St. Joseph's School

• St. Joseph's School, a parochial school and the last Catholic school in the city that once had a dozen, closed in 2009. Enrollment was not enough to make the school financially viable.
• The parish was founded in 1873.
• The very first school was built in 1892 and staffed by Sisters of Charity from Montreal.That school was destroyed in the Salem Fires of 1914. The classrooms were built on the "roof" of the church basement.

• The Sisters of Assumption founded St. Joseph's School in 1925, drawn here from Canada because of Salem's large French Canadian population. Two original nuns were still teaching at the school when it closed, Estelle Grenier and Sister Fernande Richard.

• In 1980 the elementary school was moved from the corner of Lafayette and Dow Streets to the former High School building at Salem and Harbor Streets.
• When the parish closed in 2004, the school moved to former St. James Grammar School on Federal Street

until its closing in 2009.

See Also

• Vertical File in Salem Collection - St. Joseph's school

• "Sunset on Salem sisterhood; nuns reflect on 50 years service" Salem News, June 3, 2005, p. A2

• "St. Joseph School closing" Salem News, Dec. 5, 2008, p. 1

• Nuns face point of departure: closing of parish forces move" Boston Sunday Globe, June 13, 2004, p. 1 Globe North