Biography
Eliza Healy was born into slavery in Macon, Georgia in 1846. Her biracial mother, Mary Eliza Clark, lived as a slave and domestic partner to her father, an Irish immigrant named Michael Morris Healy. Eliza was the youngest of 10 children born to this couple. Michael and Mary both died in 1850. At this time only three youngest children were living at home, the older children had all relocated to northern New York, possibly free - the Healy family dynamic is unknown. Eliza and her two siblings moved north to join them.
Though her father was Catholic, she was not baptized into the Catholic Church until 1851. She and her sister Josephine were educated in schools operated by the Congregation of Notre Dame in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Montreal. After completing her education in 1861 she moved first to her brother Eugene's home in Boston and then later to her brother James' home in Newton. James was an ordained Catholic priest and would later go on to become the first African-American bishop in the U.S. Eliza traveled with James to Europe and the Middle East. When the panic of 1873 destroyed his finances she decided to enter a religious order.
In 1874 Eliza Healy entered the Congregation of Notre Dame as a novitiate, pronouncing her vows in June of 1876. Throughout her early years as a nun, she taught in Montreal, Brockville, Ontario, and Sherbrook, Quebec. In 1895, following administrative roles in other convents and schools, she was appointed superior of a convent in Huntingdon, Quebec, the first African-American to hold this title. She held various leadership and teaching roles throughout Quebec before being assigned to the Villa Barlow in St. Albans, Vermont.
The Villa Barlow was a convent and Catholic school. Eliza Healy, now known as Sister Saint Mary Magdalene, served as Mother Superior and Headmistress of the institution, the first African-American to hold either of these roles in the United States. She stayed in St. Albans from 1903 to 1918 when church rules required her to move to another house. She saved the school from mounting debt and improved the curriculum and teaching methods. Health and hygiene of students was top priority for her tenure.
In 1918, per the church's fifteen-year limit on superiors' terms, she left St. Albans for Notre Dame Academy on Staten Island. After only eight months her health declined and she moved back to the mother house in Montreal where she died in 1919.Education
Congregation of Notre Dame, MontrealOccupation
Nun
Teacher
Administrator