Sister M. Madeline Bernard Stephenson

Lucretia Mary Stephenson was one of seven children born to Kate (Meehan) and John Stephenson. The Stephenson family hailed from Poole, England, but in 1804 Lucretia’s grandfather, a naval doctor, left England for Newfoundland. He went to Burin where he was appointed Justice of the Peace. He decided to settle there and shortly after, brought his whole family to Burin and set up a successful medical practice there.

After his death, all his family except for Lucretia’s father John moved back to England. John eventually settled in Ferryland where he became Sheriff of the Southern District, a position he held until his death in 1872.

The actual date of Lucretia’s birth is unknown, although it probably occurred in the mid or late 1840s. Nothing is known of her early life prior to her entrance to the Sisters of Mercy in March of 1874. She was received into the novitiate at Mercy Convent on September 7, 1874, as Sister Mary Madeline Bernard, and made profession of vows on September 25, 1876.

Sister M. Madeline lived and ministered at Mercy Convent from the time of her entrance until 1885. For some of those years she taught at Guardian Angels School, a pre-school for boys and girls which operated at Mercy Convent from 1881 until 1896. A congratulatory letter sent to the Sisters on the centenary of their arrival in St. John’s from John Fitzhenry, a former student of Guardian Angels School, speaks of Sister M. Madeline as one of his teachers and a girlhood friend of his mother.

In 1885 Sister M. Madeline went to St. Anne’s Convent in Burin, where she died little more than a year later in November of 1886. According to her obituary in the Daily Columnist of November 27, 1886 “her health had never been robust, and she frequently suffered from illness …For nearly two months before her death she was confined to bed, a victim of extreme suffering.”

Sister M. Madeline is one of the six Sisters of Mercy buried in Burin.