More on Darrell Morrisey from Mount Royal Cemetery

We were sitting in our living room and someone commented on the Darrell Morrisey painting hanging above the love seat where I was sitting, and how much they liked it, it draws one in, it demands one's attention. Later that afternoon we drove to Mount Royal Cemetery and visited my parents' grave which is where, one day, I will be buried. I commented on how beautiful and peaceful I find this cemetery, it is like being in the country. We took a circuitous drive to the cemetery’s exit on Remembrance Road, we passed the Molson family mausoleum and stopped to discuss it, how the Molson family is prominent in Montreal's history. Then we continued and a minute later someone exclaimed "There is Chiniquy's grave!", it was the grave of Reverend Charles Chiniquy (1809-1899) who had fallen out with the powerful Roman Catholic Church in Quebec; an ancestor of one of our party had been a Presbyterian minister, originally from a family of Huguenots, and he moved to Illinois from Quebec City over a hundred years ago to work with Reverend Chiniquy. And then, as we looked at Revered Chiniquy's impressive monument, I looked back to where the car was parked and on the other side of the road I saw a headstone for the McLernon family and I remembered that a member of  Darrell Morrisey’s family had married a McLernon; I walked across the road to read the headstone and there I saw the name Phyllis Anne Morrisey, Phyllis was Darrell Morrisey’s niece; Darrell’s brother, Thomas Sydney Morrisey and his wife Beatrice Coristine Morrisey, had two children, Hugh Morrisey and Phyllis Anne Morrisey. Phyllis Anne Morrisey married Roy McLernon in 1942 and one of their children was named after Darrell. Phyllis was born in 1918 when Darrell was 21 years old, when Darrell died in 1930 Phyllis was only twelve years old. After her passing something happened to Darrell's paintings because there are very few of them extant, we don't really know what happened to them. Only a few years ago we learned that around 1940 Syd Morrisey left one of Darrell's paintings at the West End Gallery on Greene Avenue, Westmount, and this painting was re-discovered eighty years later. As well, around 1940, Syd phoned my mother to inquire about Morrissey family history and years later she mentioned this phone call to me, she was impressed by Colonel Morrisey. It is curious that although Darrell was probably the most forgotten member of the Beaver Hall group of artists, evidence of her life and art keeps appearing, even on a day like this.

    

Phyllis Anne Morrisey is Darrell Morrisey`s niece

                                

          

Canadian Cottage Garden on 30 June 2025

 

Canadian Cottage Garden, 30 June 2016

Compare these nine year old photographs with some recent photographs of my Canadian Cottage Garden found on this blog. Nine years later, a lot of changes...

                                   

Free book libraries

I like a destination when I go for a walk—I walk with purpose—a free book library is always an ideal destination. Once arrived, I can look at the books, usually take nothing, and continue on my way. I doubt people are reading as much as they used to, it seems most people walk slightly stooped over engrossed by whatever is on the screen of their smartphone; I have no idea what they find so fascinating—porn perhaps ? A text message? The latest news on some singer? World events? What? But it sure isn’t a novel or poetry they’re reading. It isn’t Dickens, it isn’t Shakespeare, it isn’t Allen Ginsberg, maybe it’s something spawned by AI, some creature crawled out of a swamp and created by a computer. Photos taken on 15 June 2025.

At Alexis Nihon Plaza on 26 June 2013

 

"Closed Path" by Rabindranath Tagore

 

I thought that my voyage had come to its end
at the last limit of my power,---that the path before me was closed,
that provisions were exhausted
and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.

But I find that thy will knows no end in me.
And when old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart;
and where the old tracks are lost,
new country is revealed with its wonders.

The garden at St. Philip’s Anglican Church

Photos taken morning of 19 June 2025. A humid day with rain later in the afternoon.

     

Sonnet 144 by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman coloured ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil, Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, Wooing his purity with her foul pride. And whether that my angel be turned fiend, Suspect I may, yet not directly tell; But being both from me, both to each friend, I guess one angel in another's hell:    Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

On Sister Helen Morrissey

Sister Helen Morrissey, undated; photograph from Allan Hustak's 
At the Heart of St. Mary's, A History of Montreal's
St. Mary's Hospital Centre, Vehicule Press, 2014

This is more than you will ever need to know or want to know about Reverend Sister Helen Morrissey, but she is important because she originated the idea of a hospital for the English-speaking population of Montreal. From the beginning St. Mary's Hospital served people of all religious faiths although its intended clientele was Roman Catholic. I hope the descendants of Sr. Helen find and read this information on their ancestor so that they might be proud of her and remember her. Please note: Sister Helen Morrissey is not related to me.

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Sister Helen Morrissey was the archetypal Mother Superior who tolerated no lack of discipline or immoral behaviour; there aren’t many people like her anymore. Many people were influenced by Sister Helen and knew of her; when she died in 1953 her obituary was published in the New York Times. Her influence extended well beyond the Irish community in Montreal. 

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Sister Helen Morrissey’s greatest achievement is that she originated the idea of a hospital for Montreal‘s English speaking community; she and Dr. Donald Hingston founded St. Mary's Hospital.

St-Mary’s Hospital opens

St. Mary's Hospital was founded in 1924 by Sister Helen Morrissey and Dr. Donald A. Hingston. First a 45-bed institution located at Shaughnessy House (now the Canadian Centre for Architecture) in the Shaughnessy Village neighbourhood of Downtown Montreal, it has since moved to its current location in 1934 where it has 271 beds.

St. Mary's Hospital, Montreal

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St. Mary’s Hospital, Montreal, Quebec (1924-1930); the following has been amended and edited:

Sister Helen Morrissey, R.H.S.J, was born into an Irish family, later she worked as a pharmacist at Hopital Hotel-Dieu, Montreal, and dreamed of founding a hospital to care for the English speaking patients as early as 1908. In 1924, with permission from Bishop Georges Gauthier, Archbishop of Montreal, Mother LeRoyer, her Superior and the support of generous benefactors, she left the Hotel-Dieu to establish St. Mary’s Hospital (50 beds) in the Sir Thomas Shaughnessy residence. She called on the Sisters of Hotel-Dieu, Cornwall, Kingston and Chicago to support her in this hospital apostolate. The community received novices. A school of nursing was opened. In 1930, following administrative difficulties and conflict with the board working to raise funds and organize the new much larger hospital, Sister Morrissey returned to Hotel-Dieu. St. Mary’s Hospital was then entrusted to another religious community. This was the first Catholic English speaking hospital in Quebec.

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Sister Helen Morrissey was also an author; her biography, Ethan Allen's Daughter, recounts the deeply religious life of the daughter of one of Vermont’s famous heroes, Ethan Allen. This woman, Ethan Allen’s daughter, moved to Montreal and served at the Hotel Dieu Hospital. 

AuthorsHelen Morrissey 1862-1953

Print BookGardenvale, Que., Printed by Garden City Press, 1940

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Here is information on Sister Helen Morrissey’s genealogy; this includes her birth family and her final resting place, from www.findagrave.com.

Sister Helen Morrissey was born 1862 in Pickering, Ontario, Canada. She died in Montreal on 09 April 1953; she was age 90 or 91 years old when she died and is buried in her family’s plot at Saint Francis de Sales Catholic Cemetery, Pickering, Ontario.

Sr. Helen Morrissey’s father is James Morrissey; he was born in 1828 in  County Kilkenny, Ireland; he died on  06 August 1899, he was 70 or 71 years old, and he is buried in Saint Francis de Sales Catholic Cemetery.

Sr. Helen’s mother is Harriet Wiloughby Hardgrove Morrissey who was born on 31 May 1836 in County Kilkenny, Ireland. She died on 31 March 1915 (aged 78) in at Saint Francis de Sales Catholic Cemetery.

Sister Helen Morrissey had four sibling, they are:

Ann Morrissey Murphy was born on 12 January 1859 in Pickering; she died on 16 November 1919 (aged 60) in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. She is buried in Saint Francis de Sales Catholic Cemetery.

Mary Elizabeth Morrissey was born on 9 Jan 1863 in Pickering, Ontario, Canada. She died on 13 Jan 1942 (aged 79) in Ontario, Canada and is buried at Saint Francis de Sales Catholic Cemetery.

Nicholas John Morrissey was born on 12 September 1869 in Pickering, Ontario. He died on 4 July 1926 (aged 56) in Orillia, Ontario, Canada, and is buried at Mount Hope Catholic Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario.

Edward James Morrissey was born on 5 February 1873 in Pickering, Ontario. He died on 25 Jul 1961 (aged 88) in Ramsey County, Minnesota, USA and is buried at Resurrection Cemetery, Mendota Heights, Minnesota, USA.

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Here are Photographs of St. Helen Morrissey’s family plot which includes her burial site. 

The James Morrissey family monument at Saint Francis de Sales Catholic Cemetery

Grave of Sister Helen Morrissey

                                                       Grave of James Morrissey and Harriet Willboughby Hardgrove, 
                                                        parents of Sister Helen Morrissey; these photographs are taken 
                                                                                      from the Find-a-grave website

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An obituary for Fr. Martin Callaghan, appearing in The Montreal Star, published on 11 June 1915, notes that "His (Fr. Martin Callaghan's)  brother, the Rev. Luke Callaghan, parish priest of St. Michael’s, was with him at the time of his death, as were his sister Mrs. Farrel, of Lachine, and Rev. Sister Morrissy, and assistants of the parish of Notre Dame." The family had a long association with Sr. Helen Morrissey, going back at least to 1915. It is Fr. Luke Callaghan who ended Sr. Helen Morrissey's control over the construction of St. Mary's Hospital. 

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Excerpt from St. Mary's Hospital, The Early Years (1987)  by Dr. J.J. Dinan:

Canon Luke Callahan (sic) was named by Dr. Hingston as the man who, through his intervention with the Archbishop during the 1929 closure, saved the hospital. Father Callahan (sic)  had persuaded the Bishop to sanction the removal of Rev. Mother Morrissey and bring in the Grey Nuns. Many of the Irish clergy had been strongly in favour of turning over the hospital to Rev. Mother Morrissey or another religious nursing order. The community in general was dissatisfied with the doctor-dominated board and it was during this state of general discontent, that a new board of prominent businessmen and politicians was established prior to the first major successful drive in July 1931.

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I recommend, as well, Allan Hustak's excellent At the Heart of St. Mary's, A History of Montreal's St. Mary's Hospital Centre, Vehicule Press, 2014.