Plough lost a close friend and kindred spirit this summer. Monica Cornell, the wife of peace activist Tom Cornell, spent most of her life with the Catholic Worker, the lay movement founded in the 1930s by Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day. The movement is known for its houses of hospitality and for practicing the works of mercy.

For the last thirty years, Monica has been the heart of the Catholic Worker’s Peter Maurin Farm in Marlboro, New York. Her hospitality, from her home-cooked meals to her practical care of guests and residents, made the farm a place of welcome. Most of all, she is remembered for her expansive love – the attention given to each new face, her personal interest in every story.

Monica’s Catholic Worker journey started before she was born: her parents met in Cleveland while setting up one of the first houses of hospitality. The constant stream of volunteers that flowed through her childhood home expanded and shaped her worldview, as did the Catholic Worker newspaper.

Monica was raised before Vatican II. Although she embraced – even grew to embody – the Council’s reforms, she felt her church sometimes compromised on the reverence and personal practices of piety she found central to a life of active service. Her early search reflected her commitment: a postulancy with Maryknoll, a formation course with Ladies of the Grail, and two semesters at a Catholic college, before she joined the New York Catholic Worker at age twenty-one. She arrived in Manhattan the day of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, a fact forever etched into her memory.

It wasn’t long before a fellow worker, Tom Cornell, took interest in her, and the two began dating. Dorothy Day, who felt personally responsible for this daughter of old friends, once accosted Tom after an evening visit, demanding, “Young man, are your intentions honorable?” Not every couple can boast such a matchmaker! Tom and Monica married in July 1964, and settled in a nearby apartment furnished by donations.

When their children, Tom Jr. and Dierdre, were small, the family lived in various rented apartments around New York City. Tom worked for the Fellowship of Reconciliation and joined the grassroots activist peace movement, publicly burning his draft cards – a symbolic act that landed him in federal prison for six months. Like her mother before her, Monica hosted a steady stream of Catholic Workers in their house, her vocation of the home anchoring Tom’s actions on the street.

When the Cornells moved upstate in 1972, this arrangement continued. Tom traveled widely, supporting young conscientious objectors through Pax Christi (which he cofounded) and demonstrating against both the Vietnam War and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Monica kept the home fires burning. Their house was always open to guests – visitors from all walks of life who helped shape their children’s worldviews.

When Tom Jr. and Dierdre left home, the Cornells decided to start a new Catholic Worker location. In Guadalupe House – a former convent in Waterbury, Connecticut – they cared for people dealing with addiction and homelessness, abandoned seniors, young soup kitchen volunteers, and a foster child. Long-term residents recall the couple’s love and gentle mentorship.

After ten years in Waterbury, Tom and Monica, joined by Tom Jr., took on the New York Catholic Worker’s upstate Peter Maurin Farm, in part because the Cornells were getting older, but also because Monica was drawn toward Peter Maurin’s vision. Maurin, who died in 1949, had described urban houses (Day’s preference, and the more common model today) as intended “for the immediate relief of those in need.” But ultimately, he said, the long-term solution would be found in “farming communes where each one works according to his ability and gets according to his need.”

Besides sustaining a welcoming home, Monica joined local religious networks, attended farmers markets, and spent as much time as possible with her five grandchildren. Her spiritual life centered around devotional reading and the lives and feast days of the saints. Tom served as a deacon in their local parish until shortly before his death in 2022. He read daily from scripture, prayed the Psalms, and maintained a lively interest in doctrinal interpretations and current events.

For decades, Monica and Tom have been friends with members of the Bruderhof, the community that publishes Plough. With a lifetime’s worth of friends, they always seemed to have time to meet one more.