Henriette delille cause of death

On Saturday, March 27, 2010 Pope Benedict XVI declared Henriette Delille, a freeborn woman of African descent who lived during the 19th century in New Orleans, “Venerable” since she had lived a life of “heroic virtue.”  It was early morning on Monday in New Orleans when the news arrived about the proclamation made by the Pope and immediately Sister Eva Regina Martin announced to the other 30 religious sisters of the Sisters of the Holy Family to assemble in chapel to tell them that their foundress was moving a step toward sainthood for her years of working with slaves, impoverished Africans and people of color.  In the chapel the sisters “dancing with joy at the great and glorious news” chanted the “Te Deum,” a Catholic hymn of gratitude, and Sister Eva Regina described how “there were tears on some faces, yes there were.”

By signing the decree, the Holy Father furthered Henriette Delille’s cause for canonization.  The validation of an alleged miraculous cure in 1988 of a four-year-old Houston girl who was suffering from a serious pulmonary infection is being studied. Once the verification of the authenticity of the miracle is issued, Sister Henriette Delille will be proclaimed “Blessed.”  If her cause advances with another miracle, she could become the first native-born African-American woman saint of the United States.

Henriette Delille was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1812.  She was born a “free woman of color.” Her father Jean Baptiste (de Lile) Lille Sarpy was born in 1762 in Fumel, Lot-et-Garonne,France.  Her mother, Marie-Josèphe “Pouponne” Días was a free Creole of color of French, Spanish and African ancestry.  Henriette’s parents were Catholic, as were most Creoles and free people of color.  Delille’s great-great-grandmother, Nanette, was brought from Africa as a slave.  After the death of her owner, she became free.  Years later, Nanette saved enough money to purchase her daughter, Cecile, and two of her grandchildren out of slavery.

Henriett

Henriette Delille (1812–1862) was a free Afro-Creole woman in New Orleans who, in 1842, founded the Sisters of the Holy Family, a congregation of Afro-Creole religious sisters, or nuns, dedicated to the care of the poorest of the poor, the enslaved, and free people of color. She expanded her charitable works to include poor whites during the yellow fever epidemics of the 1850s. Though Delille died in 1862, her congregation continues today.

Delille was born on Burgundy Street in New Orleans in 1812. Her mother, Marie Josephe Diaz, was a free Afro-Creole woman. Her father was likely Jean Baptiste Delille Sarpy, a Louisiana merchant. In Louisiana, as in the rest of the United States, one’s status as free or slave followed that of the mother. Though Delille and her mother were free, earlier known female ancestors had been enslaved until they purchased their freedom from their owners. Delille’s first Louisiana ancestors were Claude Josephe Dubreuil, the contractor for the King of France, and her great-great-grandmother, Marie Anne, dit (known as) Nanette, an enslaved African most likely from the Senegambia region of West Africa. Nanette would have been enslaved in Africa, forced aboard a slave ship, and sold as a domestic to Dubreuil in New Orleans. Nanette and Dubreuil both arrived in New Orleans in approximately 1719. They produced five children together, though Dubreuil never freed them. Instead, decades later, they purchased their freedom and the freedom of their children.

In addition to being an heir to slavery, Delille was an heir to Catholicism. She attended mass with her mother at Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans and was baptized there. As a young girl she attended the Saint Claude Street School, which was solely for the educations of free girls of color. She was educated by the French missionary Sister Sainte Marthe Fontière, and as a Sister of the Holy Family remembered years later, would meet at the school chapel every day with childhood friends J

Black History Month: Creole Nun

Henriette DeLille (1813–1862) founded the Catholic order of the Sisters of the Holy Family, made up of free women of color in New Orleans. The order provided nursing care and a home for orphans, later establishing schools as well. In 1989 the order formally opened its cause with the Vatican in the canonization of Henriette DeLille.

Henriette Delille was born in 1812 in New Orleans, Louisiana, into a life of privilege. Her father, Jean-Baptiste (de Lille) Lille Sarpy (French/Italian) was born in 1762 in France; her mother, Marie-Josèphe Díaz, a free quadroon Creole of color of French, Spanish and African ancestry, was born in New Orleans. Delille’s parents were Catholic, as were most Creoles and free people of color.

Delille’s great-great-grandmother was brought from Africa as a slave. After the death of her owner, she became free. Some years later, she had amassed enough money to purchase her daughter and two of her grandchildren out of slavery. Spanish law, which ruled in Louisiana at that time, allowed slaves to purchase their freedom at a fair price from the master. A judicial process could be initiated if the owner refused. For the times, it was a compassionate system.

Henriette’s parents never married since laws prohibited it. Their union was a common-law marriage typical of the placage system, in which white men entered into the equivalent of common-law marriages with women of African, Indian and white (European) Creole descent. The women were not legally recognized as wives, but were known as placees; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color as mariages de la main gauche or left-hand marriages.

Many of these free ladies of mixed African and white blood became kept women of the wealthy white planters. Their place in the stratified society of the time was rigid, and there was little other choice for them. Their offspring, therefore, had the national, cultural, and linguistic ba

American nun

Henriette Díaz DeLille, SSF (March 11, 1813 – November 17, 1862) was a Louisiana Creole of color and Catholicreligious sister from New Orleans. She founded the Sisters of the Holy Family in 1836 and served as their first Mother Superior. The sisters are the second-oldest surviving congregation of African-American religious.

In 1988, the congregation formally opened the beatification process for DeLille with the Holy See. She was of mixed race: her father was a white man from France, her mother was a quadroon, and her maternal grandfather was a white man from Spain.

Biography

Early life

Henriette DeLille was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 11, 1813. Her mother, Marie-Josèphe "Pouponne" Díaz, 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.

Trained by her mother in French literature, music, and dancing, Henriette was groomed to find a white, wealthy male partner in the pla