It was founded in 1859 by three sisters of the Benedictine congregation of Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Erie, Pennsylvania, who came to Covington to teach the German-speaking children of St. Joseph's parish.

Villa Madonna Academy, a private, Roman Catholic K-12 school is part of the sisters' ministry in Kentucky.

Besides operating the Academy, the sisters taught in parish schools and staffed St. John's Orphanage.

In 1852, Benedictine Mother Benedicta Riepp and two sisters left St. Walburga Abbey in Eichstätt, in the Kingdom of Bavaria to establish St. Joseph Monastery in Marienstadt in Elk County, Pennsylvania.

The community increased such that it not only became an independent congregation, but in 1859 established its own first daughter house in Covington, Kentucky.

[1] Benedictine Louis Mary Fink, a monk from the Monastery of Saint Vincent in Latrobe, and future bishop of Leavenworth, Kansas was pastor of St. Joseph's in Covington, Kentucky.

He requested sisters from Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Erie, Pennsylvania to come to Covington to teach the German-speaking students of the parish school.

[5] In 1903, the Sisters of St. Benedict of St. Walburg's Monastery purchased the eighty-six acre W.C. Collins farm and residence about nine miles from Covington.

Sr. Andrea Collopy served for ten years as a volunteer EMT with the Crescent Springs Fire Department.

In 1921, the Sisters opened Villa Madonna College as a Normal school at Villa Madonna property; in 1929 it became a diocesan teachers college, sharing administration and instruction with the Sisters of Notre Dame, and the Congregation of Divine Providence, and moved to the St. Walburg Academy property in Covington as it was centrally located and on the streetcar line.

During World War II, students served as members of the military, knitting clothing for the troops, and collecting milkweed pods used in making life jackets.