McKenna, Ellen (Sister Mary Augustine) (1819–83), Sister of Mercy, American civil war nurse and teacher, was born 24 December 1819 in Traugh, Willville, Co. Monaghan, eldest among three daughters and two sons of James and Mary Anne McKenna. Ellen was educated at home, then at Miss Reynolds's private school in Dublin, later returning home to attend a local school conducted by the Misses Hughes. From 1834 she taught poor children in her hometown to read and write, and prepared them for the reception of the sacraments. In 1849 she emigrated to New York, arriving on the Emperor (2 April 1849), and taught in a small private school in Schenectady, NY.
When her youngest brother, John, a priest in New York, assumed responsibility for the family at home Ellen entered the Convent of Mercy, NYC (25 September 1855). On 15 May 1856 she received the habit of the Sisters of Mercy, taking the religious name Sister Mary Augustine, and was professed 17 May 1858. She taught in convent schools and on Saturdays took her turn teaching children and adults on Randall's Island, and did visitations of hospitals and the Tombs and Sing Sing prisons. Sr M. Augustine was also appointed sister in charge of the House of Mercy, a home for emigrant girls.
On 21 November 1860 she opened a home for young neglected children, whom the sisters encountered during home and hospital visitation. The children who had not been placed in situations by the age of 16 were transferred to the House of Mercy until a suitable position could be secured. Before her return from the civil war the house was closed; she reopened it under the supervision of a widow.
In response to an appeal for nurses during the American civil war Sr M. Augustine, along with other New York sisters, took up duty as a military nurse in Beaufort, North Carolina (19 July 1862). She was given charge of the kitchen but later took up nursing duties. She also wrote letters for the soldiers. On 19 September 1862 she was appointed superior and superintendent following the return of her predecessor to New York. On her own return to New York, she fulfilled a promise made to dying soldiers to provide help for the widows and orphan children in that city, a work she continued for the next twenty years.
On 29 September 1863 Mother M. Augustine became superior of the foundation established at Greenbush near Albany, where she opened schools for boys, girls, and infants (3 November). In September 1864 she was recalled to New York; on 10 October 1864 she was elected mistress of the novices, and from 28 May 1867 to 12 May 1877 served as superior of the convent. She established an industrial school for orphan and destitute children, and a convent to serve as a rest house for the NYC sisters at Balmville in Newburgh, Orange county, in 1875. In 1877 she was appointed superior of these institutions. When the finances of the school were precarious, she raised funds for it by composing and publishing many poems and plays.
Mother M. Augustine McKenna died 2 August 1883 and is buried in the community plot in Calvary cemetery, New York. During the American civil war 106 Sisters of Mercy from Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Cincinnati, and Vicksburg nursed both union and confederate soldiers, and were given the right to cross over lines without a password. 580 sisters from eleven religious orders nursed during the civil war; 311 of them were Irish-born. The sisters nursed in field hospital tents, camps, and improvised hospitals, and some of them followed the army from town to town while nursing the sick and wounded. The sisters did not receive a salary. A memorial to them was erected and unveiled in Washington, DC, on 24 September 1924.