Mother Margaret Mary Healy Murphy
Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Born in Cahersiveen, County Kerry, Ireland, on May 4, 1833, Margaret Mary Healy immigrated to the United States in 1845 with her physician father, Richard Healy. After staying with her brothers, uncles and aunts, they made their way to Matamoros by way of New Orleans. Her father passed away upon reaching New Orleans. In Matamoros, the family owned and operated a hotel. During this time, Margaret met and married John Bernard Murphy in 1849. The couple moved to Corpus Christi, where Murphy studied law, began his political career and later became mayor (1880 - 1884). Through the years, Margaret Mary helped the sick during the yellow fever epidemic and later opened three separate hospitals. The couple helped bring the Sisters of St. Mary Namur from New York to Texas where the sisters opened the state's first Catholic boarding school. After John Bernard's death in 1884, Margaret Mary purchased Echo Ranch from her brother-in-law, Patrick Murphy, and esrablished St. Stephen Chapel to serve the local population. She then moved to San Antonio where in 1888 she built a free school and St. Peter Claver Church for African Americans. To help find enough teachers to support the school, Margaret Mary decided to start her own congregation of sisters formed in the religious life with the Sisters of St. Mary Namur. She became mother superior for the Sisters of the Holy Ghost, now known as Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate. She recruited young women from Ireland to become members of the congregation. After spending her life healing people and educating the poor, Margaret Mary died on August 25, 2907, and is buried along with her husband, John Bernard Murphy, in Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery. (2018)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in County Kerry, Ireland, in 1833, Margaret Mary Healy immigrated to America in 1845 and eventually settled in Texas, where she married future Corpus Christi mayor John Bernard Murphy. She nursed the sick through yellow fever epidemics, opened hospitals, and helped bring teaching sisters to found the state's first Catholic boarding school. In San Antonio she built a free school and St. Peter Claver Church for African Americans, and founded her own religious congregation — today the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate — recruiting young women from Ireland to teach.
Why it matters
A pioneering woman religious, she devoted her life to educating the poor and African Americans in the segregated South, founding institutions that endured well beyond her lifetime.
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Related people
- · Margaret Mary Healy Murphy
- · John Bernard Murphy
Themes & tags
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