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We have never actually read about Julia Greeley.
Julia lived in Denver from the time she moved here from Missouri as an ex-slave until she died in 1918 on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, which happened to be her beloved devotion. She arrived not knowing her birth date or even her age and blinded in one eye by the whip of a slave owner.
This is the only known photo of Julia
Gina indexed the biography of Julia Greeley!
Instead we have a more interesting connection to her recently published story which was written by Fr. Blain Burkey, O.F.M., Cap. One of our members, Gina, is a professional indexer, which means she breaks down all the subjects in a book or document into the index you see in the back. Gina was honored to be chosen to index the 2011 book “In Secret Service of the Sacred Heart: Remembering the Life and Virtues of Denver’s Angel of Charity, Julia Greeley, O.F.S.” and she wrote about it in this guest post.
I have been to Julia’s grave at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, CO
Next time I go I’ll be sure to get a photo for you! Growing up in Denver I’m sure I walked on or near some of the same spots where she traveled the streets and alleyways, dropping off items needed by poor families but doing so anonymously so as not to hurt anyone’s pride. I am even very sure my Grandma Sara’s parents knew about her as they were parishioners at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, not far from Julia’s parish, Sacred Heart. Maybe they even saw her or met her at one time!
The National Black Catholic Congress site has a page dedicated to her.
They tell of many acts of love and charity Julia regularly gave, one of which was to gather the cast off dresses of rich women and give them to poor single working women so they could attend social gatherings and church without shame. Julia had a deep and holy sense of protecting others from shame and wounded pride.
Denver’s 9News aired this report earlier this year.
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While researching a little about Brush Creek MO, birthplace of America’s first black priest
which we read about in From Slave to Priest by Sister Caroline Hemesath, I found this gem of a priest, Fr. Daren Zehnle and his blog, Servant and Steward. Father Zehnle is a priest of the Springfield, IL diocese and is championing the cause of Fr. Tolton’s canonization.
One of the posts I found while digging around (mmm, I know) had this wonderful photo of Bishop Paprocki meandering through the slave’s graves, probably praying for their souls, in the Brush Creek Catholic slave cemetery. I told here a little more about Brush Creek.
Illinois’ Bishop Paprocki on a pilgrimage to Brush Creek, birthplace of Fr. Augustine Tolton
I find it so appropriate that Black Catholic History month falls in November
which happens to also be the month that Catholics around the world devote to praying for the souls in the Body of Christ who have passed on to judgement.
Father Zehnle printed this quote from Saint Damien of Molokai (one of my children’s name saints!):
“My greatest pleasure is to go there [the cemetery] to say my beads, and meditate on that unending happiness which so many of them are already enjoying.”
Martha Jane Chisley was baptized as an infant slave in Kentucky. As a young girl she was ripped from the lives of her parents and siblings when she was given as a gift to the just married daughter of the plantation owner and taken to Brush Creek Missouri. Sr. Hemesath paints an all too common scene beginning with the “slaves [being] loaded onto the cart. Martha Jane wept convulsively at the thought of being separated from her parents and brother. No one paid the slightest attention to her sorrow. At the moment of departing, her brother Charley, frenzied with grief, came running from the slave quarters. He jumped onto the cart and caught Martha Jane in a viselike embrace; he shrieked in desperation. The overseer ordered the youth to leave, and when his words were neither heard nor heeded, the angered man brought his whip down on the young slave’s back. Charley’s grasp loosened, and he fell from the cart in a crumpled heap at the feet of the overseer. Martha Jane, catching a glimpse of the whip raised a second time, turned aside swiftly to avoid the painful sight. Her face was distorted in agony and utter despair, and her heartbreaking moans were lost amid the shouts of farewells and the tumult of leavetaking.”
Peter and Martha: Made Perfect for Heaven Through the Marriage Sacrament
Meanwhile Peter Paul Tolton who was baptized and named after missionary priest Reverend Peter Paul Lefebre, worked in the rye fields adjacent to the land where Martha was being carted to labor. He picked grain and worked as a handyman at the plantation’s whiskey distillery. By the time Peter Paul spotted Martha the young man had spent many hours forming his opinion about the equality of all men and making the decision to escape the degradation. As he happened to look upon her as she comforted an exhausted and sick boy, “Peter glimpsed something rare and inestimably precious—Christian compassion. It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.”
Peter Paul and Martha Tolton’s son Augustine was baptized at St. Peter’s Church in Brush Creek MO (this is a newer building)
Father Tolton’s Parents are Married at Saint Peter’s
In a fairy tale love story we expect to hear “they lived happily ever after.” However stories of American slaves are rarely filled with happy endings. After falling in love Peter and Martha were married at Brush Creek’s St Peter’s Church and were allowed to live together in a cabin accessible to both farms. Augustine John was born in 1854, the middle of three children. Slave family life was filled with “tension”, “fear”, “anxiety” and “terror.” Peter did not give up on his ideas of escape and Martha supported and encouraged him until finally, “strengthened by her faith and love, Peter tore himself away from his dear ones, escaped, and found his way to the army headquarters at Saint Louis.”
Peter Escapes and Martha Does Too
In the meantime the waiting Martha became increasingly terrified by the wanderings of extremely cruel and vicious slave traders from the south who were looking for children to purchase. She decided to escape with the children and the two older boys recalled a harrowing journey which included capture and their smuggling to the Mississippi River by Union Army soldiers. Once they were on the water Confederates gave chase again and fired upon the family with muskets. “Undaunted by the whistling bullets, the mother ordered the children to lie flat in the bottom of the vessel. The baby screamed from sheer bewilderment and fright. The boys did what they could to calm her, although they also cried all the way. “Relying entirely on the protection of divine power, the determined mother clung to the oars and succeeded in placing a safe distance between the boat and the chagrined slave hunters.”
Struggling from hunger and exhaustion, and no doubt spurred on by supernatural graces, Martha landed in the free state of Illinois, only to eventually learn that her beloved Peter had given his life for freedom as a Union soldier along with hundreds of other freed and escaped black slaves.
Throughout the rest of her life Martha would experience so many more sorrows as she watched her son reach out to the Catholic priesthood only to be rejected. Like the Blessed Mother she stubbornly clung to God until finally Augustine was accepted at the seminary in Rome and eventually ordained.
Sister Hemesath’s story of the Tolton Family and Augustine’s eventual work as a priest in Illinois is riveting from beginning to end. The book calls Father “Augustine” while the website for his canonization uses “Augustus.” Not sure why this is; if you know please leave a comment.
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