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Shrine Catholic High School History

1930s-1942 | 1945-60s | 1970s-1990s | 2000s

1934 - Father Charles E. Coughlin, pastor, is notified that he must make provisions for the education of the parish children, who formerly attended Saint Mary School. Father Coughlin immediately contacts Mother-General Mary Regina from the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse in Cincinnati. After having visited Royal Oak, Mother promises four sisters to begin the parish school. The former Marion Burton Public School on Scotia Road is leased as a temporary school. The condition of the school is disreputable. Every pane of glass is broken and 18 inches of water covers the basement floor. Crews work on night and day shifts in order to make it fit for occupancy on the set date.

October 26, 1939 - The property at 13 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue is given to the Sisters of Charity. Father Coughlin has a dream that is shared by the Sisters. The dream is to build a private high school for girls. Little Flower High School is to be built on a 17-acre tract of land on 13 Mile Road in Royal Oak. Father Coughlin and the parishioners of the Shrine of the Little Flower Parish donate the property. They envision an enrollment of 350 to 400 from Shrine and surrounding parishes.

April 8, 1941 - Little Flower High School’s groundbreaking ceremony is held. Father stresses the need of a “defense program for girls” when he addresses the 200 interested adults and the 300 school children that attend the ceremonies. “The beginning of such a project at the time when the spirit of hope is waning is evidence of a splendid spirit of faith and hope in the future life’s work of girls,” he says. Father Coughlin mounts a steam shovel and takes the first shovelful of earth. Mother-General Mary Regina, who came from the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse in Cincinnati to represent the Community from which the new high school would be staffed, holds a small shovelful of earth for Father Coughlin to bless. The pastor describes the Sisters as “experts in their field.”

October 3, 1941 - Little Flower High School is dedicated and the Most Reverend Edward Mooney of Detroit celebrates a pontifical High Mass. In dedicating the school, Archbishop Mooney says he shares the grateful appreciation of the Sisters of Charity toward Father Coughlin and those who have helped make the school possible. He says that the school marks another progressive step in the work of the Sisters of Charity, who, by this date, have taught in the diocese for 53 years. This is to be a Catholic school in its very essence. The beginnings heralded the spirit of the school. There is a sufficient part of the building finished in September so that school opens on September 15, 1941.

1941 - Sister Barbara Geoghegan becomes the first Little Flower High School Principal.

Spring 1942 - Thirteen senior girls graduate from Little Flower High School.

September 1942 - The boys’ high school has its beginning. The boy’s high school occupied four rooms in the grade school at 12 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue and all types of laboratory work is taken at the Little Flower High School on 13 Mile Road. This arrangement continues until 1948.