Bridget Hayden

Bridget Hayden, also known as Mother Mary Bridget Hayden (August 26, 1814 – January 23, 1890) was an Irish-born American missionary of the Sisters of Loretto. Hayden became the Mother Superior of a mission. She was known among her students and Native Americans as "Girls' School Leader" and "Medicine Woman".

Osage School for Girls Hayden and two other sisters—Vincentia McCool and Mary Petronella VanPrather—and Mother Concordia Henning joined Schoenmakers. They traveled by wagon to St. Louis and boarded the steamboat J. J. Harden on September 20, 1847, to Westport, Kansas City, Missouri. They completed their trip to the Osage Mission with a guide and two wagons. They arrived at the mission on October 5, 1847. (She also said to have arrived on October 10, 1847.) Businesses were closed in town and her body lay in state for two days, during which she was visited by people across the United States, including the Mother General from Kentucky. She was buried in a convent cemetery near the school, and was moved to St. Francis Cemetery in 1930.

Legacy Her picture in the veil worn at the time by the Sisters of Loretto was installed at the Kansas State Capitol building in Topeka, Kansas in remembrance of her work during the frontier days of Kansas.