Father Charles Ignatius White, pastor of the Church of St. Matthew the Apostle, died on April 1, 1878. He had been the pastor of St. Matthew’s for more than 20 years by the time of his death. About a week after his death, The Washington Post published the text of his last will and testament. He left items to his brother and sister, friends and then-Archbishop James Gibbons of Baltimore, which was all to be expected. But he also left $50, which equates to over $1,300 in today’s money, to his servant, Jane Colbert.
Jane Colbert was an African American woman in her late twenties in charge of cleaning and laundry in Father White’s rectory. She lived with her husband, William H. Colbert, and her younger sister, Ella, in a house in the alleyway between I and K and 14th and 15th Streets, which was right down the block from St. Matthew’s Church, then located at 15th and H Streets. Her husband was described as a laborer and a whitewasher. Jane would have two sons in the years after Father White died. Her youngest daughter June was born in 1887. Father White’s bequest clearly meant a lot to this family as it allowed Jane to stop working full-time so she and William could start a family.
The first St. Matthew’s Church was located at 15th and H streets, N.W. The building was completed in 1840. Fathers James B. Donelan and Ignatius White both served as pastor of this church. Jane Colbert would also worked to have cleaned this building. This church served the parish until it was sold in 1910 to assist in paying for the new church on Rhode Island Avenue, which is the present site. The original church was demolished soon after it was sold. (Library of Congress photo)
As Jane was only in her late twenties when Father White died, she probably worked for him for less than 10 years. We do not know the name of her predecessor. But we do know of an earlier predecessor, who worked for Father James B. Donelan, the second pastor of St Matthew’s. The woman, a 30-year old African American whose name we have not discovered, was enslaved. According the 1850 U.S. slave census, Father Donelan was listed as her owner, but truthfully, it is unknown if he or his family was the slave holder in her case, or if she was provided along with the residence by the parish or the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
Of the six parishes established in the city of Washington by the Archdiocese of Baltimore before 1850, we know that three had men and women who were enslaved living in the households with the pastors, performing domestic and other duties. Besides St. Matthew’s, the other two parishes were St. Peter’s on Capitol Hill and St. Mary Mother of God. We have not discovered the names of these men and women who were enslaved and labored in our Washington parishes before the Civil War, but we acknowledge and honor their memories.
Another unseen woman is Louisa Mason, who was born on St. Inigoes plantation in St. Mary’s County in 1812. She lived most of her life enslaved to the Jesuits. She was not sold as part of the 1838 sale by the Maryland Jesuits that benefitted Georgetown University, and, instead, continued to live on the plantation and served as a domestic servant to the Jesuit priests there. Louisa and her children were some of the last enslaved persons to be freed in Maryland in 1867. She continued to live at St. Inigoes for the rest of her life and died in 1909.
St. Cyprian’s was founded in 1893, as an African American Parish on Capitol Hill. It was to this church that Miss Henrietta Waters walked regularly for more than 60 years. St. Cyprian’s remained independent until 1966 when it joined with Holy Comforter Parish. St. Cyprian’s Church was demolished in 1971. (Photo courtesy of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Parish)
Finally, there is Henrietta Waters, who served as sacristan and head of the Altar Society at St. Cyprian’s Parish for more than 60 years. Miss Henrietta, as she was known, was born at the close of the Civil War, being 97 years old when she died in 1963. She like the women discussed above also worked as a laundress from the age of 15 until she retired at the age of 90. She personally supervised the washing of the altar cloths and vestments at St. Cyprian from its founding as a parish in 1893 serving Black Catholics in that part of the city of Washington, and she walked to the church every day from her home two blocks away until the age of 95. Her obituary praised her dedication to the Church, paraphrasing the Gospels by stating that all she had she gave to the Church.
When we think of women working within the Church in the 21st century, it is rare that we think of the women who performed menial and domestic tasks for the Church for much of their lives. Nor do we think of the women who did not labor voluntarily for the Church and who were enslaved.
Pope Francis, speaking about the role of unseen women in the life of the Church in the Amazon said: “Women make their contribution to the Church in a way that is properly theirs, by making present the tender strength of Mary, the Mother. As a result, we do not limit ourselves to a functional approach, but enter instead into the inmost structure of the Church. In this way, we will fundamentally realize why, without women, the Church breaks down, and how many communities in the Amazon would have collapsed, had women not been there to sustain them, keep them together and care for them” (Querida Amazonia, 101).
Pope Francis’s words also ring true for the unseen women of our local Church and all the women who sustain us.
(Dr. Jacobe serves as the director of the Archives for the Archdiocese of Washington.)
