Many promenient Chicagoans
(both Catholic and non) sent their daughters to the school as the parish it was affiliated with grew to five thousand students,
which was the largest in the world, according to a written account in a 1953 dissertation about Chicago parochial schools
by Sr. Mary Innocenta Montay. But another immigration wave came thru Chicago and the Midwest around 1890. Those that had been settled around the school moved away to other locations, while
the immigrants who bought their homes did not send their daughters to Sacred Heart.
As a result, enrollment had
declined to 22 students that the order decided to move their campus to Lake Forest
in 1904, where they experienced another increase of students to 100 before long. By then, the school was beginning to offer
junior college courses, which in turn helped spur the birth of Barat
College in 1918. The name Barat comes from the founder of the Society
of the Sacred Heart order, Sr. Madeleine Sophie Barat. That school closed its doors in 2005, despite having been taken
over by DePaul University
three years prior.
Sacred Heart graduated its
last high school-aged student in 1961 and was renamed Woodlands
Academy of the Sacred Heart. That school continues to carry on the traditions
that Sacred Heart started close to 150 years ago.
