Margaret (Gaffney) Haughery was born in Tully, Carrigallen County Leitrim, Ireland in 1813. Personal tragedies experienced both as a child and later as a parent shaped her life-long devotion to serving New Orleans’ poor, especially orphans. She was knopwn by many names. Which include: “The Bread Woman,” “Friend of the Orphans,” “Mother of the Orphans,” “Our Margaret,” and “Angel of the Delta”.
When five years old, she emigrated to America with her parents and two of her siblings. The Gaffney family ended up in Baltimore, Maryland, but an 1822 yellow fever epidemic killed both of her parents. Once orphaned, Margaret was taken in by a woman who required that Margaret earn her keep, which started Margaret on the path familiar to many Irish women: domestic service. In 1835, she married Charles Haughery, and a month later they moved to New Orleans. They had one daughter they named Frances. Charles soon fell ill and went back to Ireland to regain strength. He died a short while later. A few months later, Frances became sick and died.
To support herself, Margaret worked as a laundress for the St. Charles Hotel. She became acquainted with the Sisters of Charity and volunteered her time to the orphans they cared for. She also contributed as much as two-thirds of her earnings to the orphans.
In order to better care for the orphans, Margaret purchased two cows to provide milk. These two cows developed into a dairy herd of forty and a prosperous dairy business. Her success allowed her to contribute a great deal of funds to construct a new and larger orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity. She also helped open St. Teresa’s Orphan Asylum.
Margaret’s business endeavors did not end with the dairy farm. Allied to her dairy business, Margharet established what became known as “Margaret’s Bakery” from which she distributed the bread to orphans and other needy city residents. Hers was one of the early “steam bakeries” in the South.
Margaret was the second woman in the United States to have a statue erected in her honor. Citizens of New Orleans commissioned a statue in her likeness soon after her death in 1882. Sculpted by Andrew Doyle using Italian marble, the statue has stood since 1884 in the Lower Garden District at the intersection of Prytania and Clio Streets.
