“The Church Would Look Foolish Without Them”: Mary Onahan Gallery, Chicago

LIVING CATHOLIC AUTHORS
The Catholic World (August 1897): 712-713.

MISS MARY JOSEPHINE ONAHAN is one of the young writers of the West, and has much of the dash and originality that are the birthright of the Western Muse.

Born in Chicago, she received her education in the Convent of the Sacred Heart in that city and in St. Louis, and her aunt is one of the most valued and accomplished members of the order. This education has been continued in her father’s house, which is lined with books and curios from attic to cellar, and in whose cozy “den” have gathered many of the history-making men and women of the day. Here the bright eager girl has been the instant friend of every guest from far and near. She has won them by her ever-ready wit, enthusiasm, and verve; she has kept them by the sterling genuineness of her character.

Miss Onahan is a welcome contributor to each and all of the Chicago daily papers, and a number of her articles have been copied by the great dailies of New York. She believes that one of the important duties of American Catholics is to see that the church is done justice to, her charities, her teaching, her influence in that most tremendous of modern powers, the columns of the daily press.

She has also done regular editorial work for the Catholic papers, and articles from her versatile pen have appeared in a number of magazines. These articles cover a wide range of subjects, literary, musical, philanthropic; but the ones in which she takes special interest are those telling of efforts for the practical betterment of the world, for as one writer says of her: “’Molly’ Onahan would take more pleasure in the approving whoop of a lot of ‘newsies’ than in prim congratulations from all the prelates of a general council.”

Her work is the more effective because entirely free from obtrusive religiosity and air of controversial championship. She is constitutionally and everlastingly a bright, vivacious, sunshiny girl whose blue-stockingism is but one side of her character. She has also written verse, though she seldom owns up to it, and her papers at the Representative Women’s and the Catholic Congress were among the best read.

Of her style Walter Lecky says: “Although the youngest of Chicago’s literary coterie, she is a writer of marked ability. There is a graceful mingling of strength and delicacy in her writings. If she will have patience, learn to use the pruning-hook, her future is assured. The product of Ireland in America, a Celt in artistic environment— the only environment natural to a Celt— she points to what the Celt must be before another century lapses.”

NOTE
Mary Josephine Onahan (1866-1898) was the daughter of William J. Onahan (1836-1919), one of Chicago’s leading laymen, and Margaret Duffy Onahan. She was the only one of six children to live to adulthood. In 1898, she married Daniel Gallery, a Chicago lawyer, and they had six children. One of them, John Ireland Gallery, was ordained a priest in 1926. Another, Daniel V. Gallery, Jr., was an Admiral in the U.S. Navy. In 1929, Mary wrote a biography of her father.


The Catholic World was started at New York City in 1865 under the auspices of the Paulist Fathers, a religious community dedicated to evangelizing the United States. It was the first successful attempt at a nationwide Catholic magazine. Under a series of highly talented Paulist editors, it covered art and literature, science and philosophy, religion and culture. It also engaged some of the finest Catholic authors of the day. The Catholic World ceased publication in 1996, but has been recently resurrected in an online form.

(A final note: Walter Lecky was a popular author and literary critic of the time.)