The House of the Good Shepherd history

In 1889 the Good Shepherd Sisters established the Chicago Industrial School for Girls to provide vocational training and religious instruction to dependent girls.

St Helena’s Catholic Church across Hoback Street was built soon after and construction of the frame dormitory followed in 1890.

Sodality was established at the Good Shepherd Home in 1892.

For a time the House of the Good Shepherd operated as the white alternative to the District of Columbia’s Reform School for Girls (at the present site of Sibley Hospital) which opened in 1893, and initially admitted black girls only.

The sisters’ Gothic Revival style chapel was built to adjoin the convent in 1895.

“Another building was completed by 1901, making it possible for the school to accept white girls, although very few were admitted.

In the dormitory basement, a state-of-the-art commercial laundry, added in 1904, provided job training and income for the home.

The orphanage continued to grow and in 1905, a building committee was formed and land purchased in newly platted Wallingford.

In 1907, a 10-acre tract of land between LeGrand Cannon and Hauser Boulevard was purchased by the home and excavation began in October of that year.

The home opened in 1908.

Charles and Edith Daly (Washington Post, January 19, 1911, p.12)

Most of the white girls were sent to Houses of the Good Shepherd, in either Washington or Baltimore.” “In 1912, Congress changed the name of the school to the National Training School for Girls (NTSG), and in the next few years the board increasingly agitated for a new site.

Finally, Florence Cleland, committed to the sisters by the Board of Children’s Guardians, had previously escaped from the Industrial Home School. (“Defense of the House of Good Shepherd”, Washington Post, August 11, 1913, p.2)

Winfield S. Montgomery, Fifty Years, National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children, 1914 Library of Congress Rare Books

Leonard Boyle (hands on hips) and laundry crew and delivery truck serving the Home of the Good Shepherd, February 1916

M. J . Henry (Great Alaskan Railway). In 1921, the Seattle Community Fund, a precursor to United Way, designated the Good Shepherd Home as one of their beneficiaries.

In 1937, the nuns developed a high school program named St Euphrasia School after their founder.

Founder Saint Mary Euphrasia, canonized in 1940, taught an attitude of "maternal devotedness" and that "example is more powerful than words." The nuns were not to use corporal punishment.

The first home visit away from the Good Shepherd was in 1942.

In 1953, this “school-home” closed and became St Euphrasia Day Nursery.

Community contributions raised by the Auxiliary financed construction of the outdoor pool in 1959, just west of the building.

The first eight acres of the 27-acre Champlin Ave. campus are purchased with the campus opening by 1960 with four cottages and a multi-service building.

The school was phased out starting in 1966.

A resident entrusted with a key to the attic storage room started a fire on August 7, 1967, causing major damage to the south wing's top floor.

Boyle was later promoted to laundry superintendent and continued working there until the laundry closed in 1970.

In addition to the loss of laundry income, Boeing had suffered financial losses in 1971 and cut back severely on charitable giving as had many others.

The Wallingford community fought and defeated a proposal to turn the site into a shopping center and the city of Seattle bought the property in 1975.

The House of the Good Shepherd was razed to make way for the Reservoir Road campus of the Washington International School, which opened in 1998.