Catholic Authors: Frances Conigland Farinholt

MRS. FRANCES CONIGLAND FARINHOLT was born at Halifax, North Carolina, just before the great Civil War. Her father, Edward Conigland, immigrated from County Donegal, Ireland, in his youth, and, settling in North Carolina in early manhood, became identified with every interest of its people, and rose to eminence as a lawyer of profound ability and great eloquence, and of the most spotless integrity. Mr. Conigland married as his second wife Miss Mary Wyatt Ezell, of Northampton County, North Carolina, a lady of remarkable intellectual power and womanly grace. Frances and two other daughters of this marriage are his only surviving children. Glen-Ivy, the Conigland home, was a picturesque demesne. Broad acres yielded harvests of cotton, corn, and fruits, while beyond were miles and miles of beautiful woodland, rich in deep dells, rugged hills, and murmuring streams with miniature waterfalls. Here, from the spring-time, when arbutus, yellow jessamine, and creek ivy from which last the place got its name brightened the forests, to mid-winter, when the red berries of the holly glowed amid the dark grandeur of the pines, there was an ever-varying succession of beauty. The influences of a home where harmony, intellect, and refinement made a triumvirate within, and Nature spread such charms without, were powerful in forming the character of the sensitive child, and were shown later in the high intellectual and moral development and enthusiastic love of nature which characterize the woman. By her mother’s death, which occurred when Frances was but seven years old, she became the little mother of her small sisters, who were commended to her care by her and their dying parent. In the duty thus early assumed by her, she was aided by the teachings of a lady, a member of the only other Catholic family in Halifax, who took charge of the education of the Conigland children and those of her own family, and to whose instruction and example her pupils ascribe the faithfulness and devotion to their holy religion which is characteristic of every one of that little Catholic band. When she was nineteen death once more entered the halls of Glen-Ivy and took away the loving and beloved father, leaving Frances the sole protector of her young sisters. Two years later she was married to Mr. Leroy A. Farinholt, a Virginia gentleman, and in 1888 they removed to Asheville. Here, for the first time, Mrs. Farinholt found herself free to labor daily for those outside her home. Having no children of her own, she has devoted herself to the education of the children of others. To this cause she has directed every power of mind and body, all the strength of her sympathies, and she is an active member of the many societies and clubs in her town which directly or indirectly bear on this work. Catholics are so few in Asheville that there is little distinctively Catholic work, but in whatever way Mrs. Farinholt is associated with those outside the church, an association for which by the liberality and charity of her character she is eminently fitted, she is known as a devoted Catholic. She has found little time for writing, but she has contributed several excellent stories to THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and articles on education and ethics to other magazines.

The Catholic World, Vol. LXV, No. 388 (July 1897): 565-567.