Dominican sisters to leave Our Lady of the Elms in Akron

By Mark J. Price, Akron Beacon Journal

Nuns have lived at Our Lady of the Elms for a century. That will end this year. The Dominican Sisters of Peace will close the Akron motherhouse in 2024.

Deborah Farquhar Jones, president of Our Lady of the Elms School, announced the news Wednesday in a letter to the community.

The Catholic school is strong and will remain open, she emphasized, but the 18 remaining sisters will leave the Elms campus by December.

“Difficult as this moment is, we embrace this time of change as a moment of grace,” Jones noted. “We hope you join us in offering thoughts and prayers to the sisters during this time of transition.”

School board trustees voted this week to pursue the purchase of the motherhouse and the rest of the original Elms property. Jones said it is a sad time for the sisters who will be leaving their home, but it is an exciting time for the school.

The exact date of the closing is not known, but it will occur during the next nine months, Sister Carol Davis of the Dominican Sisters of Peace informed associates in a separate letter.

For some time, the Akron sisters have known that their living space is larger than what they need, she noted. The convent once housed nearly 80 nuns, but today only 16 sisters live in the motherhouse while two others reside in nearby Beda Hall.

When the Akron sisters learned of the impending closure, it was “a sad and grace-filled conversation,” Davis said.

“The timing of any closure is always difficult to determine and rarely optimal,” she wrote. “We are mindful of the energy and our capacity to accomplish the necessary transitions.”