HUGHES, ANGELA, MOTHER

Social worker, administrator; b. Annaloghan, County Tyrone, Ireland, c. 1806; d. New York City, Sept. 5,1866. Ellen was the daughter of Patrick and Margaret (McKenna) Hughes. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1818 and lived with her family at Chambersburg, Pa. She attended St. Joseph Academy (now College), Emmitsburg, Md., where she entered the Sisters of Charity in 1825, receiving the name of Sister Mary Angela; she pronounced her vows in 1828. Between 1837 and 1846, she served in asylums for children in St. Louis, Mo.; Utica, N.Y.; and New York City.

Then in December 1846, at the first election of the New York community since it had separated from the Sisters of Charity at Emmitsburg, she was elected assistant to Mother General Elizabeth Boyle. In 1849 Sister Mary Angela founded the New York community's first mission and New York City's first Catholic hospital, St. Vincent's. In 1855 she was elected mother general. A year later she bought the Font Hill estate on the Hudson River and in 1859 the motherhouse was moved to this site from McGown's Pass (present Fifth Avenue and 107th Street), New York City. In the same year two branches of her community were established with independent motherhouses at Mt. St. Vincent, Halifax, Nova Scotia; and at Newark, N.J. During her two terms as general, 15 schools and convents were opened also. In 1861 Mother Angela returned to New York City as superior of St. Vincent's Hospital, where she died two years after the death of her brother, Abp. John J. Hughes, of New York.

Bibliography: m. a. mccann, History of Mother Seton's Daughters, 3 v. (New York 1917–23). m. de l. walsh, The Sisters of Charity of New York, 1809–1959, 3 v. (New York 1960).

[m. l. fell]