Women Saying 'Yes' To God: A Century of Service
by Margaret McDonell, April 2005
Page 2
The Guild was aiding troubled families, providing clothes for those in need and holding fundraisers to help support its work. Its major fund raising effort, The Guild of Catholic Women Charity Ball, was inaugurated in 1917 and was the city’s first benefit ball. It continued until 1991, with the exception of several years during World Wars I and II.
In 1930 the Guild became aware of the needs of Mexican immigrants and established a chapel in a storefront on the West Side of Saint Paul so people could receive the sacraments and attend Mass in Spanish. Through the years, the Guild aided this mission and, in 1939, Our Lady of Guadalupe was incorporated as a parish in the Archdiocese.
Next door to 215 Marshall Avenue, a house was built in 1930 by the Guild to accommodate 48 young working women and it became known as Guild Hall. This property on Marshall Avenue was purchased as a site for the Saint Paul Technical College in 1964 and a new Guild Hall was built across the street at 286 Marshall Avenue. After providing housing for young working women for more that fifty-five years, it became apparent in the early 1970’s that supervised living quarters were no longer needed by liberated young women. Guild Hall for a few years housed low income elderly women.
Since 1974 the focus of The Guild of Catholic Women has been to help people with serious and persistent mental illness lead quality lives. With the closing of state institutions for the mentally ill, the Guild was asked by the State of Minnesota to fill another community need. Guild Hall became a professionally supervised home for more than eighty people from Ramsey County living with mental illness. Services were expanded with the purchase of a fourteen unit apartment building next door to Guild Hall. In 1983 three homes capable of housing five people each were purchased in South St. Paul as a residential facility for people from northern Dakota County living with mental illness.
