Rosary High mourns death of 1st principal
The Rosary High School community is mourning the death of the school's founding principal, Sister Mary Joseph Weigand.
Weigand died Saturday morning in Springfield, according to a news release from the school.
Weigand served at Rosary and Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights. Both are run by the Dominican Sisters of Springfield.
She was principal until 1970. She returned to work at the school, in different capacities, in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2003, she moved to Springfield and worked in the order's finance office.
Visitation and a funeral mass will be conducted Tuesday afternoon at Sacred Heart Convent in Springfield.
Rosary was founded in 1962. It is a Catholic college-preparatory school.
It began with Weigand and two other Dominican sisters teaching 43 girls in six classrooms at the former Holy Angels Catholic School in Aurora. None had ceilings, doorknobs or chalkboards. Only one had electricity.
In a letter read at the school's 50th-anniversary celebration, Weigand credited the first two graduating classes, of 1966 and 1967, and the early teachers for setting the bar high for the school.
"They developed our Rosary spirit, which continues today," she said, according to an account posted on the school's website.