Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/147

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH SCHOOLS 129 would be wise to have a new site ready. This was known as Willalatin Park and was valued at $8,500 although it was appraised at much less than this later and has never been used. In 1912 the total assets of the school were given at $235,614.45, of which $200,000 represented the St. Helen's Hall building and grounds. In the summer of 1914 the building was destroyed by fire. The sum of $22,750.15 was collected as insurance and the next year the net worth of the institution was given as $197,548.28 . The gymnasium building was reconstructed and used as a temporary home for the school, and the old Bishopcroft, at Twentieth and Everett Streets, was acquired as a residence for the Sisters and a few boarding pupils. The next year a frame building was erected on the site of the old St. Helen's Hall and devoted to a kindergarten, which was temporarily re- established, and to a kindergarten teachers' training school. The former residence of the Bishop and the two buildings adjoining it were remodeled for the temporary residence of the Sisters and the boarding pupils. In 1916 a chapel was built with funds contributed by the Sisters for that purpose, thus helping to relieve the pressure for room as well as to emphasize more potently the religious side of the institution. In the meantime the board con- sidered new sites for the school and in 1918 determined to lease the property of the old Portland Academy at Thirteenth and Montgomery, the Sisters having volun- teered to meet the expense of alterations to the building. The Academic department was accordingly moved to that building in the fall of that year This venture proved temporarily successful, but the uncertainty of the tenure and the inadequate accommodation for the increased number of pupils were causes of dissatisfaction. These conditions became so aggravated that the Sisters seriously contemplated the severance of their connection with the supervision of the schools. As this would probably have meant closing the school, the board made renewed efforts to purchase the building, which they succeeded in doing «•