Sister Mary Consolata Conlan

Sister Mary Consolata Conlan. 17th Nov. 1842 - 30th July 1862. Entered into the community 28th March 1861 Received the Holy Habit 8th September 1861. Sister Mary Consolata Conlan was one of the twenty-five Daughters of Charity from Emmitsburg, Maryland who cared for the sick, wounded and dying at Point Lookout, Maryland. Sister Consolata contracted typhoid fever on her twenty-four-hour voyage from Baltimore to Point Lookout, Maryland. Two weeks after her arrival, Sister Consolata died on July 30, 1862., Having nu lumber for a casket, the soldiers used packing cases and made her a coffin. In procession, the soldiers played a funeral march and Sister Consolata was buried on the banks of the Potomac River, near the wharf and cottage hospital., After the war, when the U.S. Government started exhuming the remains of the dead, Sister Consolata's remains were taken to Washington, DC., "She came in a box and there was a large wooden cross with her name and date of death." When her coffin was opened "Sister Consolata's body was found in perfect preservation, not a particle changed from the day of burial, her habit and cornette not even mildewed.", "There the little figure lay clad in her habit which looked like silk, the hands clasped and holding a Crucifix, the collar had turned black; the lower part of her face looked dark, but no decay; she did not have on the cornette, but the toquois, and that was black; from under it the long hair had grown and swept down the figure and then turned up again, shining yellow hair! The fingernails had grown too but she looked so still and nice!", A Requiem Mass was celebrated, and Sister Mary Consolata ras reinterred at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, DC.