Mother Mary Amadeus of the Heart of Jesus explained

Religion:Roman Catholic
Mary Amadeus of the Heart of Jesus
Honorific Prefix:Mother
Birth Date:2 July 1846
Birth Place:Akron, Ohio
Death Place:Seattle, Washington

Mother Mary Amadeus of the Heart of Jesus (1846–1919) was an American Roman Catholic nun, and founder of the Ursuline Missions of Montana and Alaska.

Youth and entry into religious life

She was born Sarah Therese Dunne on Courthouse Hill, Akron, Ohio, July 2, 1846.[1] Her parents were Eleanor and John Dunne, and they were both born in Ireland.[2] One of her four siblings was the Arizona Territory Supreme Court Justice Edmund Francis Dunne. She made her first holy communion at the young age of eight.[1] At age 10 she entered the school of the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland.

Work in the missions

She is the founder of the Ursuline missions in Montana and Alaska.[3] In 1884 the founding Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena, Montana, Jean-Baptiste Brondel, invited the Ursulines to work with the Jesuits at St. Peter's Mission Church, and Mother Mary Amadeus came with five Ursulines she had chosen. They founded a boarding school for girls that was open to both settler and native American children. When she became ill in 1885, she was cared for by "Stagecoach Mary" Fields.[4]

Later life and death

She died after a long illness at the Novitiate House of her community in Seattle, Washington, on November 10, 1919.[5]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Code, Rev. Joseph B. . Great American Foundresses . Macmillan . 1929 . New York . 437.
  2. State of Washington, US, Death Records for Sarah Theresa Dunne, Record #2913, November 10, 1919.
  3. Web site: Collective Biographies of Women . November 22, 2024 . cbw.iath.virginia.edu.
  4. Web site: November 13, 2024 . The Tale of "Stagecoach Mary" and the Nun Who Gave Her a Start: Mother Mary Amadeus Dunne . November 22, 2024 . Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception . en-US.
  5. "Ut Omnes Unum Sint: A Message from Mother Mary Amadeus," The Lamp, 15 October 1919, Vol. 17, Issue 10, page 595.