Fanny Allen

Frances Margaret ("Fanny") Allen (November 13 1784-September 10 1819) was the first woman of New England birth to become a Roman Catholic nun.

Born in Sunderland, Vermont, Allen was the eldest child of Ethan Allen and his second wife, a widow, Frances Montresor Brush Buchanan Allen. Fanny was four years old when her father died on February 12 1789. Her mother married Dr. Jabez Penniman in 1794.

When she was 21, she asked permission of her parents to go to Montreal in order to study French. They consented, but first required her to be baptized by the Rev. Daniel Barber, an Anglican priest of Claremont, New Hampshire.

She became a pupil of the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, at Montreal in 1807.

She subsequently converted to Roman Catholicism. As tradition relates it, her conversion was based on a supernatural experience. Her parents promptly withdrew her from the convent and attempted to distract her from that goal, she agreed to wait a year before taking action.

As soon as that year ended, she returned to Montreal and entered the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, making her religious profession on May 18 1811. She became a nun in the Religious Hospitaliers of St. Joseph - the first woman of New England birth to become a nun.

She spent the rest of her life nursing the sick and indigent, notably in the War of 1812. She died of consumption on September 10 1819 at the Hôtel-Dieu, aged 34.

Legacy
The Fanny Allen Hospital in Colchester, Vermont, was built in 1879 and run by her order, the Sisters of St Joseph, was named in her honor. This merged in 1995 with another hospital and rebuilt as the primary care center in Western Vermont. It still contains her name: Fletcher Allen.