Mary Cleophas Foley

Mother Mary Cleophas Foley, S.P.
Born	Margaret Teresa Foley February 18, 1845 Scipio, Indiana
Died	1928
Title	General Superior of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods
Predecessor	Mother Euphrasie Hinkle
Successor	Mother Mary Raphael Slattery
Parent(s)	James Byrne Foley and Mary O'Connor

Mother Mary Cleophas Foley, S.P., (February 18, 1845 – 1928) was the Superior General of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana from 1890 to 1926. During her time in office, she completed the building of the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana) and built numerous other buildings at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, including a new Providence Convent, the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, and an infirmary.

Foley inaugurated Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in 1909 and served as president of the college from 1890-1926. She introduced the cause for canonization for Mother Theodore Guerin, the foundress of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, who was canonized a saint of the Roman Catholic Church in 2006. Foley also inaugurated the Sisters of Providence mission to China in 1920, making hers the first congregation of American religious women to set up a mission there.

Mary Cleophas was born Margaret Teresa Foley in Scipio, Indiana to Irish immigrants James Byrne Foley and Mary O'Connor. She was raised with nine siblings in a household that practiced daily evening devotions including night prayers, the rosary and spiritual reading. Her older sister Mary Ann, born in 1843, entered the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods around 1860 at the suggestion of the parish priest, Father Daniel Moloney. Mary Ann took the religious name Sister Aloysia.

...
Wikipedia