the city and some children’s parents contributed fees when they sent new residents to the House, the sisters did not beg for alms, and by 1903 they faced a terrible financial situation. Proceeds from the baseball game and the closure of the Minneapolis House were expected to pay the interest on the institution’s debt to prevent bankruptcy. Unfortunately, in 1904, a tornado tore through their St. Paul institution, killing one resident and destroying the laundry — their primary source of income. Another baseball game fundraiser, a series of local donors, and ultimately, James J. Hill came to their rescue and righted their account books.

Between 1887 and 1969 the House in St. Paul on the site they named Mount Eudes was home to more than 8,000 troubled girls and women. In the late 1960s, the sisters chose to sell their building and land to the Wilder Foundation because changing understanding of morals and reform led the sisters to different work. Later, the Wilder Foundation sold the land to the city of St. Paul in 2013, and in 2014 it opened as Frogtown Farms.

Today, Frogtown Farm remains an urban demonstration farm building community in the Frogtown neighborhood with partners including students and faculty from St. Catherine University in St. Paul.

Luken is a Catholic and a historian with a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. She loves exploring and sharing the hidden histories that touch our lives every day.