Henriette Delille
| Henriette Delille | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Nun, Venerable | |
| Born | 1813 New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Died | November 16, 1862 New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
Venerable Henriette Delille (1813–1862) was an American Créole woman from New Orleans, Louisiana who founded the Roman Catholic order of the Sisters of the Holy Family in that city. Composed of free women of color, the order provided nursing care and a home for orphans, later establishing schools as well. They taught slave children when such education was prohibited by law.
The order grew in number in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, reaching a peak of 400 sisters in 1950. They taught numerous students in black parochial schools. Since the turn of the century, African Americans in Louisiana, including Creoles, had been disenfranchised by the state legislature and subject to Jim Crow laws. In the 21st century, the order operates facilities for the poor in four states and Washington, DC in the United States, and has a mission in Belize.
In 1988 the order formally opened the cause with the Holy See of the canonization of Henriette Delille. In 2010 Pope Benedict XVI declared DeLille to be Venerable. A miracle attributed to her intercession was approved by a medical board in 2013, advancing her cause.
Henriette Delille was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1813. Her mother, Marie-Josèphe "Pouponne" Días, was a free woman of color of New Orleans. Her father Jean-Baptiste Lille Sarpy (var. de Lille) was born about 1758 in Fumel, Lot-et-Garonne, France. Their union was a common-law marriage typical of the contemporary plaçage system. She had a brother Jean Delille and other siblings. Their maternal grandparents were Juan José (var. Jean-Joseph) Díaz, a Spanish merchant, and Henriette (Dubreuil) Laveau, a Créole of color. Their paternal grandparents were Charles Sarpy and Susanne Trenty, both natives of Fumel, France. Her maternal great-grandmother is said to be Cécile Marthe Basile Dubreuil, a woman of color considered to be a daughter of Claude Villars Dubreuil, born in 1716, who immigrated to Louisiana from France. Henriette and her family lived in the French Quarter, not far from St. Louis Cathedral.
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