Sr. Helen Morrissey and the establishment that opposed her

A few days ago I accompanied a family member to St. Mary’s Hospital. While I waited for their appointment to end I enjoyed, as always, sitting in the hospital cafe drinking a cup of coffee and observing the people there, in particular an old couple who spoke lovingly to each other, not about anything in particular, it was how they spoke to each other that expressed their love. And then I looked at historical photographs on the café’s walls, the elite were there, there was even a photograph of future American President John F. Kennedy and his wife who had attended a hospital ball, raising money for St. Mary’s, in the 1950s. And then I thought of Sr. Helen Morrissey who had originated the idea for the hospital. Her aggressive approach alienated board members and my great great uncle, Fr. Luke Callaghan, was called in to dissuade Sr. Helen from continuing her campaign for her vision of the future hospital; the hospital's board were about to resign because of her. It occurred to me that she must have realized what she was up against, it was the social and financial elite of Montreal Irish society; she subsequently withdrew from the hospital’s planning committee. And then this photograph (below) stood out for me, it shows the president of the hospital’s board of  directors and Canada's Governor General, and other financial and ecclesiastical leaders, laying the cornerstone of the new hospital. How could she  compete with them, a nun, a woman, and without allies in high places? This is not to say that she had not dealt with similar people in her position of pharmacist at Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal hospital, but she was a spiritual person, not a business person, and why spend time dealing with contentious issues that brought out the negative parts of her personality? After she was forced off of St. Mary’s Hospital planning committee she continued working at Hôtel-Dieu and she wrote a book on Fanny Allen, who entered the religious life at the same hospital where Sr. Helen Morrissey worked, and Fanny Allen was also a pharmacist there. I wondered at how easily it seems that Sr. Helen acquiesced to abandoning her concept of the future St. Mary's Hospital; she was an old family friend of Fr. Luke, she had been there in 1915 when his older brother Fr. Martin Callaghan died, and she shared a family name with Fr. Luke's sister, Mary Callaghan, who had married Thomas Morrissey (my great grandparents). I think Fr. Luke was also a member of the elite, he had built the enormous St. Michael's Church in Mile End and it rivalled St. Patrick's Church for Sunday attendance for Montreal's Irish population. Sr. Helen has been made out to be a harridan, aggressive, bossy, domineering, demanding, even frightening for these poor wealthy professional men! In fact, all of the adjectives used against intelligent women who aren't afraid to express themselves are used against her. She was difficult for the men because she disagreed with them; however, this isn't to say that her plan for the new hospital was the right one, in retrospect we can see that the Board of Directors had a vision for the hospital that worked best. My point is that Sr. Helen has been demonized and her better qualities--intelligence, vision, perseverance, spirituality--are ignored, and we think of her as being fairly unpleasant because that is the way the establishment elite portrayed her. Both Sr. Helen and Fanny Allen turned away from the secular world and were dedicated to the religious life. I, too, viewed Sr. Helen Morrissey in this negative way--it took Fr. Luke Callaghan to whip her in to shape! and I was proud of what he did!--and, I hope, this is now somewhat corrected. 

I guess Sr. Helen Morrissey wasn't invited to this event...

St. Mary’s Hospital from av Jean Brilliant 

The av Lacombe entrance to the hospital 

Here is the Hingston family monument at Cote des Neiges
Cemetery, photo taken on 28 August 2026. Dr. Hingston and Sr. Helen
Morrissey worked on the founding of St. Mary's Hospital; Sr. Helen
is buried in the crypt for the Grey Nuns.

Darrell Morrisey and "Les secrets de la bonne cuisine"

Darrell's drawing for this advertisement, for Les secrets de la bonne cuisine,
was published in La Presse on 22 October 1928

Darrell Morrisey's drawing, see top right hand corner

In 1927 Darrell Morrisey produced an advertisement for what became a popular cookbook, Les secrets de la bonne cuisine (1928) compiled and written by Sister Sainte-Marie Edith (1876-1949) whose secular name is Mary Theodora Turner, of la Congrégation de Notre-Dame (CDN) located at 2330 Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, QC. Sr. Sainte-Marie was the director of the school for home economics which included cooking classes taught by Sr. Sainte-Marie; the book was also published in English. The book has been reprinted and second hand copies of the original book are available online, it can also be read or downloaded in its entirety on the Internet Archive website. Darrell Morrisey was a member of the Beaver Hall Group of artists; she was born in 1897 and died in 1930.

"Les secrets de la bonne cuisine"

Title page: Les Secrets de la Bonne Cuisine: Contenant La Substance Des Cours
de Cuisine Donnés À l'Ecole Ménagère (Congrégation de Notre-Dame)
de Montréal, Avec Plus de 1500 Recettes, Toutes Mises À l'Épreuve
Dans La Cuisine de l'École.

The secrets of good cooking (English version) by Soeur Sainte-Marie-Édith
(Mary Theodora Turner), Montréal, Canadian Printing and Lithographing
Company, 309 pages, 1928. Archives: Congrégation de Notre-Dame, Montréal.

Is this Sr. Sainte-Marie Edith's birth family?

Just out of interest (and thoroughness) I tried to find Sr. Sainte-Marie Edith birth family in the 1881 Canadian Census using her name, Mary Theodora Turner; there were several entries for "Mary Turner", each was age five years old. The family that seemed the most likely to be Sr. Sainte-Marie Edith's family lived in Addington, Restigouche County, New Brunswick; the family is listed as being Roman Catholic; they were also described as "Francaise" as their nationality but I am not sure if this means French-speaking (Restigouche, New Brunswick, has a large French-speaking population) or that the family was originally, or second generation, from France; the family have Anglophone given names but they could easily be anglicized French name; family members included: David (the father), age 42; Aleva (the mother), age either 26 or 36; William (son), age 10; Edward (son), age 9; Mary (daughter), age 5 and therefore born in 1876 as was Sr. Sainte-Marie; and George (son), age one year. What suggests that this might be Sr. Sainte-Marie's birth family are two things: Mary Turner's second name, "Theodora", is an unusual name, it is unlike more traditional English or French Canadian names for that time; and Mary Turner's mother's name is also not traditional, it is "Aleva", a name that I have not previously encountered. That said, one of my New Brunswick ancestors also has a name that I am not familiar with; John Veraker Morrissy, was born in Miramichi, NB, and became a Member of Parliament in Ottawa, I have never heard of the name "Veraker" other than in reference to him.

The above image is not from the Mother House of the Congregation of Notre Dame but
should give an idea of what the CDN cooking classes, in this instance at the college
Marguerite Bourgeoys, were like.

Sr. Sainte-Marie Edith conducted cooking classes and was director of the school for home economics at the Congregation of Notre Dame. Across the street was the Mother House, also a part of the CDN, where young girls were educated in secretarial science; I am not sure if buildings on both sides of Atwater Avenue were known as the Mother House. This was a prominent post-secondary school in its time; for instance, after attending the High School of Montreal, my mother learned typing, short hand, what we now call “secretarial science”, at the Mother House, it was excellent preparation for employment. Students were both French and English speaking, as were many of the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame. Sr. Sainte-Marie Edith's cookbook appealed to the average homemaker; recipes are prefaced with questions students might have asked about the recipes, as we say today, it was "user friendly". Use of the commercial product, Crisco, is common in the book. Many girls, both English and French speaking, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, were welcomed and attended the courses given by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame.

It seems to me that Darrell Morrisey found a friendly environment at the Congregation de Notre Dame. Her father, Thomas Louis Morrisey, was born into the Roman Catholic faith but converted to the Church of England when he married, in those days this was advantageous for upward social mobility and professional advancement in business.

The Grey Nuns' Residence

Now a residence for Concordia University's downtown campus, the old Grey Nuns' residence is located on Blvd. Rene Levesque.