Remembering Girls' Town of America, Cincinnati, Ohio

By 1870, the inner city location around the Convent of the Good Shepherd had become highly industrialized and crowded.  The Sisters sought a country refuge where they and their charges could escape these urban conditions, and in 1871, bought a small farm east of Carthage, outside the Cincinnati city limits.  The convent and school established there eventually took the place of the Bank Street location, and was known as Our Lady of the Woods.

"Through the munificence of loyal benefactors such as R.R. Springer, S.S. Boyle, James Walsh, Chas. West and others, Mother Mary of St. Joseph was enabled not only to build a handsome Chapel on Bank St, but to purchase a beautiful farm at Carthage, Ohio, and erect substantial brick buildings on the same...As the city grew and the Convent at Bank Street became overcrowded, it was thought best to remove the Novitiate to Carthage, the Colored children following shortly afterward. In a few years more the Magdalens also moved to the country, with its delightful air and peaceful quiet, which proved a real God-send to all. The Carthage Convent was called "Our Lady of the Woods," a fitting title to a place with such splendid surroundings."  (source: Treman, L. A., "For Fifty Years the Sisters of the Good Shepherd Have Been Laboring in Cincinnati in the Noblest of Charities," Catholic Telegraph,  Feb. 21, 1907,  p. 1)