Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023
Catharina Lyons was born in 1818, daughter of Phillippi Lyons and Maria Hanser Lyons in Ireland. She was baptized on Feb. 26, 1818, in Limerick, Ireland.
Limerick (Luimneach) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is in the Midwest, which comprises part of the southern region. It was founded by Scandinavian settlers in 812, during the Viking Age. The city straddles the River Shannon, with the historic core of the city located on King’s Island, which is bounded by the Shannon and Abbey Rivers. Limerick is at the head of the Shannon Estuary, where the river widens before it flows into the Atlantic Ocean, according to Wikipedia.
The Great Famine, also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852, according to Wikipedia.
No statistics exist on how many people in the Limerick area died during the famine. Nationally, the population declined by an average of twenty percent, half of whom died and half emigrated. While the Great Famine reduced the population of County Limerick by seventy thousand, the population of the city rose slightly, as people fled to the workhouses.
Francis Spaight, a Limerick merchant, farmer, British magistrate and ship owner, noted “I found so great an advantage of getting rid of the pauper population upon my own property that I made every possible exertion to remove them … I consider the failure of the potato crop to be the greatest possible value in one respect in enabling us to carry out the emigration system.”
The quaysides were the departure point for many emigrant ships sailing over the Atlantic to America. This is the time that Catharina Lyons headed to the United States, probably in 1845-1846.
In New York, Catharina met and married Thomas Mullen, Jr. (1843-1930).
Catharina and Thomas had eight children: Mary (1847-1901) in Wisconsin; Bridget (Sr. Mary Carmel) (1850-1941); Thomas (1852-1872), all born in Indiana, and Catharina (1853-1933) in St. Paul; and Ellen (1855-1865); Ann (1856-1941); Margaret Maggie (1858-1888); and Julia (1861-1929) all born in Eagle Creek in Minnesota.
Like many Catholics, Catharina and Thomas’s second child was Bridget, who became Sr. Mary Carmel of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (1852-2021). Having one of their children in the faith was thrilling for Catharina and Thomas, and something that many parents wanted with at least one of their children.
Bridget (Sr. Mary Carmel) worked in Los Angeles, according to the Immaculate Heart Community. In 1848, Canon Joaquin Masmitja de Puig, in response to the spiritual, educational, and social needs of young women challenged by living in wartime Spain, founded the Daughters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary in Olot, Catalonia. By 1868, their reputation as skilled educators prompted Bishop Amat of California to invite them to found an educational apostolate in Los Angeles.
In 1871, ten pioneer sisters arrived in California and were assigned to several locations before ultimately arriving to work in Los Angeles itself.
When St. Vibiana Cathedral School opened in 1886 in the center of Los Angeles, the sisters staffed the school, including Sr. Mary Carmel. In 1906, the sisters opened the Immaculate Heart Convent and Immaculate Heart High School on Franklin Avenue in Los Angeles. In 1916, they chartered and opened Immaculate Heart College on the same property. In 1924 they became independent of Spain and formed a Pontifical Institute aligned with American customs and sensibilities.
The decades following their independence from Spain were self-defining for the Immaculate Heart Sisters. They opened a Novitiate and Retreat Center in Montecito, began hospital ministries, and staffed many Catholic elementary schools and Catholic high schools. Gradually, over the next few decades their service extended beyond California to include schools in Texas, Arizona, and Canada. Innovation, creativity, and hospitality were hallmarks that characterized the broad scope of their ministries and their service to communities.
Catharina and Thomas loved all their children. Unfortunately, Catharina got sick and died on June 13, 1865. She was 42 years old. She was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Eagle Creek.
Thomas Mullen and his children ended up moving to Walnut Lake, near Faribault, Minnesota. On June 22, 1869, Thomas married Ellen Helen Fullman, and they had several more children.
Thomas died July 20, 1930, and was buried at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cemetery in Easton, Minnesota.