Lizzie Gordon

Lizzie M. Gannon was an alleged teenage mystic and stigmatic from Boston, Massachusetts. She claimed to see visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, saints, and her dead brother. "Angels" lawsuit In 1881, Gannon's parents sued Fr. John H. Fleming and Archbishop John Joseph Williams for $5,000 in Suffolk Superior Court. Three years prior, Gannon began going into trances, during which should could not speak unless Fleming or a few others placed their hands on her. When she came out of them, she claimed to have received revelations from the Virgin Mary and to have seen saints and the faces of those who died. Her family sent for Fleming, their parish priest, in the fall of 1878. Fleming would often attend to the girl, often in the company of another priest, and the visits seemed to help her. In one of her revelations, Gannon said that the Virgin Mary had a message for Fleming, that he was to write a book that told Gannon's story and of all of her visions. Fleming declined to write the book. In the fall of 1879, Fleming visited the girl, who was entranced and holding in her hands two or three images or dolls of angels. They were about .75 inches long and appeared to be cut from heavy paper. Gannon said the images had been given to her by her dead brother. Her brother, to whom she had been quite attached, had died two years prior. She also claimed to have received several other items from angels or spirits, including a letter written by the Virgin Mary. Fleming persuaded the girl to give the images to him.