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Margaret Mary Healy was born on May 4, 1833, in County Kerry, Ireland, eldest of four children. Her father was a physician who helped the poor in the region. Her mother was a homemaker who died when Margaret Mary was five.
When she was twelve, her father took her and her two brothers to live in the United States, first to West Virginia where some of her relatives had a large farm. Margaret Mary’s sister Jeannie stayed in Europe to continue her education there. In West Virginia, she went to school and was active in her parish church. She also taught reading and writing to Black workers in the area. Little did she know that this would become her life’s work one day.
In time, Dr. Healy decided to move the family to Texas, but he died on the trip. Margaret Mary and her aunts, uncles, and two brothers continued their journey Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. There, Margaret Mary helped her aunts run a hotel from 1846-1850. In time, her brothers and an uncle moved to California, hoping to strike it rich in the gold rush. She never saw them again.
While in Matamoros, Margaret Mary met John Bernard Murphy, a volunteer in General Zachary Taylor’s army. The two got married in the Matamoros cathedral on May 4, 1849, and in 1850, they moved to Corpus Christi, Texas where John had a ranch. There, John worked as a lawyer and eventually served as mayor of the city from 1880-1884.
After the Civil War, hard times came to Texas. Margaret Mary ran a soup kitchen from her home and had a small clinic, and the couple adopted a Hispanic girl. When a yellow fever outbreak came to the area, Margaret Mary helped nurse the sick, and she and John adopted a second girl whose mother died from the fever. Later, the couple adopted a third girl and sent them away to a boarding school so they could get a Catholic education.
John and Margaret Mary saw the need for Catholic teachers in Texas, so they enlisted the help of the bishop. He sent three Sisters of Mary to the help them; one of the sisters was Margaret Mary’s own blood sister, Jeannie Healy.
When hurricanes struck the area in 1875, Margaret Mary set up shelters for the poor that welcomed all children: Anglos, Mexicans, and Blacks. People began calling the shelters, “Mrs. Murphy’s Hospital for the Poor.” Because of racial and ethnic prejudice of the day, Margaret Mary encountered many obstacles, but this did not deter her.
In 1884, Margaret Mary went to Temple to teach Black children, but when that was unsuccessful, she moved to San Antonio.
On May 29, 1887, Margaret Mary heard a sermon by the priest at St. Mary’s Church in San Antonio. He encouraged the people to found schools to teach Black children, because they were ignored after emancipation occurred. Margaret Mary said this sermon was how the Holy Spirit spoke to her to devote her life to helping Black and Mexican children. She said, “This will be my work someday; it is the great need of this time. The Holy Spirit has helped me to make this decision.”
In 1887, with the bishop’s enthusiastic approval, Margaret Mary began her life’s work despite the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups’ opposition to Blacks, Catholics, and Mexicans. Her first school was named St. Peter Claver Colored Mission, the first Catholic school for Black children in San Antonio.
Soon, Margaret Mary realized she needed help and decided to start her own religious order of Catholic sisters. She named the order the Sisters of the Holy Ghost, later renamed the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate (S.H.Sp.).
Reverend Mother Margaret Mary continued her work recruiting women from Ireland, and her work continues to this day. Mother Margaret Mary Healy Murphy died in the St. Peter Claver Convent in San Antonio on August 25, 1907. Today, she is known as a Servant of God in the Catholic Church.
