The Portsmouth Star, Page 2 (Portsmouth, Virginia) Thursday, 24 Jan 1924

DEATH OF SISTER MARY JOSEPH HOLLY

The sad tolling of the bell of St. Paul's Church this morning at 11:30 o'clock announced to the parishioners the death of Reverend Sister Mary Joseph Holly, of St. Joseph's Academy, whose life and work for more than forty years had been identified in the closest possible way with the development of Catholicity in Portsmouth. News of her death has created widespread sorrow in the city. The children of both parochial schools were in tears when announcement was made to them of her death. To the scores of the sick and the poor to whom she administered faithfully throughout her long career, to hundreds whom she instructed Christian doctrine, to people of all stations and creeds, the news of her death will bring most profund sorrow.

Had Sister Mary Joseph lived until the second of next month, she would have rounded out her eightieth year. Although her physician and trained Sisters from St. Vincent's Hospital did all that science and skill could do, on account of her advanced age and weakened condition, the pleurisy and pneumonia from which she suffered proved fatal. Her funeral, which is expected to be one of the largest ever in Portsmouth, will take place in St. Paul's Church next Monday, January 28, with Solemn Requiem High Mass, at 10 o'clock. Many priests and sisters from Tidewater and elsewhere are expected to attend the funeral. All the Catholic societies of the city will send representatives. The school children will occupy the center aisle pews back of the religions.

Born in County Roscommon, Ireland, February the second, Feast of the Purification, 1844, Sister Mary Joseph, whose family name was Holly, came to America when a young girl. Soon developing a religious vocation, she enetered the Order of the Sisters of Charity of Emmitsburg, Md. She was first stationed in the Girls' Academy attached to the Immaculate Conception Parish, Baltimore. Later recalled to work at Emmittsburg, she came from there to labor in Portsmouth, where she arrived on the Feast of the Assumption, August the fifteenth, 1883, during the pastorate of the lamented Father Thomas J. Brady. From the small parish of those early days, she saw St. Paul's congregation grow until it became as it is at present, the second largest Catholic parish in the state, being outranked only by the Cathedral in Richmond, and considered one of the most flourishing parishes in the South. She saw, too, every church and Catholic school building now in the parish become a reality. Burial will be in St. Paul's Cemetery, this city.

Note: Sister Mary Joseph Holly was the daughter of Patrick and Johanna Holly.