Religious figure, founder of the Missionary Sisters of St. Columban. Frances Owen-Lewis was born in Marylebone, London, England. In 1897 she married Sir Alfred Moloney K.C.M.G., Governor of the Windward Islands and later Governor of Trinidad, West Indies. He suffered from ill-health and when they were in Italy in 1913 he became ill and died in hospital. While grieving for him, Frances had an audience with Pope Pius X who assured her that God would comfort her in his own way. At the outbreak of World War I she came to Ireland and gave herself to charitable works, at first helping Belgian war refugees in Dublin. In 1918 she heard of Father Blowick's appeal for women missionaries for work in China, entered into dialogue with him and together they took steps towards the foundation of the congregation that was to become the Missionary Sisters of St. Columban. When approval had been received from Rome for the new foundation and a house had been procured near the Columban Fathers' seminary in Cahiracon, Co. Clare, she was among the first group of women who began their training there on February 7, 1922. She was received into the congregation on October 4, 1922, taking the religious name, Sister Mary Patrick. The following year she was selected to be in the first group of sisters to leave for China where they were to make a foundation in Bishop Galvin's vicariate in Hanyang. They arrived there in 1926 and she was to spend the next ten years ministering to the Chinese people with her catechetical and nursing skills and winning their hearts by her selfless dedication. In 1936 she was recalled to Ireland as she had been elected Superior General of the congregation at the second General Chapter. She was elected Vicar General at the General Chapter of 1946 and, with Mother Mary Vianney, then Superior General, helped to procure approval in Rome for the revised constitutions, an approval which gave the congregation pontifical status. In 1952 when she was released from congregational responsibilities she was seventy-nine years of age but she remained active with writing and correspondence and kept up a keen interest in the employees and neighbours in Cahiracon. She died in Cahiracon on August 15, 1959 and her remains were brought for burial to Magheramore where the Motherhouse had transferred two years previously.