Within two years of arriving in America, her parents died of yellow fever and Margaret was left orphaned in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1835, she married Charles Haughery and they moved to New Orleans. They had a daughter, but within a year her husband and child died in a cholera epidemic.
To support herself, the young widow worked as a laundress. She also volunteered at a Catholic orphanage. When the children had no bread, Margaret dipped into her own meager savings to buy them bread. She was so impressed by the Sisters of Charity who operated the orphanage that she used her salary to help them erase their debt. She purchased cows to provide the orphans fresh milk, and opened the first steam bakery in the South. When she died in 1882, she left over a half-million dollars to orphans and the poor.
Because of her charity, Margaret became known as the "Angel of the Delta" and the "Bread Lady of New Orleans."
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In 1859, the Daughters of Charity opened the Hotel Dieu Hospital in New Orleans to provide health care to seamen and the city's poor. Their first patient was said to be a black slave. On this day in 1924, the sisters opened a new Hotel Dieu to replace the original aging structure.
- Little Black Book, Diocese of Saginaw