Mary Onahan Gallery

Mary ("Molly") Josephine Onahan was born in Chicago, Illinois, July 22, 1866.[2] She was the daughter of William J. Onahan and Margaret (Duffy) Onahan. There were five older siblings in the family, all of whom died in infancy.[3]

Gallery was educated at the Sacred Heart Academy, from which she graduated at an early age.[1] Her aunt was one of the most valued and accomplished members of the order. Her education continued in St. Louis and in her father's house, which was lined with books and curios from attic to cellar, and in whose library included many of the history-making men and women of the day.[4]

On September 5, 1898, she married Daniel Vincent Gallery (born Chicago, 1865), lawyer, who was the son of Daniel J. and Mary A. (Daly) Gallery. Their children were Daniel V., Jr., John Ireland, William Onahan, Mary Margaret, Phillip Daly, and Martha Nancy.[5]

Gallery was a contributor to all of the Chicago daily papers, and a number of her articles were copied by the dailies of New York City. She believed that one of the important duties of American Catholics was to see that the church was done justice to in the columns of the daily press.[4]

She also did regular editorial work for the Catholic papers, and articles from her pen appeared in a number of magazines. These articles covered a wide range of subjects, literary, musical, philanthropic; but the ones in which she took special interest were those telling of efforts for the practical betterment of the world, for, as one writer said of her:— "'Molly' Onahan would take more pleasure in the approving whoop of a lot of 'newsies' than in prim congratulations from all the prelates of a general council." Her work was the more effective because it was entirely free from obtrusive religiosity and air of controversial championship. She was constitutionally and everlastingly a bright woman whose blue-stockingism was but one side of her character.

Gallery also wrote verse, though she seldom owned up to it. Her papers at the Representative Women's and the Catholic Congress were among the best read. Of her style Walter Lecky said:— "Although the youngest of Chicago's literary coterie, she is a writer of marked ability. There is a graceful mingling of strength and delicacy in her writings. If she will have patience, learn to use the pruning hook, her future is assured. The product of Ireland in America, a Celt in artistic environment—the only environment natural to a Celt—she points to what the Celt must be before another century lapses."[6] Gallery died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, January 12, 1941.[2]

• John Mitchel's Daughter
• Pierre Loti
• Chicago's White City by the Sea, 1893
• Catholic Women's Part in Philanthropy, 1893[7]
• An Incident in Old Bologna, 1895
• Life of William J. Onahan : stories of men who made Chicago, 1929

• Works by or about Mary Onahan Gallery at Internet Archive