Templevalley Nun killed by Allied Bombing

 

Mary O’Keeffe was born in a small three-roomed cottage in Templevalley, in Conna Co Cork on Friday February 10^th 1911. She was the daughter of farm labourer, David O’Keeffe and his wife Mary (Minnie), nee Corcoran. Her maternal grandparents were Edmond and Mary Corcoran. She was the middle of three children. Her brother Jeremiah was three years older. Her younger sister, Ellen, married Timothy Hogan from Vinepark. Mary attended Lacken National School in Glengoura. Later she worked for a few years with the Keniry family, who had a grocery and licensed trade business in Tallow. She entered the Order of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Waterford and was sent to Dublin as a postulant. This Congregation was founded to care for the elderly poor.

Mary went to Paris for about a year to continue her postulancy and also to learn French. She was then sent to the Novitiate in Marino, 21 km south east of Rome, to continue her religious formation.
She arrived there on November 20^th 1930. Here she was given the name Sister Marie de Ste Agnes. Even though the Novitiate was in Italy the classes were given in French. After another six months as a postulant she became a novice on June 21^st 1931 and pronounced her first vows on December 8^th 1932.Her first assignment was to the home in Santa Maria in Italy where she helped in the kitchen. In January 1936 she went to the home in Lacques, Italy and cared for the elderly ladies.
In November 1936 she went to the Novitiate of La Tour Saint-Joseph, Saint Pern in North Western France, for a year of spiritual formation in preparation for her final vows. Saint-Pern is the burial place of Saint Jeanne Jugan, foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor. She pronounced her final vows on November 21^st 1937 and was appointed as Assistant to the Mother Mistress in the Novitiate of Marino.
Italy was very much affected by World War 11 which began in 1939. The first Allied bombing of Rome occurred on May 16th 1943, three months before the German Army occupied the city. Pope Pius XII wrote Roosevelt asking that Rome “be spared as far as possible further pain and devastation, and their many treasured shrines… from irreparable ruin.” On June 16, 1943, President Roosevelt replied: “Attacks against Italy are limited, to the extent as humanly possible, to military objectives”. However, both the Allies and Germany bombed Rome in the period 1943-44 as the Allies fought their way up Italy following the invasion of Sicily.
Sr Marie de Ste Agnes lost her life in a bombardment by the Allied Forces on February 17^th 1944. She was 35 years old. The Allies had mistakenly thought that German soldiers were billeted in the Novitiate building. Seventeen other Little Sisters perished in the attack.
Sr Marie’s obituary notice demonstrates the esteem in which she was held by her superiors: “Sr Marie de Ste Agnes had expressed the desire to go to a mission country but God had another apostolate in view for her and she submitted wholeheartedly. A very good hospital sister, she loved the residents and cared for them with competence. She was virtuous and faithful to duty with an aptitude for almost any employment. An assistant to the Novice Mistress she had all the qualities required for this delicate task, helping with the formation of the Novices by her fervour and her religious spirit. Her superiors had placed great hopes in her for the future but such did not enter into God’s plan, who called her to Himself so suddenly”.
Her brother, Jeremiah O’Keeffe, died some months after his sister on May 27^th 1944.
Sr Marie was buried in the convent cemetery in Marino near Rome. Her nieces, Mrs Hannah Fitzgerald, (nee Hogan), Cappoquin and Mrs Mary Walsh (nee Hogan), Cork, fulfilled a lifelong wish when they visited the grave and paid their respects in January 2002.
Sr Marie’s nephews, Jerry and Seamus Hogan and their families still live in Templevalley.
             

Tom Finn

 

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