CLARKE, Mary Frances

Sister Mary Francis Clarke

CLARKE, Mary Frances (Sister) (Dublin, Ireland, Dec. 15, 1802--Dubuque, IA, Dec. 4, 1887). Founder of CLARKE COLLEGE. The first of four children of Cornelius Clarke, a prosperous harness and carriage leather merchant in Dublin, Mary Frances Clarke never said of herself that she had attended more than a "penny school." On December 8, 1831 she joined the Third Order of St. Francis and with others of the Order opened Miss Clarke's Seminary in Dublin in 1832.

On August 31, 1833 Sister Clarke immigrated to the United States from Ireland with four others at the request of Patrick Costello, an Irish priest. They arrived in New York and then traveled to Philadelphia where Terence James Donaghoe, pastor of St. Joseph's parish, helped them to become a religious congregation. The sisters soon opened two private schools and taught the children of local parishes.

The plea of Dubuque Bishop Mathias LORAS brought the nuns to Dubuque in 1843. Although plans to work with Native Americans never developed, the congregation soon opened schools including St. Mary’s Academy. This school for girls, later called Mount St. Joseph, moved to the top of Seminary Hill. In 1928 the school was renamed Clarke College in her honor.

In 1846 the motherhouse of the congregation was established on the prairie about eight miles southwest of Dubuque. The sisters expanded their work into many town in Iowa and Wisconsin. In 1867 at the invitation of Arnold Damien, S.J. they traveled to Chicago to teach in the Holy Family Parish.

With the death of Terence Donaghoe in 1860, Mary Frances Clarke had the congregation incorporated and started the process of receiving papal approval. Pope Pius IX issued the Decree of Approbation in 1877 approving the SISTERS OF CHARITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY (BVM) for six years. The Vatican gave final approval of the congregation's constitutions on March 15, 1885. The BVM sisters at that time asked that Clarke be allowed to remain the Superior General for life. That decision the Vatican left to the bishop of Dubuque who approved.

Although Sister Clarke had never had training with an established congregation before founding the BVM, her impact was dramatic. By the time of her death, BVM sisters staffed school in twenty-three Iowa communities and as far away as Wichita, Kansas and San Francisco, California.

Upon her death, Sister Clarke was buried near the first headquarters of the order in an area known as St. Joseph's Prairie. Her remains were moved in 1898. In 1910 they were finally placed in a mausoleum at the MOUNT CARMEL MOTHERHOUSE.

In 1978 Philip Mihalakis, operator of the Ecology Control Corporation scrap yard, discovered a 9- by 12-inch grave marker later identified as that belonging on the original grave of Sister Clarke. The order announced plans to restore the 6.25 pound cast iron plaque for display in the "Heritage Room" at Mount Carmel. Sister Mary Frances Clarke was added to the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame on August 27, 1984.