Posted by Within months, tragedy struck. Yellow fever swept through the Irish quarter of New Orleans, claiming the lives of her parents. At just six years old, Margaret was orphaned in a city that was hostile to Irish Catholics.
Margaret was taken in by Welsh neighbors who put her to work immediately—no school, no childhood, just hard labor. By age nine, she was working in a laundry, and by age eleven, she was completely supporting herself.
In a society that despised Irish immigrants, Margaret understood the prejudice against her people, even if she couldn’t read the signs—”No Irish Need Apply” in job advertisements, “Irish Catholics cannot be trusted” by businessmen. The disdain was palpable, but Margaret didn’t let it define her.
At twenty-one, Margaret married Charles Haughery, another Irish immigrant. Within a year, they had a daughter. But yellow fever returned, and within days, both her husband and baby died. At twenty-two, Margaret was left widowed, childless, illiterate, and still an Irish Catholic in a city that deemed her future bleak.
But Margaret refused to accept defeat. She took out a loan of forty dollars—a considerable sum at the time—and purchased two cows. She would start a dairy business, selling milk door-to-door in the French Quarter.
Many people laughed at her—a woman, an Irish immigrant, who couldn’t read or write, trying to run a business. But Margaret was undeterred. She worked tirelessly, getting up at 3 a.m. to milk the cows, driving her wagon around the neighborhood to deliver milk. She undercut her competitors, maintained high-quality milk, and, within a year, had repaid the loan and bought two more cows. Within five years, she had a thriving dairy operation.
In 1840, Margaret encountered a group of nuns struggling to run an orphanage, caring for children orphaned by yellow fever. Margaret was deeply moved by the plight of these children and decided to donate her entire daily milk production to the orphanage—free of charge. “I never had a cent I didn’t earn by hard work,” she told the nuns, “and I never forgot what it felt like to be hungry.”
But giving away milk wasn’t enough. In 1858, Margaret sold her dairy business and bought a failing bakery. With no experience in baking and unable to read recipes, Margaret learned the trade on her own. Within a year, she transformed the bakery into Margaret’s Bakery, producing the most popular bread in New Orleans. She revolutionized the industry by pioneering packaged bread, creating uniform loaves that could be sold in stores.
Her bread became so ubiquitous that people began asking for “Margaret’s” rather than bread. Every penny she earned beyond her modest living expenses went to support orphanages, hospitals, and homes for the elderly. During yellow fever outbreaks, she cared for the sick, buried the dead, and took in orphaned children.
When New Orleans fell to Union forces during the Civil War in 1862, Margaret kept her bakery running, feeding both Union soldiers and Confederate civilians alike, saying, “I don’t care about your politics. Hungry people need bread.”
By the 1870s, Margaret was one of the wealthiest businesswomen in America. She owned the largest steam bakery in the South, employed hundreds, and commanded respect from New Orleans’ business elite—the same people who once refused to hire Irish immigrants.
Yet Margaret still lived modestly, wearing simple clothes and signing business documents with an “X” because she never learned to write her name. Every Sunday, she would visit the orphanages she supported, sitting with the children, sharing stories, and slipping coins into their pockets, always anonymously.
© The Irish Aboard
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