The Mission Years
The verdant, rolling foothills of the Ozark Mountains in the western reaches of Arkansas' capital city provide a picturesque setting for the Catholic parish of Our Lady of the Holy Souls (in Purgatory), a community that has developed from a small mission of Little Rock's downtown Cathedral of St. Andrew.

It was in the 1920's, as automobiles made the city's remote hills more accessible, that population began increasing in Pulaski Heights.  Many Catholics from the Arkansas River valley of central and eastern Little Rock joined the migration, and their spiritual needs were the responsibility of priests assigned to the Cathedral parish.

By 1926, the necessity of traveling five miles by trolley car, by automobile or afoot to assist at Mass at the Cathedral on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation was prompting frequent calls for establishment of a Catholic mission in the Heights, and the third Bishop of Little Rock, The Most Rev. John B. Morris, D.D., responded, directing his Cathedral rector, The Rev. (later Monsignor) James P. Moran, to oversee the purchase of property needed for that purpose.

This would not be the first Catholic incursion into Pulaski Heights.  In earlier years of the century, Bishop Morris bought several substantial tracts of land there.  One of these, on a plateau overlooking the Arkansas River, off the end of Kavanaugh Boulevard trolley car line, was the site of Little Rock College, later St. John's Home Missions Seminary where students for the priesthood were trained for American home mission dioceses, like Little Rock.  Another large tract had been deeded by the diocese to the Religious Sisters of Mercy and became the home of Mount St. Mary Academy, a boarding and day school for Catholic girls.  This plot on Kavanaugh Boulevard was a mile east of the seminary and only two blocks removed from the site Father Moran chose for the proposed Cathedral Mission.

In October 1926, construction began on a small, Spanish-mission style chapel with a 30-foot bell tower on the south side of "I" Street, two blocks wet of Kavanaugh Boulevard trolley car line.  The striking hollow tile and stucco edifice immediately became another Catholic landmark in the Heights.

Bishop Morris chose to make the new mission a memorial to his lifelong devotion to the Holy Souls in Purgatory and to the Blessed Virgin Mary and he named it Our Lady of the Holy Souls (in Purgatory).  Thus, the Pulaski Heights mission became the first Catholic community so named in the United States.

From the day of its solemn dedication -- Sunday, January 1, 1927 -- the two hundred seat chapel -- seventy-five feet long and thirty-five feet wide -- was the focal point of Catholic devotions and activities in the Heights.

On weekdays, the chapel became Holy Souls School, which initially consisted only of the first four elementary grades.  These were taught by two Olivetan Benedictine Sisters form Holy Angels Convent in Jonesboro, Arkansas.  Six of the school's forty pupils made their First Holy Communion in May 1927.  To accommodate the four grades, an old khaki army curtain was stretched down the center aisle so two grades could be taught on each side.  Wheeled blackboards were used and pupils sat on folding chairs with their feed on kneelers used at Sunday Masses.  Desks were wide planks, each cut to accommodate six pupils.  For plays and other school assemblies, a curtain was drawn in front of the altar and tabernacle and the raised sanctuary became a stage.

For the first year-and-a-half, the two teaching Sisters lived in Byrne Hall at Little Rock College and they commuted to and from school by trolley car.

As the school's second academic year began, twenty-five mothers met on October 6, 1928 and organized a Parent-Teacher Organization.

In the 1929-1930 school year, the teaching Sisters moved to St. Andrew's Cathedral School on East Sixth Street in downtown Little Rock and commuted across town to Holy Souls by trolley car when no parishioner was available to chauffeur them.

Father Moran, as rector of the Cathedral, was the first pastor of the Holy Souls mission, though in the early years, under his administration, the pastoral ministry fell to a total of 13 priests assigned to the Cathedral as assistant rectors.

Improvements were made to the mission chapel and its grounds and, within four years, the fifth through eighth grades were added with these classes meeting in a room behind the chapel sanctuary and another room directly above.

In the early 1930s, after Monsignor Francis A. Allen had succeeded to the Cathedral rectorship following the death of Monsignor Moran, construction was begun on a small brick school building, behind he chapel, facing Tyler Street.  Terraced playgrounds were constructed down the hill in the block owned by the parish, bounded by Tyler, "H", Polk and "I" Streets.  (The property was purchased when Monsignor Moran chose the mission's location.)

Within two years, as the Catholic population grew, the new school was operating above its practical capacity and Monsignor Allen added three classrooms, and auditorium that double as a cafeteria, a kitchen and an office.  The addition had a brick facade to match the original school.

The interior of the chapel also was renovated during this period.  A new liturgical altar and drapes enriched its appearance and the addition of a choir loft over the main entrance did much to boost interest in liturgical music.

(From its beginning, the mission boasted of a children's choir.  After its erection as a parish in 1947, a fine mixed-voice adult choir was organized.  For 47 years, the principal organist and frequent choir director, was Mr. Earl Kelone.  He had a singular devotion to traditional church music, especially that derived from Gregorian Chant.)

Sixty-one men of the mission organized a Men's Club in February 1944.  Its first president was Mr. Edward L. Wright, a prominent Little Rock attorney (later a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher.)  The Men's Club quickly became a mainstay of numerous mission activities and fund-raising projects.

Bishop Morris blessed the enlarged school September 9, 1945.  Two years later, a frame two-room kindergarten building was constructed on the west side of Tyler Street facing the elementary school.