The Red & the Black

It is a custom in New Orleans that when a graduate of Xavier University marries, he takes his entire wedding party to call on the university's president. No Xavier wedding is quite complete without the blessing of Mother Agatha Ryan.

In her 60-odd years, Mother Agatha has let her blessings fall on thousands all over the U.S. For most of them it has been a rare experience, for the skins of Mother Agatha's children are red or black. The university she runs is the only Catholic university for Negroes in the U.S. She is also director of 75 grammar and high schools--all for Negroes or Indians.

Journey into Squalor. Her work began in Philadelphia, when she was "about 18." It was then that she heard of a wealthy lady who had founded a new Catholic order. Katharine Drexel, daughter of a Morgan partner, had been troubled by the squalor of Indian life she had seen on a trip through the West. In Rome later, she begged Pope Leo XIII to do something about it. "Why don't you become a missionary yourself?" the Pope replied. Katharine Drexel did, and gathered together in the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament a group of women who devoted their lives to teaching Indians and Negroes. Among them was Agatha Ryan.

Mother Agatha, a jolly little lady with twinkling blue eyes, was sent west to settle among the Navahos. Under her, St. Michael's school so flourished that she was picked to run the first Catholic mission among the Winnebago Indians. Finally, in 1932, she went to Xavier.

Over the years, Xavier has grown from a high school to a university--rated Class A by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools--"a good school, even if I do say so." Its enrollment has climbed from 47 to 1,100. Bit by bit, the sisters have added to it--a graduate school of arts and sciences, a college of pharmacy, a school of education, a school of social service. Courses include everything from Greek to journalism.

Scholars among Saloons. Xavier's 17 buildings stand surrounded by lumberyards, saloons, and a dog pound. Protected from these, on the tree-shaded campus, Mother Agatha spends her days. Last week, carpenters and cleaners were getting the campus ready for fall. But Mother Agatha had other matters on her mind. The order was building a new Navaho school, and she had gone to the order's headquarters outside Philadelphia to check up on the far-flung school system she presides over.

For a life of work, Mother Agatha gives herself little credit. But she has her satisfaction. She can't help being pleased when her alumni come back ("they seem to love to bring their children to see me"). It is not out of vanity, she insists, that she carefully conceals her age. Says she: "If I told it, they might try to retire me."

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