Teresa Lalor

Background

She was born in Ireland circa 1766, and spent her childhood in Kilkenny. Her family name was Lalor; she was christened Alice.

Career

While a girl her unusual piety seems to have attracted the attention of Bishop Lanigan, a local prelate, and he relied on her to help him in the foundation of a community of Presentation nuns in his diocese. This project did not meet with the approval of the family, however, and when one of Alice's sisters married an American merchant named Doran the girl was persuaded to accompany the couple to America. She intended nevertheless to return to Ireland later to cooperate with Bishop Lanigan in his projected foundation. On the boat she formed a deep friendship with two women, both widows, a Mrs. McDermott and a Mrs. Sharpe, who like her were eager to become nuns. The three friends landed in Philadelphia on Jan. 5, 1795. In accordance with an agreement they had made that they would seek out a priest and would regard him, whoever he should be, as their spiritual director and would follow his guidance implicitly, they went to the Reverend Leonard Neale, a man of unusual character and ability, afterwards archbishop of Baltimore. Upon his advice they rented a house, and there Alice Lalor lived with her two friends in a sort of unofficial religious community. They busied themselves with good works and performed notable service during the yellow fever epidemic that swept through Philadelphia in 1797-98.

When in 1798 Father Neale was transferred to Washington as president of Georgetown College, he invited the little community to follow him. They arrived in 1799 and for a time lived with some Poor Clares who had been exiled from France. Afterwards they opened a school, and in 1804, when the Poor Clares returned to their native country, they were able to purchase the tiny convent belonging to the latter. From the beginning Alice Lalor and her companions had looked upon themselves as a religious community, but they had lacked any formal ecclesiastical authorization. Though Archbishop John Carroll urged Neale, now a bishop, to merge his community with the Sisters of Charity, and others advised them to adopt the Ursuline rule or unite with the Carmelite nuns, who had already been established at Port Tobacco, Md. , Neale was anxious that they should become Visitation nuns, and in spite of great practical difficulties, he succeeded in winning the approval of Rome. On December 28, 1816, the sisters were admitted to solemn vows and became fully accredited Visitation nuns.

Mother Teresa resigned her post as superior in 1819 and lived as a simple member of the community for twenty-seven years. During that time she saw the foundation of other houses in Mobile, Ala. (1832), in St. Louis, Mo. (1833), and in Baltimore, Md. (1837). When she died in 1846 she was buried with Archbishop Neale in the crypt of the convent which owed its existence to them.

Achievements

• She is remembered as a co-foundress, with the Most Rev. Leonard Neale, S. J. , the second Archbishop of Baltimore, of the Visitation Order's first monastery in the United States.

Connections

Father:

Denis

Mother:

Catherine Lalor