St. Cecilia’s day
Don’t ever let it be said we have never played a show at a convent.
Today is St Cecilia’s day (patron saint of western music). There is a giant convent on a hill (off of 8th / Metro Center) overlooking Nashville that was built in 1861. The photo above is from March 6, 1906.
It was built at night-time by a group of Nuns from Ohio, who wanted to start a school. Apparently they built during the night so as not to offend the local neighborhood, who would have though it inappropriate for a bunch of women to be doing construction work.
At several different times during the civil war, ‘skirmishes’ between confederate and union soldiers started on their land. Each time they did, the nuns would run out (in in full habits) between the two sides pointing guns and tell the soldiers to take their fight somewhere else. They also gave food to soldiers of both sides throughout the war. (These details I got from one of the nuns at the motherhouse.)
In the 1930’s Timshel’s grandmother went to high school here, and almost became a nun herself.
