Ed. — From the Sunday, March 19, print edition.
RICHMOND — St. Francis de Sales High School was a Catholic girls’ school for young African-American women in Powhatan, just outside Richmond. Along with St. Emma Military Academy, a military school for African-American men, St. Francis was the subject of a Virginia Historical Society program last month.
It was called “From Enslavement To Empowerment,”and it was held on Saturday, Feb. 18, at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture in Richmond. The creation of both institutions is a fascinating story of family, faith and philanthropy, and I find it inspiring. I was honored to attend.
I wanted to learn about the school, which closed in the 1970s. Its students went on to colleges, served their country and started families. Some scattered all over the country headed for promising careers.
In my own life, I used to wonder:
What happened to local Catholic school youth who seemed to disappear?
They didn’t go to Norfolk, Portsmouth and Peninsula Catholic. They didn’t attend any public schools we knew of.
Well, in some cases, their parents opted to send them to a historic school.
Retired educator and track and field coach Melvina Herbert who lives in the Foxfire Downs community in Virginia Beach, went to St. Francis de Sales.
When I saw her staffing a welcome table in Richmond, I had too many questions to ask before the program. I did get to hear about how her experience at St. Francis benefited her.
“I must say the education received there was most beneficial to my college studies,” Herbert said.
“First of all, you are taught by some of the best educators,” Herbert told me, adding that the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament were dedicated to improving the lives of Native Americans and African Americans.
“We were taught God was the center of all good and whatever goals I accomplished were through him,” she added.
Herbert said it is as if she were still in a St. Francis classroom, and she spoke with pride. And, of course, she became a teacher herself.
“As an educator, I wanted to help all children learn to the best of their abilities the importance of education and to give back to their communities,” Herbert said. “Goals are achieved through a good education, good habits, a network of helpers and a strong will to succeed.”
Mother Katherine Drexel, who ultimately became a saint, faced a challenging road to open a school in the segregated South in the late 1800s, Herbert noted.
“Her perseverance and determination helped me learn that there was nothing to prevent me from doing what I wanted and achieving things my parents only dreamed of,” Herbert said.
Drexel and her sisters were the daughters of a wealthy family. Their father was a bank executive who made a fortune. Their story is intriguing – and astonishing in its philanthropy.
With money inherited from their father’s fortune, Katherine Drexel built St. Francis, among many other institutions she was instrumental in founding. Not to be outdone, her married sister created St. Emma, known as “The Black Military Academy on the James River.”
That’s the title of a self-published book by Robert A. Walker of the class of 1965, who went back 100 years to when St. Emma’s was built. Drexel is the first saint born a U.S. citizen and the second canonized. A wealthy person who was a philanthropist turned nun, educator and saint? That life alone is an epic movie.
And that school helped other people go on to live great lives, too.
Herbert taught school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for 14 years and returned to Virginia in 1986 because of her mother’s declining health.
She taught for a year in Norfolk schools, and went on to Chesapeake schools, eventually becoming an administrator, including as principal at what is today the Student Center for Success. She was the first woman to hold that title.
“I believe that the education and many attributes I learned at St. Francis influenced my confidence in myself and contributed to the achievements in my life,” she said.
The author is a writer and documentary filmmaker who grew up in Norfolk and lived in Virginia Beach for much of his life. He ran a production company, worked in college athletics and was curator at an art gallery in Virginia Beach for years.
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