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    Margaret: Friend of Orphans
    Margaret: Friend of Orphans
    Margaret: Friend of Orphans
    Ebook186 pages1 hour

    Margaret: Friend of Orphans

    By Mary Lou Widmer

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    About this ebook

    A biography of Margaret Haughery, the beloved woman who went from a life of poverty to one of philanthropy and became known as the “Angel” of New Orleans.
     
    Margaret Haughery gave everything she ever had to the orphans and the poor. Despite being unable either to read or write, she possessed an incredible business acumen, which allowed her to donate—including what she bequeathed in her will—more than $500,000 throughout her life.
     
    What is perhaps even more astounding is that Margaret lost everyone she ever loved, yet she was still able to give so much love. As a child in the Maryland area, this Irish immigrant lost her parents and her baby sister when they died in a fever epidemic. She was separated from her brother in the aftermath, and he very well may have perished in the epidemic as well. Then, when she was a young wife and mother in New Orleans, her husband died of consumption. Soon afterward, her newborn daughter died in her sleep.
     
    Determined to not succumb to self-pity and depression, Margaret, strengthened by her Roman Catholic faith, dedicated the rest of her life to helping the orphans and the poor. Helping to support an orphanage, she first started a dairy to provide milk for the children. Then she went on to earn a small fortune from running a local bakery. This financial success allowed her to donate enormous monetary sums to charity. Still, her fiscal generosity was eclipsed by her spiritual gifts.
     
    This docunovel has dialogue added to enliven the text.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateOct 31, 1996
    ISBN9781455608430
    Margaret: Friend of Orphans

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      Book preview

      Margaret - Mary Lou Widmer

      1

      Margaret's Tragic Losses

      The baby girl wrapped her tiny fingers around Margaret's thumb, and Margaret's eyes filled with tears of joy. Her own beloved little infant. Her little Frances. She and Charles had decided on the name before he left for Ireland. And Margaret thanked God Charles had waited until his baby was born and he had seen her before embarking on his voyage.

      Sitting in her rocking chair, Margaret Gaffney Haughery, twenty-two years old, looked around the room she had fixed up for her baby. She had chosen yellow as the predominant color and painted the walls a soft butter shade, with white baseboards and window frames. On the white chest of drawers, Charles had painted tiny, yellow flowers. And from an inexpensive fabric, she had made flowered curtains that hung inside the shuttered windows.

      She had asked Charles if he was disappointed that the baby wasn't a boy, and the dear man had said he had always wanted a girl, but Margaret doubted that. All men wanted sons. Well, maybe next time.

      Her heart was squeezed by the cold fingers of fear. There might not be a next time. Charles was a very sick man, in truth, a dying man. He had been sick when they had married the previous year in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Baltimore, and she had known it then. Pallid and weak he was, with that incessant cough. And although he tried to hide it, she had seen him more than once cough so long and so hard that a droplet of blood was visible in his handkerchief. But loving him as she did, how could she say she wouldn't marry him because he was ill?

      The doctors in Baltimore had said he had weak lungs. They suggested that Charles and Margaret move to New Orleans, where the climate was warmer and more balmy. They said he might recover in New Orleans. Since they were both immigrants with no family to account to, they moved. But in the months since they had arrived, his health had not improved.

      Then a doctor in New Orleans suggested an ocean voyage for his health. Margaret had shrugged inwardly. It was the standard remedy: when all else failed, take an ocean voyage. She couldn't imagine how that would heal failing lungs, but Charles wanted to go. He longed to visit Ireland once more, to see the rolling green hills and the blue lakes of his home.

      So, although she was well along in her pregnancy, she had helped him plan for the trip. Charles waited until his baby was born before he left. He had looked more gaunt and pale to Margaret every day.

      And now he was gone, they all hoped on his way to recovery. She prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary for that. She pressed a kiss to the soft, white brow of her sleeping baby. Then getting up, she placed her in the bassinet Charles had made before he left. Margaret had sewn a white organdy skirt for the bassinet and threaded yellow ribbon through its eyelet ruffling. This had been her one concession to extravagance, for Margaret was a very plain person. But for baby Frances, she allowed a little fanciness. What a wonderful thing to have the little warm body to hold in her arms while Charles was gone!

      The weeks dragged on until Charles arrived in Ireland. He had his pastor write her pastor at once, as was the custom, and ask that the letter be forwarded to her. Father Mullon read her the letter, for Margaret could not read.

      Charles wrote nothing of his illness, only that the voyage had been long and tiring. But Margaret felt it in her heart. He was getting worse, and now, when he needed her most, they were on opposite sides of the ocean.

      She was sorry she had let him go. She loved Charles Haughery, the gentle, kind-hearted immigrant she had met in Baltimore, the man who had courted her and taken her for his bride. But she feared for his life and regretted their separation.

      At last the telegram came. Father Mullon knocked at her door, and when she saw his pained expression and the paper in his hand, he didn't have to tell her Charles had died. It had occurred not long after he had arrived in Ireland. There had been no way to save him. Charles had died of consumption, for which there was no cure.

      After the priest left, Margaret cried copious tears. She was overwhelmed with an all-consuming grief. Clutching the letter to her breast, she went tearfully to her baby's room and looked at the infant's pink cheeks. She placed her fingers in front of Frances's little mouth to be sure she was breathing. But Margaret cried herself to sleep that night, and many nights thereafter, while she prayed that God would give her the courage to bear this heartache.

      Several weeks later, she walked to Frances's bassinet in the early hours of the morning. Frances had not cried to be fed as she usually did around 2 a.m. Margaret knew an unnatural fear as she approached the little bassinet. With trepidation, she lifted the child in her arms and, at once, let out a keening, anguished cry. The child was cold, lifeless. Margaret put the baby on her bed and tried to massage her little wrists. She pressed her lips to the baby's mouth and blew in her own warm breath. But the infant did not stir. Death had taken her in her sleep, and she was gone now, cold and white, her lips blue.

      Margaret took the child in her arms and wept until there were no tears left in her body. She sat in her rocking chair and rocked faster and faster while she held the dead infant in her arms. She weeped and keened and sang lullabies like a mad woman. This could not be happening to her. She couldn't be losing her baby, too. She couldn't be left all alone, again. The years stretched before her like a vast desert, where there was no life, no joy, nothing to look forward to—only loneliness and grief.

      At last, emptied of strength, she put the baby on her bed. She dressed herself in a calico dress, put on her Quaker bonnet and her shawl, and wrapped her baby in a soft cotton blanket. She left her house and walked to St. Patrick's Church to tell Father Mullon that Frances had died. She needed his help with funeral arrangements.

      2

      Her Past As an Orphan

      Margaret placed the flowers she'd picked from her garden in front of the tiny white marker of Frances's grave. At least she had a burial place for her baby that she could visit. Her husband's grave was an ocean away.

      Margaret found it hard to look at the marker. It told in months how briefly little Frances had been with her. She had made up her mind not to cry any more. She had to get on with her life.

      Father Mullon had come with her to the cemetery. He knelt beside her and led her in a brief prayer to the Virgin Mary. Then, with his hand beneath her elbow, he helped her to her feet. They walked a few steps and then sat on a white wrought-iron bench in the shade of an oak tree.

      So, what are you going to do with yourself now, Margaret? the priest asked.

      I don't know, Margaret said wearily. Get a job, I s'pose. What little money Charles left me is gone.

      I read an advertisement for a laundress at the St. Charles Hotel in the morning paper. Would you consider that?

      Margaret shrugged. Sure, I guess so. Why not? I've got t' do somethin'. I have no skills a-tall. I can't read nor write.

      You may have skills you haven't even dreamed of.

      Margaret looked at the handsome priest in surprise. Why would you think that?

      "I don't know. You're quick-witted and bright-eyed and a good talker. You don't know what you're capable of. Just because you've never been taught to read and write doesn't mean you can't, and it doesn't mean you aren't intelligent. Maybe you're good at something you haven't tried yet."

      Like what? she asked.

      Father Mullon chuckled. "I like your curiosity and your forthrightness, Margaret. Let me ask you a question. What would you like to do if you had a choice?"

      She gazed into space and sighed. Hold a babe in me arms. Her eyes filled and she blinked the tears away. Oh, don't worry, Father. I'm not goin' t' go on feelin' sorry for meself. I'm no stranger to death, you know. Nor to bein' alone in the world.

      Tell me about it.

      Me parents and me baby sister died in a fever epidemic in Baltimore in 1822 when I was only nine. Me father died in September, me mother in October, she said dreamily, gazing into space. And then me baby sister Kathleen died, and I was all alone.

      She looked into the priest's kindly, dark eyes. He waited, knowing she would say more. Me parents had brought their three youngest children with them to America when I was five. They left me three older sisters and brothers in Ireland with an uncle. They planned to send for them when they'd saved the passage money. Me father worked four years, savin' every penny he could t' bring 'em over. She shook her head. But he never lived t' do that. Those sisters and brothers are grown up and married now, I guess, and probably wouldn't want t' come here even if I knew where t' find 'em.

      Did you ever try to get in touch with them?

      She shook her head. I can't write, Father. Remember? She smiled wanly.

      I'd write a letter for you.

      Sure an' I'd thank you. But I can't think about it now.

      Why did your father want to come to America?

      She shrugged. Then suddenly, the corners of her lips turned up in a smile. Me father alweez said he was an 'uncompromisin' foe of Saxon rule.' She said this in a deep, stern voice, imitating him, and she raised a finger to make her point.

      Father Mullon laughed softly. Margaret was brighter than she knew. "And

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