Waldo, Eveline Almita

Submitted by Mike Miller

Waldo, Eveline Almita, educator and philanthropist; daughter of James Curtis and Margaret Mary (Woods) Waldo; born at Brooklyn, N. Y., Sept. 27, 1858; died at New Orleans, La., Feb. 3, 1913; educated at the Dominican convent, the Technical Music school of Glens Falls, N. Y., with courses at the University of Chicago and, later, at Tulane university; she was one of the foremost educational workers in the country and a recognized authority upon kindergarten and kindergarten teachers' training; her life work was, however, the great philanthropic endeavor which she began in 1889, and from that year until her death the story of her life is the history of the St. Margaret's Daughters, which is, through the indulgences originally bestowed by Pope Leo XIII and amplified and extended through Pope Pius X, the most privileged organization of Catholic lay women in the world. From the first circle organized by Miss Waldo, and in less than 25 years, the order has spread throughout the Catholic world and there is no field of charitable, benevolent or eleemosynary endeavor that has not felt the work and assistance of the St. Margaret's Daughters. Incident to the work of the order, Miss Waldo, with her mother, organized and maintained the "All Souls' Free Night School for working Boys and Girls,'' which was the first nonsectarian night school for working boys and girls in the United States. Thousands of successful men and women owe their education and training in bookkeeping, stenography and technical work to this school. Miss Waldo also formed many circles of the order to conduct settlement work among the very poor. She had been president of the great order since its foundation and in 1900 was elected president for life. In pronouncing her funeral eulogy, Archhishop Blenk said of Miss Waldo and her work: "I remember, and I shall remember until I, too, and laid to rest among the saints, I hope, how the aged Pontiff at the Vatican listened to my description of the work founded and carried on by Miss Eveline Waldo. There was joy beaming from the eyes of the sovereign pontiff and I saw that he would give anything to show how he approved of it and I saw how the vicar of Christ rejoiced at hearing of the good done by one of his children, and the firm stand taken by her by the side of Jesus Christ. I could not but reflect then how much this generous Christlike effort of hers appealed to God, when it had so appealed to his vicar. When I asked that he endow the order with certain favors and privileges, he exclaimed: 'Most certainly will I do so with all my heart.' It is against the etiquette of the Vatican to ask the Pope to write out such documents, but when he took the pen in his hand I saw that his was a gift that was voluntarily given, and in token of the resemblance to Jesus Christ of the work in its compassion for the poor that he had blessed it. Like his Divine Master, the holy father's heart swelled with pride at seeing that compassion for the poor."

Source: Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), pp. 584-585. Edited by Alcee Fortier, Lit.D. Published in 1914, by Century Historical Association.