The Woman Behind Angela Boulevard

Angela Boulevard is the only South Bend street named after a woman.

BY AARON HELMAN // POSTED APRIL 10, 2026

Angela Boulevard's namesake was not actually named Angela — at least not at birth.

The street traces its name to Eliza Maria Gillespie, born in 1824 in Pennsylvania into a prominent family with connections that read like a who's who of 19th-century America. Her relatives included Presidential candidate James Blaine and Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman. Eliza herself received an uncommonly thorough education for a woman of her era, studying first at a private school, then under the Dominican Sisters in Somerset, Ohio, and finally graduating from the Georgetown Visitation Monastery by age 20.

Her education opened doors. Through a combination of impressive credentials and well-placed family ties, Gillespie became a fixture in Washington D.C.'s social scene during the 1840s. But the glittering capital life wasn't what she was after.

By 1853, approaching 30, Gillespie had decided to become a nun. Before taking her vows, she made one last trip — to say goodbye to her brother, a seminarian at a small Catholic school in South Bend, Indiana. It was there she met Father Edward Sorin. When she completed her rites, she took the name Sister Mary of St. Angela. Over time, the world would come to know her simply as Mother Angela.

In 1855, Mother Angela was appointed Superior of St. Mary's Academy, then a small girls' school in Bertrand, Michigan. By year's end, she had relocated it to its current home — just across the street from the University of Notre Dame.

Her impact on South Bend extended well beyond education. When the Civil War broke out, she organized 80 Sisters of the Holy Cross to serve as nurses. After the war, she was elected Superior General of the American Sisters of the Holy Cross and went on to help establish more than thirty schools, institutes, and hospitals across the country, many still operating today. She also helped launch Notre Dame's Ave Maria publication, the forerunner of Ave Maria Press.

 

 

Through it all, St. Mary's remained her life's work. She lived and worked on campus until her death in April 1887 at the age of 63.

The South Bend newspaper mourned her loss with unmistakable warmth. Father Sorin offered a loving tribute, and the paper's obituary captured the quiet grace of her final moments — noting that she passed so peacefully on a calm, sunlit spring morning that those beside her barely knew she had gone.

Angela Avenue — now Angela Boulevard — was named in her honor in 1902. The Gillespie Center on the Notre Dame campus also bears her family name. She is buried at Our Lady of Peace Cemetery.

Aaron Helman is an author, historian and adventurer from South Bend. You may have seen him around South Bend drinking coffee. Learn more about his work or check out his books at aaronhelman.com.