Sacred Heart Schools traces its heritage back 197 years to France when Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat founded the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1800. Her good friend St. Rose Philippine Duchesne brought the Society to North America in 1818, settling in St. Louis and New Orleans, and eventually reaching her beloved Pottowatomi Indians in the Kansas area. The Religious came to Menlo Park in 1898 and founded a boarding school on 40 acres of land purchased from the Atherton family. Mother Jane Fox was the superior at the time, and the first graduate, Eleanor Deming, herself entered and became a much-loved superior in the 40's, 50's and early 60's