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About
The History of Glenmoor
Around the transition into the 19th Century, Father Brunner left his native Germany and migrated to America. His purpose was to establish his faith among the German people in Pennsylvania. The order was to be "The Society of the Precious Blood." Their descendants kept the Society alive and established Brunnerdale Seminary High School for boys preparing for Priesthood. They named the school in honor of Father Brunner.
The original site for the school was donated by two bachelor brothers by the name of Race, who owned the farm that surrounded the school. The classic Gothic building was built during the years 1930-1931 with the first class starting in late October of 1931. The building is approximately 167,000 square feet.
For those of you who remember the Depression, you can imagine how much an edifice of that magnitude meant to Stark County and Canton, Ohio. The building contains Belden Brick, East Canton Tile and Republic Steel, not to mention all of the labor force required to complete such a building.
Sometime shortly after the school was completed, bandits came through the area and seeing the building in the middle of a cornfield decided the brothers must have been wealthy to have built such a building. They tied the brothers up and burned their feet with hot lids taken from the old wood-burning stove. However, the brothers were able to convince their captors that they had merely donated the ground and were very poor farmers. (It is interesting to note that their life savings was hidden under the floorboards they were sitting on.) Following that experience, the two brothers came to the Priests and asked to be taken in and to live out their lives here in the school. The brothers willed the farm to the Society of the Precious Blood upon their death. Thus, the school came to own nearly 400 acres which was farmed to produce the food to feed the students and staff over the years. The students were here year around except for a two-week vacation sometime in the summer. All summer they were busy in the fields doing those chores necessary to feed them the next year. The former students who have come back to visit tell many tales about the various chores they performed while here in the seminary.
The Seminary's enrollment increased from the beginning until approximately 1968 when it reached a peak of about 400 boys in the four grades. It was during this era, that the Timken Foundation graciously supplied funds to build the finest gymnasium in Stark County for the boys. Earlier, the foundation had supplied funds to build an indoor swimming pool and diving area. These two areas have now been transformed into the Spa at Glenmoor.
The Seminary was almost completely self-sufficient until the last few years when enrollment dwindled, and not enough student help could be provided to keep it going. We know from the records that the last class to graduate in 1980 had 13 students and the class of 1979 only 5 were left.
A few of the Priest Brothers tried to keep going after the school closed by having retreats for various surrounding parishes, but that did not produce enough income to heat the building, so around 1985-86 the doors were closed, and it was put up for sale.
The Wolstein's purchased the 381 acres of land and building in 1989, which many considered to be one of the most desirable acquisitions in Stark County. After two years of renovations, the Spa portion of the club opened in December of 1991. On July 1, 1992 Jack Nicklaus took part in the gala celebration which opened the golf course. The Grand Opening of the Clubhouse in September of 1992 followed.