Digital Archive
Mary Ann Murphy, Academy and Convent of the Visitation, Cass Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri, to her cousin, Richard Lalor, Tinakill, Queen's County, 6-15 December 1883
Luaigh an doiciméad seo Amharcóir IIIF
Bailiúchán Lalor Letters
Title Mary Ann Murphy, Academy and Convent of the Visitation, Cass Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri, to her cousin, Richard Lalor, Tinakill, Queen's County, 6-15 December 1883
Description This is the writer's first letter to Ireland in many years. She reminds cousin Richard that she left Ireland with Richard's uncle, William Dillon and his family, when she was quite young. Her own father died c.1871, but it's not clear whether he died in Ireland or in the US. She is a spinster and a boarder, not a nun, at the Academy and Convent of the Visitation Sisters. She is a governess or nurse, taking care of the four youngest daughters of a "General Frost," who is widowed. Frost appears to be an English aristocrat, whose elder children are wealthy and married into wealthy and/or titled families in England or Texas. [Frost is likely to be Daniel M. Frost, a former United States Army officer, who became a brigadier general in the Missouri Volunteer Militia (MVM) and the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War]. Murphy's only family correspondent has been Catherine Dillon, a single woman who lives in San Jose, California. Murphy writes endearingly of Ireland and her memories of it, and is proud to read of Richard Lalor's "patriotism" on Ireland's behalf. However, she is far more "Catholic" than her uncles Richard and William, and her main reason for writing is to request information about Alice Lalor, the daughter of Denis and Catherine Lalor of Queen's County and Kilkenny city. Alice Lalor emigrated to America in 1784 with her sister, who was married to Michael Doran, a merchant in Philadelphia. As Mother Josephine Teresa, and under the patronage of Archbishop Leonard Neale, she founded the Visitation Order of Sisters in the United States and was head of the Order's first house, in Georgetown, D.C., until she died on 9 September 1846, aged about 70. The Order now had a total of twenty houses, including the one in St. Louis.
Date 15/12/1883
Date Issued 27/03/2023
Cineál Acmhainne Text
Archival Record Id p155/1/2
Publisher University of Galway
Extent 3pp
Topic Lalor Letters
Geographic St. Louis (city),Missouri,United States,Tinnakill (townland),Laois (county),Ireland
Temporal Nineteenth century,Eighteen eighties
Genre Reproduction
Note Title and description by Professor Kerby Miller. No typed transcript pages available.
Creator / Author Name Mary Ann Murphy