Villa Academy fetes its 100th year

	Photographs from the 1880s of Mother Cabrini are shown to the Rev. John F.X. Smith, the homilist at yesterday's Mass.
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Villa Academy, one of Seattle's oldest private schools, celebrated its 100th anniversary yesterday with a special Mass and reception.

The Catholic school was founded in 1903 on Beacon Hill by Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini and the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Originally an orphanage, the school relocated in 1914 to its site in Laurelhurst overlooking Lake Washington. It became Sacred Heart Villa Academy in 1951 and in 1977 the school became independent with the approval of the Archdiocese of Seattle.

The homilist at yesterday's Mass was the Rev. John F.X. Smith. The eyesight of his older brother, the late Rev. Peter Smith, was restored after a hospital accident just hours after his birth. That was one of two miracles attributed to Mother Cabrini when she was canonized as the first American saint in 1946.

Another attributed to St. Cabrini — an ailing nun who was healed after seeing a vision of Mother Cabrini — took place in what now is the academy's admissions office.

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