HURLEY, ELIZABETH (SPRATT) (1827-1909)

HURLEY, ELIZABETH (SPRATT), native daughter; teacher and social worker; b. Bay du Vin, 1 Jan 1827, d/o Joseph Spratt and Ann Coy; m. a Dr Hurley; d. New York City, 16 Nov 1909.

It is stated that when she was a young woman Elizabeth Spratt taught a private school near Chatham, but no occupation is shown for her in the census of 1851, when she was living at home with her parents, at age twenty-three. She settled in New York City around 1855 and did private charitable work for several years with her physician-husband, Dr Hurley. In 1861, after he went off to war (never to return), she joined in the work of the Children's Aid Society, and she was engaged as a teacher and social worker with the society for nearly fifty years, her work being directed chiefly towards the training and protection of young women. In the third edition of his book, The Dangerous Classes of New York (1880), the American philanthropist C. Loring Brace described her as "an angel of mercy."

In 1892, when the Elizabeth Home for Girls was opened on 12th Street in New York, Hurley was appointed superintendent. This school catered to girls of middle-class backgrounds who had gone astray. Here as elsewhere she was "a worker and not a talker," and because she was always fresh and energetic, even in her old age, the girls called her "The Evergreen." "It may be estimated," stated the secretary of the Children's Aid Society when she died, "that 12,000 girls are leading useful lives as a result of Mrs Hurley's loving care and wise training. Hers was a life work which has brought enormous good to humanity."

"Mrs Hurley," as she was universally known, was not neglectful of her Miramichi roots, and each summer for nearly forty years she arrived like clockwork to spend a holiday with her sister Ellen (Spratt) Parker and other relatives. After her death in 1909 tributes appeared in the New York World, the Christian Herald and other leading publications.