The bright color of Barn Red connects to the little red wagon that is significant in the life of Julia Guild, selected saint for Gallavan House.

St. John Bosco
Blessed Julia Guild

The open hands holding a heart reflect the giving hands of Service, done with love. The background of the Gallavan House shield reflects the house color.

In fall of 2021, the inaugural year of the St. Mary's houses, students were asked to design house shields. Those students designs were collected, common themes were identified, and those themes were used by a graphic designer to create a shield for each house.

The shape of the shield was taken from the St. Mary's crest and each House shield was required to include the cross, also found in the St. Mary's crest.

Gallavan House is named for Sister Columba Gallavan. Sister Gallavan was one of three Sisters of Loretto who relocated to Colorado Springs from Denver in the summer of 1885 to found Loretto Academy, which would become St. Mary's High School.

Three nuns, namely Sister Gallavan and Sisters Walburga O'Sullivan and Jovita Mills, rented a house at 425 North Tejon, then known as the Clark House, and opened Loretto Academy on September 7, 1885. Sister Gallavan's time in Colorado Springs was short. In 1886, she returned to Denver in failing health.

With its origins as an all-girls school and all nuns filling the roles of teachers, St. Mary's has grown and changed throughout its history. In the 1960s and 1970s, faculty in Catholic education transitioned from those in the priesthood and sisterhood to lay teachers. By 1980 there were only two nuns on staff at St. Mary’s. As if completing the circle that started in 1885 with Sister Gallavan, the last nun to leave St. Mary's was Sister Gladys Ann Givan, the grandniece of Sister Gallavan, in 1985, exactly 100 years after the school began.

Although Sister Columba Gallavan's time at St. Mary's was brief, her impact on Catholic education in Colorado Springs and surrounding areas is long-lasting. To honor her contribution, she was chosen as one of our House namesakes.

Service is at the heart of the mission of the Sisters of Loretto. As the first wholly American sisterhood, the Sisters of Loretto were the first frontier order of nuns.  Established in 1812 in Kentucky, their influence in the southwest led them to Colorado. In 1855, traveling by wagon train, a missionary priest by the name of Father Machebeuf escorted members of the sisterhood to Denver. Therefore, it is fitting that the emphasis of Gallavan House is Service.