NORMANDY, Mo. (AP) — Last year Sister Pauline Bilbrough first heard the news: The convent was going to have to close.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the Immaculate Heart Convent sits on 10 acres that's been owned by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd since 1874.

The order's property in Normandy is where, in the early 1880s, Sister Mary Jerome was so upset over poor mail service that she passed herself off as a man and worked as Normandy's postmaster in disguise. It's where the sisters have run homes for troubled children, helped women with addiction and cared for the sick who had nowh...