Founder’s Lecture for Wilson Folklore Archives

On January 25, 2018 the annual Founder’s Lecture sponsored by The William A. Wilson Folklore Archives and The Charles Redd Center for Western Studies was held. Lisa Gabbert a professor from Utah State University gave a presentation on Infanticide at St Ann’s Retreat up Logan Canyon. The Retreat originally started as a private series of homes.  As time went by it was sold eventually making it in to the possession of a Utah diocese. The nuns primarily came to rest. Eventually rumors started of the nuns becoming pregnant by the monks. When their children were born, supposedly the nuns drowned them in the swimming pool where it was possible to hear the little babies crying. In the last part of the 20th century some young people broke into the retreat and were taken captive by a group that was trying to protect St. Ann’s.  The group was put into the empty swimming pool and attached to each other in a way that every time they moved was painful. The police came and tried to make sense of the situation. Eventually the “protectors” spent time in jail for their treatment of their captives.

Today the retreat is covered by barbed wire and there is a Facebook page with photos of people trying to get into the retreat and asking if anyone knew the identities of those in the picture.

We have St. Ann’s stories in our archive if you are interested in reading more.

Please plan to come participate in next year’s January lecture.