Healey Asylum

In 1878, the Reverend Peter Hevey, a native of Saint-Barnabe-Sud, P.Q., and pastor of St. Peter's Church in Lewiston, requested that the Grey Sisters of Charity of Saint-Hyacinthe come to Lewiston to run the local parochial school. Since the work involved would also include making home visits to the poor and the sick of the parish, the religious community accepted Father Hevey's invitation. On November 20th of that year, the first Grey Sisters to be assigned to Lewiston arrived at their new apostolic post. The next day a religious house was dedicated to them and was named "Our Lady of Lourdes Asylum". When, on December 3rd, the Sisters opened their school for the first time, they were greeted by two hundred enthusiastic boys and girls.

Three years later, Father Hevey, eager to assure his parishioners of the perpetual service of French-speaking priests, relinquished his parish in favor of the Dominican Fathers. The first Dominican pastor, Father Mothon, took an early interest in the school. Up to this point, classes had been held in two houses (on the corner of Pierce and Walnut streets) which constituted Our Lady of Lourdes Asylum, but the students now numbered 370. The location was no longer suitable. Father Mothon thus decided to have a large building, known as the Dominican Block, erected on Lincoln Street to serve both as a school and as a place for parish meetings. By January 1883, there were over 650 children, from the ages of 6 to 13, attending the Sisters' school.

In 1892, however, the Grey Sisters informed the Dominicans that they had decided to give up their work in parochial schools. They would stay on only until a teaching order could be found to take charge of the children. The people of Lewiston, faced with the possible departure of a number of these much-respected and much-loved nuns, proposed that they stay to minister to the needs of the many orphaned boys in the area. The Sisters already received orphan girls at their hospital; why not now receive orphan boys in a separate home? Monsignor Healy of Portland approved and encouraged this idea. As a result, the Grey Sisters accepted the responsibility of this new task which was in keeping with the spirit and laws of their religious community.

As early as 1892, construction was begun on Ash Street, on land given some years before by Father Hevey, and on September 4, 1893, a large, solid, comfortable building named after Msgr. Healey received the nuns and the forty young orphan boys left in their charge, Sister Rhesume, the first Superior, and six other nuns devoted themselves to the efficient operation of this institution, which was named the "Healy Asylum" in honor of the Bishop of Portland. Young, orphaned, and destitute boys were not lacking in this area or its surroundings--- children whose lives had been touched by tragedy but who were now permitted to blossom in the warm and healthy atmosphere of this new charitable institution. As long as the location permitted it, the Sisters also held kindergarten classes which the very young children attended several hours each day.

The Healy Asylum during its nearly seventy years of operation as a charitable institution did much to alleviate suffering in Lewiston and was also a powerful force in maintaining the ethnic identity of the city's large Franco-American population.

Jefferson Lake Coburn (1835-1917), architect of the Healy Asylum, was a well-known figure in Lewiston both professionally and because of a colorful Civil War career which he described in several articles published in The Maine Bugle. Among the buildings in the city designed by him are the Osgood Building on Lisbon Street and the James C. Lord House (N.R. 7/21/78). His design for the Healy Asylum is a distinguished application of the Mansard style to an institutional structure.

The building is now a residence for senior citizens.