‘Homecoming’: Sisters of Mercy, St. Xavier’s Academy alumni return to Unity to celebrate opening of new nature preserve

Barbara Mance was sitting in her English class at St. Xavier’s Academy on March 16, 1972, when the fire alarm went off. She walked downstairs, assuming it was just another fire drill.

She and her classmates were joking that “maybe the old place is finally burning.” Upon arriving outside, they discovered it was.

“It was sad,” said Mance, 69, of Oakland, Md. “There were a lot of tears.”

The fire destroyed the St. Xavier Academy and Convent, which was the oldest institution of the Sisters of Mercy who immigrated to America from Ireland in 1843. And Mance became part of the last class of 18 students at the academy.

But, this weekend, for the first time since 1972, the 248-acre St. Xavier property off Route 30 in Unity opened its grounds to the public — as a nature preserve.

Mance said she traveled from Maryland specifically to attend the open house held at the property Saturday by the Westmoreland Land Trust.

“It’s like a homecoming, and I knew that I’d run into some people that I knew and a lot that I wouldn’t remember. But I was willing to take a chance,” Mance said. “And I wanted to see what they’d done with the property because it holds a lot of fond memories.”

St. Xavier’s Academy was a part of Mance’s life, she said, as she had four sisters who attended before her.

“There were a lot of tears, but I loved living here,” Mance said. “You made friendships that have lasted a lifetime.”

Mance said, in the aftermath of the fire, she and her fellow seniors were sent to the infirmary to help transport the nuns to the nearby building on the property still standing — Bellbrook, a 3,410-square-foot building with 8 bedrooms that was used as a retreat by the Catholic nuns. It is now the base of operations for the new nature preserve.

“We were helping wheel the nuns out — wheel them down through the grove to this house,” Mance said. “It started raining, so we were taking off our jackets and putting them over the nuns’ heads trying to keep them dry.

Soon after, the students were transported via bus to St. Joseph’s Academy down the road, and they were off school for about two weeks, she said.

Since Mance was one of about a third of the students at the time who lived at the school as a boarder, her belongings had to be gathered and brought over. The 1972 class graduated at St. Joseph’s, she said.

St. Xavier’s Academy was set to close after the class of 1972 anyway, Mance said, because enrollment was down, which is why the timing of the fire was so strange.

Now, seeing the former site of the academy be turned into a nature preserve is the best case scenario that Mance could have wished for.

“It looks gorgeous,” she said.

Saved for posterity

The property almost did end up with a starkly different fate, Sister Sheila Carney said. She was the one receiving the phone calls with offers to buy the property, and one offer — if accepted — could’ve established the property as a prison site.

“I think, over the years, we’ve held a concern about the fact that we no longer had the resources to maintain this land the way it deserved, so to see it come to this conclusion is just amazing,” said Carney, 78, of Pittsburgh. “I mean, it’s the best possible outcome that there could’ve been.”

She became part of the Sisters of Mercy community in 1967, and since her earliest days, she’s been at St. Xavier’s for “very significant” moments in her life.

“I love this place,” Carney said. “It was a place where the young sisters came in the summer, and things were relaxed a little bit, so there was a lot of fun out here.”

She shared her fond memories with attendees of the nature preserve’s open house, such as going to get soft serve ice cream on Route 30 when they “occasionally” got a hold of a dime.

The Sisters used to sit on the porch and sing, as well as walk the trails on the property, she said. Carney was able to spend time with Sisters both around her age and ones who were more elderly — who she considered “wisdom figures in the community.”

They discussed what drew them to the Sisters of Mercy, as well as stories of their ministry throughout the years, according to Carney.

In 1988, Carney said around 100 Sisters came to the property in the summer for an event called “reverencing the land.” They discussed their “responsible stewardship” of the property and cleaned the land up.

Carney was part of the group of Sisters who planted a tree next to Bellbrook — as a symbol of the Sisters’ “commitment to this land and to its preservation into the future.”

When the tree was planted, “it was just a baby,” a little sapling, Carney said. Now, it’s around the height of the Bellbrook house.

Though the Westmoreland Land Trust worked with the Sisters of Mercy to acquire the property in August 2022 and started conservation work “right away,” the discussion of the conservation of the property began four years earlier — in 2018, according to Betsy Aiken, executive director of the trust.

Carney said the decision to allow the trust to acquire the property was a “very serious” one on the part of the Sisters of Mercy.

“I’d say (it’s) a generous decision,” Carney said. “I hope that it will really be loved and appreciated by the citizens of this area as much as it has been loved and appreciated by our community.”

Bill Mihalco, chair of the Westmoreland Land Trust, said he remembers signing the papers in 2022 to acquire the property. Since then, the biggest task has been the rehabilitation of Bellbrook, as well as other conservation work.

Wood from two of the trees on the property was used as flooring in the building, he said.

Mihalco, 72, of Penn Township said the trust has conserved more than 600 acres of land, according to his calculations, and it’s looking to keep the St. Xavier property in perpetuity as a nature preserve.

In the next few years, he said, the trust is looking to develop more hiking and walking paths “so the public can come in and enjoy the property more.”

As of now, the grove area is probably the best place for the public to go, he said. Seeing everyone at the open house on Saturday was “just unbelievable” for Mihalco.

“To hear the stories that the sisters have and the history associated with it and the love they have for this property and the commitment to make sure that it’s preserved — we have a big task ahead of us,” Mihalco said. “Hopefully, we’re up to the task.”

Carney said she’s been one of the Sisters who has come to St. Xavier’s “most consistently” since she works at Carlow University, and she plans to return, as the Sisters of Mercy are retaining ownership and care of the adjacent St. Xavier Cemetery.

Mance said she was “just so happy” to be back at the property for the open house. It was “nice” to see so many people come back who still “have a fondness” for St. Xavier’s, and Carney agreed.

“When I drove up here and saw all these cars and all these people, I was just overwhelmed to see this energy on the land,” Carney said. “It’s amazing.”