What Really Caused Her Death?

What a strange occurrence—the third Sister to die at St. Rose Convent and under such unusual circumstances. Mary Catherine O’Neill was born in Pleasant Mount, PA, on February 22, 1866. She entered the Community at St. Rose Novitiate on September 29, 1882, was received March 27, 1883, and professed on April 6, 1885.

Sister Mary Regina O’Neill’s life was a very short one. Just one year after her profession she died under very strange circumstances. On Wednesday evening, April 14, 1886, she retired for the night in apparent good health. But very early Thursday morning the Sisters in adjoining rooms heard a loud noise and moaning coming from Sister Mary Regina’s room. They rushed in and found her lying on the floor, dying. She died after just a few seconds from when they found her. Also lying on the floor was a picture that had fallen off the wall of her room. Was that what startled her? Did she suffer a heart attack when she got out of bed? Did she trip and fall, hitting her head? The newspapers speculated that because she may have suffered from heart disease, the sound of the fallen picture had startled her and caused her death. Sister Mary Regina was just 20 years old and professed only one year when she died. She was a music teacher at the St. Rose Academy and was loved by the members of the parish as well as by the Sisters with whom she lived.

There is also some confusion about the spelling of her last name. On all the records, including her headstone her last name was spelled O’Neill, but at some point, someone crossed out the second ‘l’ in her last name. Her younger sister Teresa entered the community in 1887, was given the religious name of Sister Regina, and she spelled her last name O’Neill. So it would seem as though the same spelling would apply to Sister Mary Regina as well.

So many mysteries in one young person’s life, but a life that was of value and well lived.