The Winter 2026 edition of The Morning Star is a good time to recall the early days of the establishment of the St. Charles Mission School in 1891, in Pryor, Montana. It was March when the doors opened to 7 young boys, an auspicious beginning to say the least.

Mother M. St. Thomas gives this account of hers and the other missionaries who founded the school upon the request of Chief Plenty Coups who lived in Pryor.

“It was January, 1890, that we left St. Peter’s Mission, Montana, to go to St. Xavier’s Mission (est. 1887) on the Bighorn River and thence to a place called Pryor Creek some 50 miles to the west where we were to open St. Charles Mission School.”

Mode of travel was in two large sleighs pulled by teams of horses. Montana territory had just become a state in 1889, but it was, and remains, a vast, mostly empty land and in January a place where few people would dare to venture beyond established settlements. 

The group arrived at St. Xavier during a heavy snow storm and were forced to wait there three weeks due to the severity of the weather. Once the thawing began, the mud made going almost impossible. Both sleighs broke down extending the time on the trail. The next few days were frigid. The men slept on the ground and the nuns in the sleighs. Mother St. Thomas recalls: I was sleeping on the seat of the sleigh but toward midnight the cold became so intense I climbed into the baggage sleigh and lay down on the bundles with a dead pig for my pillow. Cold and stiff, I stood this until 4 a.m. When dawn appeared I made up my mind to walk along the crusted road reciting prayers and the Rosary.”

“As fast as my stiffness would permit, I walked until 6 a.m. Returning to the sleighs I found that I had been missed and the others were scanning for me.”

Mother St. Thomas continues her narrative. Travel never became easy but in a couple of days the Pryor Mountains were sighted and soon they arrived at the site where the school would be built.

It’s an amazing story of endurance, prayer and hardship. And if you are one of the students or former, be sure to visit Pryor and St. Charles Mission School. It’s only through the perseverance of the first missionaries and the Crow people that this school stands today, a testament to the faith of those first missionaries and your continued support of the children who attend the school presently.