Mary Aloysia Hardey
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Mary Aloysia Hardey (b. at Piscataway, Maryland, 1809; d. at Paris, France, 17 June 1886) was an American nun of the Society of the Sacred Heart. She established all the convents of her order, up to the year 1883, in the eastern part of the United States, Canada, and Cuba.
[edit] Life
Both her parents (Frederick Hardey, Sarah Spalding) were descended from old Maryland Catholic families. They moved to Louisiana, and she became (1822) one of the first pupils of the Sacred Heart, Grand Coteau. She entered the order in 1820 and was appointed (1835) as superioress of St. Michael.
Bishop Dubois having invited the society to New York, Mothers Calitzin and Hardey opened in Houston Street the first Eastern convent, later located in Aqueduct Avenue. A visit to Rome, the benediction of Pope Gregory XVI, and a sojourn with Mother Barat in France, prepared Mother Hardey for her future work. The list of thirty convents, of which some are now closed, represents the work of more than forty years (from New York, 1841, to Atlantic City, 1883): Albany (New York), Astoria (New York), Atlantic City (New Jersey), Boston (Massachusetts), Buffalo (New York), Cincinnati (Ohio), Clifton (Cincinnati, Ohio), Detroit (Michigan), Eden Hall (Torresdale, Pennsylvania), Elmhurst (Rhode Island), Grosse Pointe (Michigan), Halifax (Nova Scotia), Havana (Cuba), Kenwood (Albany, New York), London (Ontario), Montreal (Quebec), McSherrystown (Pennsylvania), Manhattanville (New York), New York City (Aqueduct Avenue, and Madison Avenue), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Providence (Rhode Island), Rochester (New York), Rosecroft (Maryland), Sancti Spiritus (Cuba), Sandwich (Ontario), Sault-au-Recollet (Montreal), Saint Jacques (Quebec), St. John (New Brunswick), St Vincent (Quebec).
She made ten voyages to Europe, five to Cuba, and constant journeyings as mother provincial or visitatrix. Her main concern was not the erection of convents but the formation of fervent religious as consecrated teachers. During the American Civil War, with Northern leaders, her influence was exerted on behalf of Southern convents and she herself, passing through contending armies, brought aid to the southwestern houses. Benefactions went to Cuban homes, 1860-70; to Chicago, after its great fire; to France, 1870-71; to the South, when ravaged with fever.
She provided twenty-five free schools in the States and Canada. Kenwood, Albany, became her residence and the novices' home in 1866 when she erected the buildings which lated contained the general novitiate for North America.
In 1871 she was appointed assistant general, an office requiring residence in the mother-house, Paris. She inspected first, as visitatrix, all convents of the order in the United States and Canada and embarked for Europe in 1872. She aided the superiors-general in visitations and foundations of French and Spanish convents, still supervising those of America. She came back to America on her official visits in 1874, 1878, 1882. In 1884 she returned to Paris as member of the general council. A severe illness struck her down in 1885.
She was buried in Conflans crypt, the tomb of the general administrators; on 12 December, 1900, she was interred at Kenwood, Albany.
[edit] References
- Dufour, Vie de la Reverende Mere Aloysia Hardey (Paris, 1890)
This article incorporates text from the entry Mary Aloysia Hardey in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
