Aloysia Hardey

Mother Mary Aloysia Hardey, R.S.C.J., (Piscataway, Maryland, United States, 1809 – Paris, France, 17 June 1886) was an American Religious Sister of the Society of the Sacred Heart. She established all the convents of her order, up to the year 1883, in the eastern part of the United States as well as in Canada and Cuba.

Mary Hardey was born in Piscataway, Maryland, December 8, 1809. Both her parents (Frederick Hardey and Sarah Spalding) were descended from old Maryland Catholic families. While she was a child, the family moved to Opelousas, Louisiana, and she became in (1822) one of the first pupils of the Sacred Heart Convent in Grand Coteau. She entered the congregation upon the completion of her studies, at which time she was given the name Sister Mary Aloysia. The young Sister showed such capability that she was placed in charge of the Sisters' convent school in St. Michael, Louisiana and upon her taking final vows, was made Superior of the convent.

Bishop John Dubois having invited the Society to New York in 1840, Mothers Galitzin and Hardey opened the Society's first convent in the Eastern United States on Houston Street in lower Manhattan, later located uptown on Aqueduct Avenue, and now established in Greenwich, Connecticut. A visit to Rome, the blessing of Pope Gregory XVI, and a sojourn with Mother Barat in France, prepared Mother Hardey for her future work.

The list of thirty convents, of which some are now closed, represents the work of more than forty years (from New York, 1841, to Atlantic City, 1883): Albany (New York), Astoria (New York), Atlantic City (New Jersey), Boston (Massachusetts), Buffalo (New York) -moved to Rochester, Cincinnati (Ohio), Clifton (Cincinnati, Ohio), Detroit (Michigan), Eden Hall (Torresdale, Pennsylvania), Elmhurst (Rhode Island), Grosse Pointe (Michigan), Halifax (Nova Scotia), Havana (Cuba), Kenwood (Albany, New York), London (Ontario), Montreal (Quebec), McSherrystown (Pennsylvania), Manhattanville (New York), New York City (Aqueduct Avenue and Madison Avenue), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Providence (Rhode Island), Rochester (New York), Rosecroft (Maryland), Sancti Spiritus (Cuba), Sandwich (Ontario), Sault-au-Recollet (Montreal), Saint Jacques (Quebec), Saint John (New Brunswick), St Vincent (Quebec).

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