History

Land and buildings

In 1923, Father Cantwell bought the St. Anselm School property for $10,000. The original structure was designed to house a grammar school, high school, cafeteria, and convent in one building. The plan also allowed for a second story to be added later. The straightforward institutional design featured Spanish-style decorations, such as the curving columns at the entrance and scallop-shell niche above the front door that still welcome students today.

Father Cantwell was quoted in the paper as saying, “On the whole it is felt that this school will rank with the best in Marin County and will be no mean addition to the many substantial buildings and to the many pretty homes that show the growth of this progressive community.”

The school was officially dedicated on August 17, 1924. Four classrooms had been completed, with two more classrooms and the cafeteria still under construction. The wing that now houses the seventh and eighth grade classrooms was not built until 1945, and in 1959 the current gym building was constructed, largely finishing the campus as we know it today. In 1979 the shower room of the gym building was converted into a kindergarten so that the first kindergarten class could enter the school that September.

Administration

The Sisters of Loretto were invited by Father Cantwell to staff the school, and in August 1924, five sisters arrived from Kentucky. They were housed in a convent at 50 Mariposa Avenue, a private home that had been converted to include a chapel, sun room, kitchen, dining room, parlor, five bedrooms, and laundry. It was intended as a temporary residence until the convent wing was added to the school.

After eleven years, The Sisters of Loretto were called back to Kentucky due to a lull in vocations, and were replaced by the Sisters of the Holy Names the same year. The order taught at both St. Anselm and at Marin Catholic when the latter was opened in 1949. Also in 1949, a new convent was built at 46 Mariposa Avenue (now Bello Gardens); 50 Mariposa Avenue remained in the parish but was eventually sold in 1975.

After the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965), nuns were allowed to redefine their positions in the Church, no longer limited to nursing or teaching. This left many parochial schools with fewer religious on staff, including St. Anselm. The last Sisters of The Holy Names, without enough sisters to staff the school, left completely by the fall of 1981, when a new administration that was not part of a religious order began for the first time in the school’s history. The school’s first lay principal was Collette Moore.

High school

One of the little-known facts about St. Anselm is that it once included a high school. Before the first eighth grade class had graduated, plans for the high school were already underway. Father Cantwell had the parish hall moved to the school to serve as the high school building, sitting on the site of the current gym building. Thirty-three freshman enrolled in the fall of 1926. On May 22, 1930, eleven high schoolers graduated, but by July 1931, pressures from the Great Depression forced the high school to close.

After the Sisters of the Holy Names began their tenure at St. Anselm in 1935, they were eager to reopen the high school. In August of that year they were able to do so, enrolling twenty-five students. The first seniors of the resurrected school graduated in June 1939. The high school was permanently closed in 1949 when the Archdiocese of San Francisco opened Marin Catholic High School for the entirety of Marin County.

For more details of the history of St. Anselm School and parish, click here