The Mother of Savannah

Mathilda Beasley

Mathilda Beasley was born in New Orleans November 14, 1832 as a slave. She moved to Savannah in the 1850s. In Savannah she opened an Underground School for black children before the Civil War. The penalty running an Underground School for a black teacher, whether slave or free, was a $100.00 fine and up to thirty-two lashes with the whip in the public square. This did not deter her. She married a successful businessman in 1869 and when he died in 1877 she gave most of her money to the Catholic Church and traveled to York, England to become a nun. After completing her training she tried to enter the Franciscan order and was unsuccessful. Why? One suggestion is Mathilda’s husband, Abraham, owned property on Skidaway Island and it is believed that Mathilda Beasley lived there at some point. In November of 1884, a group of Franciscan nuns called the “Poor Clares” worked with the African Americans on Skidaway Island. One of the nuns had been a member of an order in York and this may have been her inspiration to become a novitiate of the York order.

But determined to continue her work she returned to Savannah in 1886 and opened one of the first orphanages for African-American girls in the United States. To accomplish this she started an order called the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis; it was the first African American order in Georgia. The orphanage was called the St. Francis Home for Colored Orphans. These activities led to her being known throughout Georgia and elsewhere as Mother Mathilda. In the late 1890s the orphanage moved to East Broad Street. The orphanage shared this site with St. Benedict the Moor Parish Church.

Mother Mathilda was closely associated with the Sacred Heart Church to which she had given her landholdings after her husband’s death. In the mid-1880s the church gave her a cottage at 1511 Price Street that was her home until she died in 1903. In the home she began to sew, giving her proceeds to poor blacks.

On Dec. 20, 1903 "Mother Beasley" was found dead kneeling in the cottage’s private chapel. Nearby were her burial clothes, funeral instructions and will. People of all faiths attended her funeral filling the church to the brim. She asked no eulogy be spoken at the service in accordance with her life of simplicity and humility. This of course did not stop the newspaper from calling her “the idol of the poor, especially among the Negroes.” She is buried at Savannah’s Catholic Cemetery on Wheaton Street.
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Her legacy continues through the Sacred Heart Church Mother Mathilda Beasley Society. The Society promotes charitable programs and raises awareness of African-American contributions to the Roman Catholic Church. The City of Savannah dedicated a park in memory of Mother Mathilda in 1982. Her home was restored and moved to the East Broad Park that sits across from St. Benedict the Moor Catholic Church. A historical marker on the site recounts her many good deeds. The home and marker sit in a park with playground, community center, basketball courts, dog park, and walking trail. The world was given a Mother Theresa and Savannah was given its own Mother Mathilda.
 
 
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Mother Mathilda's gravesite in Savannah's Catholic Cemetery

Mother Mathilda's restored cottage in her namesake park on E. Broad Street