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Keenan, Agnes (1910–1979)

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Black and white photograph of Agnes Keenan, c.1975. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.

Agnes Keenan, c.1975. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.

Agnes Keenan’s name is among the most prominent in the history of St. Catherine’s College—the school that became St. Catherine University. Although she was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, in 1910, Keenan spent most of her life in St. Paul working as a teacher and community leader.

When Keenan was two years old, her family moved to the Twin Cities. At first, they settled in Minneapolis, but five years later they bought a home on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Keenan, her younger sister, Anna, and her brother, Edward, spent their childhood there.

Both Keenan and her sister attended Derham Hall High School, which was on the campus of the College of St. Catherine at the time, before enrolling in the college itself. Keenan graduated in 1931 with majors in English and Latin and a minor in history.

Keenan worked as a teacher in local schools, including St. Paul’s Cleveland Junior High School, before attending Catholic University in Washington, D.C. After writing her thesis on Alice Meynell, the English poet and writer, she graduated with a master’s degree in English and philosophy in 1938. She then began her twenty-seven-year teaching career in English at the College of St. Catherine.

Keenan’s students were especially attracted to her courses on the Catholic Literary Revival and Dante. She was a prolific writer of book reviews and articles as well as a lecturer in the Twin Cities community. In the 1940s, she cooperated with the St. Paul Public Schools to develop a “practice teaching” program for educators.

A turning point in Keenan’s life arrived in 1953, when she joined an international Catholic lay organization called the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. Formed during the French Revolution, the organization did not establish convents, use titles, or practice other customs that identified lay people as religious members. After joining the group, many members continued to practice their professions, lived at home, and cared for elderly parents. Keenan followed this example in St. Paul, where she continued to teach English at the College of St. Catherine, lived at home, and cared for her mother, who had a long-term cardiac condition.

Keenan took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the order, which Archbishop John Gregory Murray invited to St. Paul. In 1960, after her mother died, Keenan became a Superior for the Daughters of the Heart of Mary in the congregation’s St. Paul province. One of her first tasks in her new position was to find a place in St. Paul for holding retreats for women.

Louis Hill, son of the railroad magnate James J. Hill, had donated his mansion at 260 Summit Avenue to the Catholic Church in his will. The house, Keenan realized, was an ideal location for retreats. Because of her friendship with members of the Hill family and others in the local community, Keenan was able to restore the mansion and transform it from an office building into the Maryhill Retreat House.

In 1972, the College of St. Catherine awarded Keenan the Alexandrine Medal. The medal recognized her outstanding work in the community as well as her leadership roles in the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, which included assisting the director of the order in France and directing a mission in Ethiopia and a school in Addis Ababa.

In 1979, at a meeting of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary in Paris, Keenan died of a heart attack. She was sixty-eight years old.

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Books Abounding, 1946–1950
Rare Books Collection, St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul
Description: The periodical Books Abounding, published by the Kappa Gamma Pi Honor Society, contains many book reviews written by Agnes Keenan.

Catholic Literary Revival Class Syllabus and Selected Bibliography
Rare Books Collection, St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul
Description: The Archives preserves the syllabus and selected bibliography used by Agnes Keenan in her class on the Catholic Literary Revival.

Related Images

Black and white photograph of Agnes Keenan, c.1975. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.
Black and white photograph of Agnes Keenan, c.1975. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.
Black and white photograph of Sister Mary William Brady, Agnes Keenan, and Sister Maris Stella Smith (later Sister Alice Smith), 1961.
Black and white photograph of Sister Mary William Brady, Agnes Keenan, and Sister Maris Stella Smith (later Sister Alice Smith), 1961.
Black and white photograph of Agnes Keenan in her office, c.1950. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.
Black and white photograph of Agnes Keenan in her office, c.1950. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.
Black and white photograph of Agnes Keenan, c.1945. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.
Black and white photograph of Agnes Keenan, c.1945. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.
Black and white photograph of Agnes Keenan (left) and her sister, Anna Keenan (Sister Immaculata, CSJ), c.1960. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.
Black and white photograph of Agnes Keenan (left) and her sister, Anna Keenan (Sister Immaculata, CSJ), c.1960. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.

Turning Point

In 1953, Agnes Keenan becomes a member of an international Catholic lay organization called the Daughters of the Heart of Mary.

Chronology

1910

Agnes Keenan is born in Aberdeen, South Dakota.

1912

The Keenan family moves to the Twin Cities—first to Minneapolis and then to their more permanent residence on Summit Avenue in St. Paul.

1927

Keenan graduates from Derham Hall High School, located on the campus of the College of St. Catherine.

1931

With majors in English and Latin and a minor in history, Keenan graduates from the College of St. Catherine.

1934

Keenan teaches in Morgan and in St. Paul, where she works for three years at Cleveland Junior High School.

Spring 1983

After completing her thesis on the English writer, critic, and poet Alice Meynell, Keenan obtains her master’s degree in English and philosophy at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

Fall 1938

Keenan begins to teach English at the College of St. Catherine. She specializes in the Catholic Literary Revival (English and French) and Dante.

1940s

Keenan coordinates a “practice teaching” program in cooperation with the St. Paul Public Schools.

1952

Keenan and a colleague attend the Newman Lectures at Oriel College in Oxford, England, and meet several leading English novelists.

1953

Keenan takes vows in the lay congregation of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, an international religious order whose members live and work in the community.

1960

Keenan becomes Superior of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary for the congregation’s St. Paul Province.

1961

With help from the Hill family and other donors and friends, Keenan restores the original mansion of Louis and Maud Hill at 260 Summit Avenue, transforming it from an office building into the Maryhill Retreat House.

1969

At a meeting in Lyons, France, Keenan is elected assistant general to Mother General Mademoiselle Maria Parodi, international director of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary.

1972

Keenan accepts the Alexandrine Medal from the College of St. Catherine for lifetime achievements at the college, as well as leadership in local and international communities.

1979

While attending a meeting of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary in Paris, France, Keenan dies on September 24, just before her sixty-ninth birthday.