Notre Dame Catholic School

Notre Dame Catholic School. . Fourteen visiting priests served St. Mary's Catholic Mission Church until 1911, when it became a parish church and Father Henry Kemper of Chicago became its resident priest. Father Kemper was ordained in 1910, when it was thought his death from tuberculosis was imminent. He went to St. Mary's Sanitarium in Boerne and learned of the growing Catholic congregation in Kerrville. He would spend the rest of his life building what would become Notre Dame Catholic Parish and School into a large and giving community with many people devoted to Christian service. , After acquiring eight adjoining lots and two houses, Father Kemper applied to the Archdiocese in San Antonio for the construction of a school serving first through twelfth grades. An advertisement stated that tuition would be "One dollar a month and free to the poor." Twenty-seven pupils and three nuns from the Sisters of Charity of Incarnate Word, Sisters Cresentia, Dymphna and Ita, opened the school on August 28, 1912. Enrollment tripled by the end of the year. Originally called St. Mary's, the school was renamed to honor Father Kemper's revered alma mater, Notre Dame University. The school served the community with night courses in music, languages and art. During World War I, the school taught stenography and bookkeeping to ladies who filled needed jobs on the home front. In order to remain open during the Great Depression, the school downsized to eight grades and the night school was closed. When Father Kemper died in 1957, the front page headline of the Kerrville Daily Times proclaimed "Death takes Hill Country benefactor." For more than a century, Notre Dame Catholic School has trained up young people and served its community.