Colégio Metodista Izabela Hendrix, Belo Horizonte

I've been reading about this amazing school in Belo Horizonte (BH) all night. Haltingly in Portuguese but also, thankfully, in English. It was founded by Methodist missionary Martha Watts in 1904 serving as a primary school for girls. Martha had previously set up Methodist schools in São Paulo, Porto Alegre and Juiz de Fora. Her mission was to establish a school for Brazilian women with the help of resources of American women. It appears that that the school was named after Isabella Hendrix who along with husband Adam Hendrix was involved with founding of the Central Methodist College in Fayette, Missouri in the 1840s.

In 1929 the school bought some land on the rua da Bahia to establish the Praça da Liberdade campus. It was designed by architect Raffaello Berti and having been approved in November 1937, the new college was inaugurated in 1939. That's where I took these photos. In 1941, approval was given for a theatre to be built on the site of the casa da chácara (the house where the previous owners of the land had lived. The school had been using the house up until that time. It was designed by Luís Pinto Coelho and sitting alongside the main college building it appears to be a single contiguous design.

Today, the college forms part of the Centro Universitário Metodista Izabela Hendrix with a second campus, Venda Nova Campus, in Avenida Dr. Álvaro Camargos also in BH.

References:
Nossa História, Colégio Metodista Izabela Hendrix
History, International Affairs, Instituto Metodista Izabela Hendrix
Central Methodist College Campus Historic District, Fayette, Missouri Nomination Form, US Register of Historic Places Inventory
História, Museu do Izabela Hendrix