Minneota Area Memory

The historic three-story structure, built in 1901 for $4,000, was the St. Agnes Convent School in Ghent. The school was blessed and opened for classes in Sept. of 1902 and this photo was taken a month later. Three siblings, Jennifer, Isabel and Sara Donnelly, were the first boarders of the school. In all, there were 16 rooms in the house, including two classrooms for grades 1-8. The larger building held 50 pupils and the smaller held 35 pupils. There were also seven nun rooms, a music/theater room, two common rooms, an altar area, and a room for the priest to change clothes, called a vestry or sacristy, and two other rooms with unknown uses. The chapel was located on the second floor and many people attended daily Mass, often filling the chapel, room, the corridors and even the stairway. The third floor, which was similar to a large attic, was where the students slept. One of the students who was boarded at the St. Agnes Convent School was Adam DeRoode’s grandmother, Lorraine Peltier. Adam and his wife, Chassidy, purchased the home in 2013 and have renovated it to look like it did when it was built. The DeRoode family now occupies the home along McQuestion Street.

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The Minneota Mascot
Address: 201 N. Jefferson
Minneota, MN 56264

Phone:(507) 872-6492