Faithful Friday – Emily Malbone Morgan

By Sarah Levesque Losardo

Emily Malbone Morgan was born on December 10, 1862 in Hartford, Connecticut, to Henry Kirke Morgan and his wife Emily Malbone Brinley. Young Emily had four older brothers and no sisters. In her earliest years she was taught by her Episcopalian mother with a great many books and with travel abroad, then she was enrolled in nearby schools. From childhood she was interested in caring for the poor – one of her brothers related in a letter how she wanted to change a dollar for pennies to give to beggars. She also trained herself to avoid the luxurious living of her family – once at the age of twelve she slept on a marble seat as a self-imposed penance for thinking too much about her comfortable hotel bed. Young Emily was also interested in art, music, and literature, particularly writing, and confused her family by making plans for different summer homes. At the age of twenty she helped form The Thursday Afternoon Club, a literary group. One year later, she rekindled her childhood friendship with Adelyn Howard, now an invalid.

It was for the sake of Adelyn that Emily and their friend Harriet Hastings brought young women together for discussion and prayer, a group that would become the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross. Adelyn dedicated herself to intercessory prayer while Emily and others ministered to those less fortunate than themselves. In 1889, they started their first summer house, Heartsease in Saybrook, Connecticut, a vacation spot for tired women and children, where Emily personally ministered to the vacationers. Also in 1889, Emily and her Companions founded Rivington Street Settlement House in New York City to provide housing to Companions, working women, and the poor. Beulahland was opened to vacationers in 1894, Adelynrood in 1914, and Kingswood in 1922. These institutions were funded in part by the sale of the works of fiction that Emily wrote (Goodreads lists four, as well as a compilation of her letters). Emily at one point said, “Over eleven thousand wage-earning women and girls have lived with me in these houses, and my family’s derisive title for me is ‘Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins.’” Emily spent her entire life working with and for the Companions, taking for herself only the title of “Companion-in-Charge”. She died on February 27, 1937 at the age of seventy-four.

May we, like Emily Morgan, show the fruits of our faith in holy works done for the sake of the Lord and our neighbor.

“We pass from prayer into action for others, which, done with our Lord, may become sustained prayer and the gift of the human touch in relation to all our work of bringing happiness and release into other lives.” – Emily Morgan, Letters to her Companions, 1926

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