The 19 RSCJ pictured here* are among those who attended the centennial at Woodlands

Twenty Religious of the Sacred Heart attended a celebration in January to mark the 100th anniversary of Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart, Lake Forest, Illinois.

The historic event was noted in nine articles in Chicago area newspapers, ranging from an overview of Woodlands’ history to a profile of Gerald Grossman, who will become on July 1 the first man to head the all-girls school.

At the celebration, Sister Nancy Morris rscj, interim head at Woodlands, traced the school’s history from the inception of Sacred Heart education in Revolutionary-era France, with Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat’s commitment to a quality education for women, to the foundation of schools in the United States in 1818, when Saint Philippine Duchesne brought Sophie’s vision to St. Charles, Missouri.

The Woodlands opened in 1904, when 36 Religious of the Sacred Heart greeted the first 70 students.

Gerald Grossman, a teacher and administrator in Catholic and private schools in Connecticut, Delaware, New York and Maryland, has been headmaster since 1998 of Stuart Hall For Boys, one of 21 Sacred Heart Schools linked through the Network of Sacred Heart Schools in the United States. He will be the 11th layperson and the fifth male to head an all-girls school in the Network.

Grossman has earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in English at Stonehill College and the University of Notre Dame and has studied theology at Boston College.

^*Back row: Sisters Bonnie Kearney, Anne Wente, Sally Brennan, Lisa Buscher, Pamela Hickey, Mary Hagele.

Middle row: Sisters Nancy Koke, Junko Tajima, Kathy Conn, Nancy Morris, Barbara Bowe, Rosemary Dewey.

Front row: Sisters Nancy Salisbury, Nancy Finn, Patricia Reiss, Jane O'Shaughnessy, Frances Gimber, Rosemary Dowd, Anne Eppig.