O'CONNELL, ANTHONY, SISTER

Civil War nurse; b. Limerick, Ireland, Aug. 15, 1814; d. Cincinnati, Ohio, Dec. 8, 1897. Mary, the daughter of William and Catherine (Murphy) O'Connell, came to the United States as a child and attended the school conducted by the ursuline Sisters in Charlestown, Mass. Through William Tyler, a convert and priest, she became acquainted with Mother Elizabeth seton's foundation at Emmitsburg, Md., and joined the Sisters of Charity in 1835. Two years later, as Sister Anthony, she was sent to Cincinnati, Ohio, to care for orphans. During the next 17 years she was active in the administration of hospitals and homes for children, establishing St. John's Hotel for Invalids as the city's first modern medical institution. In 1852 she was one of the seven founders of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, and she served twice as procuratrix-general of the new congregation. In 1861, in response to a government appeal for nurses, Sister Anthony labored in Cincinnati and at various military hospitals. For her work she was praised as "the Florence Nightingale of America." After the war, her congregation was presented with Cincinnati's former Marine Hospital, which was renamed the Good Samaritan. In 1873 St. Joseph's Infant Home, the first hospital for unmarried mothers and abandoned infants in the area, was opened by the congregation. Until 1882 Sister Anthony was administrator of the Good Samaritan Hospital and also of St. Joseph's Home, where she died.

Bibliography: Archives, Sister of Charity, Mount St. Joseph, Ohio. e. r. jolly, Nuns of the Battlefield (Providence 1927). m. a. mccann, History of Mother Seton's Daughters, 3 v. (New York 1917–23).

[l. c. feiertag]