Servant of God Julia Greeley, OFS, is a former slave who later earned the title of Denver’s “Angel of Charity,” and whose cause for sainthood opened in 2016, which might make her one of the first American-born slaves to be declared a saint.
Greeley was born into slavery in Missouri sometime between 1835 and 1855. She suffered an eye injury as a child when she was hit by a master’s whip, and was partly blind and disfigured for the rest of her life as a result. She was freed at the end of the Civil War, and worked as a cook/nanny/servant for a variety of families over the years. One of those families was that of the newly-appointed provisional governor of Colorado, which led to Greeley moving there.
In 1880, Greeley became a Catholic, and committed to her new faith she was a daily communicant, was devoted to saying the rosary, and regularly walked about Denver distributing literature from the Sacred Heart League. Greeley also began to carry out charitable works, using her meagre salary and donations to collect food, clothing, coal, toys, and more. She became known for carting her donations on a little red wagon, and often made her visit at night so as not to embarrass people because they were receiving charity from a serving woman who happened to be African American. She even donated her own burial plot for a man who otherwise would have been buried in a pauper’s grave. She continued to carry out such acts of charity throughout the rest of her life, despite painful arthritis.
In 1901, she became a Secular Franciscan, remaining active with the order until her death on June 7, 1918. Initially buried in a church cemetery, her remains were interred in 2017 in Denver’s Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, becoming the first person interred there since the Cathedral opened in 1912.
Pax et bonum
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