The Fabulous Irish O’Connor Sisters of Ogden

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

(Editor’s note: The Boy Monk dedicates its April 2021 blogspace to Utah’s Catholic sisters and nuns.)

I am amazed continually about the wonderful stories of Irish-American life that emerge unexpectedly from an unlikely place—my hometown of Ogden in Northern Utah. One of my favorite stories involves the fabulous four O’Connor sisters. I knew one, but wish I had met all four.

The oldest of the O’Connor sisters, Mary Elizabeth, was born in 1909 to Martin James O’Connor and his wife, Elizabeth Veronica. Mary Elizabeth joined a distinctly Irish family—her mother was a McMahon and three of her four grandparents were born in Ireland. She was the only O’Connor sister not born in Ogden, but she may as well have been because the family moved there when she was only about a year old.

The O’Connors fit right into the Irish-Catholic Ogden of the early 1900s. They attended the newly-dedicated Saint Joseph’s church, built by Monsignor Patrick Cushnahan from County Donegal, Ireland. Cushnahan arrived in Ogden in 1881 and once explained, “I was not lucky enough to be born in Utah, but I have had the good luck to be a resident of this wonderful state.”  His successor, Monsignor Patrick Kennedy, was born in Thurles, Ireland in 1891 and served as pastor at Saint Joseph’s for twenty years. 

At a young age, Mary Elizabeth probably had to step into the role of surrogate mother for the rest of the O’Connor family. Her mother died in 1921 at age 43 and her father worked full time for a hardware store. Although Mary Elizabeth was only 12—and also attending school—she was in the best position to help, for her younger sisters were just ages 9, 7, and 3 when their mother passed away.

Mary’s role as head of the household was confirmed nine years later by the 1930 federal census, taken just after her father Martin died at age 55 of a heart attack in 1930. Mary was just 20 years old then, and her sisters were only teenagers. Mary raised and launched her younger siblings into successful vocations. She got married in 1939 at age 30, but only after setting each of her sisters off on their various paths. Mary also raised three children of her own before she died in 1996 at age 85.

Although tiny in physical stature, the second O’Connor sister, Catherine (born in 1912), made a big impression at Ogden’s Sacred Heart Academy. Sacred Heart, founded by the Holy Cross sisters in 1892, was on 25th Street and Quincy Avenue in Ogden, just down the road from the O’Connor family home. Catherine performed in numerous dramatic productions, served as valedictorian (just like older sister Mary) for her graduating class of 1930, and—according to least one old Ogden newspaper report—even won an award for achievement in basketball.

After graduating from Sacred Heart, Catherine went on to earn a teaching certificate from another esteemed local Holy Cross sisters school—Saint Mary of the Wasatch College in Salt Lake City. Obviously impressed by the quality of her teachers, Catherine entered the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1933, thereafter to be known as Sister Elizabeth Marie. She likely chose her new religious name to honor both her deceased mother and her older sister who helped raise her.

Sister Elizabeth Marie loved to travel and teach, and happily spent the next 42 years in elementary and high schools in Chicago, Los Angeles, Nevada, Idaho, and eventually back in her hometown of Ogden, Utah. She was my English and Drama teacher for two years at Saint Joseph’s Catholic High School in the mid-1970s.

At not much more than 5 feet tall and 100 lbs., she often was the smallest person in her classroom on any given day. Yet, she commanded the undivided attention of her students while teaching classics like Ethan Frome and The Red Badge of Courage. And woe to anyone in her presence who dared say “beCUZ” instead of “beCAUSE.”

After capping off her teaching career by leading her Utah students to several championships in speech/debate and drama tournaments, Sister Elizabeth Marie took up pastoral ministry at nearby Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City and then at her home parish in Ogden. Her obituary notes that in this new role, “she allowed the softer, warmer side of her personality to emerge.”

In 2000, Sister Elizabeth Marie retired to the Holy Cross motherhouse in Indiana, where her two younger sisters also lived. One of them was the youngest of the fabulous O’Connor sisters—Margaret Joan O’Connor—born in Ogden on April 11, 1918. Margaret grew up largely without parents, losing her mother at age 3 and her father at age 12, but she still managed to graduate with an accomplished record from the same schools as her older sisters. Margaret followed the trails they blazed in other ways too, joining the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1938 at age 20.

Now known as Sister Mercedes, over the next four decades she embarked on a teaching and school administration career spanning the Western United States. She taught in California (San Diego, Santa Ana, Fresno, San Francisco, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles), Utah, and Idaho. She also taught and worked in administration at Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City.

Sister Mercedes retired to Saint Catherine’s Convent in Ventura, California and then to the motherhouse Saint Mary’s Convent near Notre Dame, Indiana. She was active in volunteer services there until she passed away on November 21, 2000 at age 82.

Also with Sister Elizabeth Marie in retirement was her O’Connor sister Ellen Louise, born in Ogden in 1914. The third of four children, Ellen followed her two older sisters to Sacred Heart Academy and then on to Saint Mary of the Wasatch, but earned her degree in science, instead of teaching. She worked as a nurse before joining the Holy Cross Sisters in 1937 and taking the religious name of Sister Mary Xavier.

For almost 50 years, Sister Mary Xavier O’Connor ministered to the sick as a registered nurse at her congregation’s hospitals in Fresno, San Fernando, Boise, and Salt Lake City. She also worked in pastoral care for a short time before her own health problems forced her to retire to a life of prayer at Saint Mary’s Convent near Notre Dame. She passed away on September 2, 2002 at age 88.

The O’Connor sisters’ story is a tale of resilience, faith, devotion, and accomplishment, one that lasted almost a full century and included well over 200 life years of selfless service to others. On May 18, 2007, the saga that had started in Ogden, Utah came to a quiet and peaceful end in Northern Indiana when the Holy Cross sisters reported the passing—at age 94—of Catherine (Sister Elizabeth Marie), the last survivor of the fabulous O’Connor sisters.

In concluding the remarkable family story, the religious institution so important to the O’Connor family noted how at age 88, Sister Elizabeth Marie “came to Saint Mary’s in 2000 to be support to her younger sisters, Sister Mercedes and Sister Xavier, who were both in poor health. After each of them died she said, ‘They went to Heaven ahead of me but I’ll be joining them soon.’”

The Holy Cross press release concluded, “And early this morning all the O’Connor girls were together again rejoicing in the presence of God.” Now that’s what I call a fabulous family reunion!

*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.