Oldenburg Academy
Virtue • Honor • Education
Ordained a priest on August 10, 1839, in Strassburg, Alsace, 31-year-old Father Francis Joseph Rudolf arrived in Oldenburg, Indiana in late October of 1844. His prayers were to found a community of Sisters to teach the children of the German immigrants who made up his parish. Those prayers were answered when seven years later, Sister Theresa Hackelmeier arrived from Vienna, Austria at Oldenburg on January 6, 1851. The young nun, just 24 years of age, readily took up the task of educating the girls in the surrounding communities.
During those first winter months at Oldenburg, Mother Theresa had only herself and three young Sisters: Michaela Lindemann, Gabriela Ehret and Josepha Speier, to prepare for teaching. By that summer they were joined by Theresa Dreer from Rorschach, Switzerland — a young woman of superior education who came to the United States to dedicate herself to God and educating youth.
Late in the fall of 1851, the Sisters took charge of the parochial school comprised of 20 children. As the students prepared to make their First Holy Communion the weather was so bitter it was difficult for five or six of them, who lived in outlying farms, to return safely home from school. So those students stayed with the Sisters and became the first boarders. By 1852 the number of boarders, some of whom were in their teens, had increased to a total of 12. Thus began the Academy.
In 1941, the Academy discontinued its elementary grades, marking the beginning of several important changes over the decades. In 1994, the school was incorporated as Oldenburg Academy of the Immaculate Conception, Inc. and transitioned to a Board of Trustees model, with the Sisters of St. Francis no longer carrying full financial responsibility. The residential program concluded after the 1998–1999 school year, and in 2000, the Academy welcomed young men for the first time in its history. Today, the Academy continues to embrace growth and change while remaining rooted in its Catholic identity and sponsored by the Sisters of St. Francis.