Mother Angela Hughes (1806 – 5 September 1866) was an Irish-American

Sisters of Charity of New York The Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul of New York, most often known as the Sisters of Charity of New York, is a religious congregation of sisters in the Catholic Church whose primary missions are education and nursing and who are dedicated ...

nun, and was the first superior of St Vincent's Hospital in New York City.

Biography

Angela Hughes was born Ellen Hughes in 1806 in Annaloghan,

County Tyrone County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. It is no longer used as an administrative division for local government but retai ...

. She was one of the seven children of Patrick and Margaret Hughes (née McKenna). She had two sisters and four brothers. Hughes, her mother and her sisters emigrated to

Chambersburg, Pennsylvania Chambersburg is a borough in and the county seat of Franklin County, in the South Central region of Pennsylvania, United States. It is in the Cumberland Valley, which is part of the Great Appalachian Valley, and north of Maryland and the ...

in 1819, when Hughes was 13. Her father and brothers had already moved there in 1817. She was educated in St Joseph's Academy, nearby

Emmitsburg, Maryland Emmitsburg is a town in Frederick County, Maryland, Frederick County, Maryland, United States, south of the Mason-Dixon line separating Maryland from Pennsylvania. Founded in 1785, Emmitsburg is the home of Mount St. Mary's University. The town ...

from 1823, entering the

Sisters of Charity Many religious communities have the term Sisters of Charity in their name. Some ''Sisters of Charity'' communities refer to the Vincentian tradition, or in America to the tradition of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, but others are unrelated. The ...

convent in Emmitsburg in 1825. In 1828 she professed as Sister Mary Angela, and began her work, mostly with orphan children. She worked in the first catholic hospital in the United States, Mullanphy Hospital in St Louis, Missouri, from 1833 to 1837. The Sisters came into conflict with Hughes' older brother, bishop John Hughes, in 1846 when the sisters intended to withdraw from working with a city orphanage. The resolution of the dispute saw the congregation split, with Hughes and 32 other Sisters remaining at the orphanage under the auspices of Archbishop Hughes. The other 29 Sisters returned to Emmitsburg. The New York Sisters formed a new diocesan congregation, the

. Hughes was popular and a candidate for superior, but her brother forbade her from being the first superior. In 1849, during the cholera epidemic, Hughes was assistant to the Mother General, Elizabeth Boyle. She was then appointed to found St Vincent's Hospital in New York City, becoming its first superior. She left this post in December 1855 when she was elected third mother general of her community. In this post she moved the motherhouse to Riverdale in the Bronx, and oversaw the opening of 15 schools and convents. In 1861, she returned to take up the position as superior of St Vincent's Hospital again. She remained in this post until her death, on 5 September 1866.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Angela People from County Tyrone 1806 births 1866 deaths 19th-century American Roman Catholic nuns Irish emigrants to the United States (before 1923)