We do not know very much about Elizabeth Lange’s early life. Research points to Santiago de Cuba as her birthplace. Most likely she grew up in the French speaking area of the city. Because she was well educated, we believe that she came from a family of some means and social standing.

This 1916 photo provided by the Archdiocese of Denver shows Julia Greeley with Marjorie Ann Urquhart in McDonough Park in Denver. Greeley, a former slave, is being considered for possible sainthood. In a step toward possible sainthood, the remains of Greeley were moved to a Catholic cathedral in Denver. People lined up Wednesday, June 7, 2017, to honor her and pray for her help at the cathedral. (Archdiocese of Denver via AP)

By 1813 Elizabeth Lange was living in Baltimore. She was a courageous, loving and deeply spiritual woman. It did not take Lange long to recognize that the children of her fellow Caribbean immigrants needed education. She was determined to respond to that need in spite of being a black woman in a slave state long before the Emancipation Proclamation. She used her own money and home to educate children of color. Elizabeth, with a friend, Marie Magdelaine Balas, offered free education to children in their home in the Fells Point area of the city.

Early in 1828 Reverend James Hector Joubert, S.S. who, encouraged by Archbishop James Whitfield, asked Elizabeth Lange to start a school for girls of color. She asked Father Joubert if they should start a women religious order too. But how was this to be? Black men and women could not aspire to religious life at that time. But now God provided a way! On July 2, 1829, Elizabeth and three other women pronounced promises of poverty, chastity, and obedience to Archbishop Whitfield and the chosen superior.

She was superior general from 1829 to 1832, and again from 1835 to 1841. She helped to nurse the sick during the Cholera Epidemic in the early 1830s and in the mid-1840s. When Sister Frances died, she took her place working as a domestic at Saint Mary’s Seminary, and from 1850 – 1860 she was the novice mistress for the fledgling Oblate order.

Mother Mary’s early life had prepared her well for the turbulence that followed the death of Fr. Joubert. She suffered violence of soul as she was buffeted by poverty and racial injustice. There was a sense of abandonment at the dwindling number of pupils and defections of her closest companions and co-workers. Yet, through it all Mother Mary never lost faith in Providence. She lived through disappointment and opposition until God called her home on February 3, 1882

In 1991 William Cardinal Keeler, the then Archbishop of Baltimore officially opened formal investigation into her life of union with God and works of charity which could lead to her canonization as saint in the Catholic Church.