Frances Margaret Allen

Frances Margaret "Fanny" Allen, RHSJ (November 13, 1784 – September 10, 1819) was the first New England woman to become a Catholic nun. She was born in a house built by her father on the side of the Batten Kill in Sunderland, Vermont. Her family moved to various settlements in Vermont in her youth, and Frances, who was called Fanny, spent her childhood in Burlington, Westminster, and Swanton. Her father was a skeptic of organized religion in the same philosophical camp as Thomas Paine, and her step-father regarded the affectations of the religious people of his time and era as "pretentious". She also served as an interpreter for English-speaking patients and cared for wounded combatants in the War of 1812. According to contemporary reports, Sister Allen was often called upon by Americans visiting Montreal, "begging to see the lovely young nun of the Hotel-Dieu, who was the first daughter New England had given to the sacred enclosure and whom they claimed as belonging especially to them through her connection with their favorite revolutionary hero." These interruptions were apparently so frequent that Sister Allen eventually requested the permission of her Mother Superior to decline all such calls, except those made by friends from her youth. Near the campus of this merged hospital there is still a cemetery which retains the Fanny Allen name, where nuns associated with the Hospitallers are buried.