Posted on: Sunday, January 16, 2005
Mother Marianne's spirit burns bright
By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer
Pictures of her line the walls of St. Francis Medical Center. A nearly life-size statue of St. Francis helping Jesus off the crucifix marks her grave on Kalaupapa, the breathtaking outpost for Hansen's disease patients on a sparkling emerald back side of Moloka'i. A convent for six nuns in Liliha bears her name.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser Her great-great-grandnephew Dr. Paul DeMare, for one.
He remembers, years ago, asking an elderly fellow from Kalaupapa if he knew his great-great-great aunt.
"One of my patients from Kalaupapa, with Hansen's disease, was elderly when I treated him, probably in his 80s," recalled DeMare, now 63. "He was a policeman in Kalaupapa.
"I asked if he knew my great-great-great aunt. He did."
Courtesy of Catholic Herald archive "The word he used to describe her was 'strict.' "
DeMare never met Mother Marianne, but their paths run parallel: DeMare came from upstate New York to Hawai'i, as did his great-great-great aunt, born Barbara Koob in 1838.
Both would work with Hansen's disease patients — she as the mother superior who ran the Bishop Home for Girls in the 19th century, he as a radiation oncologist at St. Francis when he returned to make the Islands his home in 1975.
She came here to work with the sick in 1883. He came here as an intern some 80 years later, only vaguely aware that his ancestor left such a huge legacy.
He'd pass by portraits of her at St. Francis. When he took a trip to Kalaupapa in 1968, it hit him how important a historical figure she was. He went back home after finishing up his residency to quiz his two elderly aunts about her.
Learning of her accomplishments and impact on Kalaupapa gave him an appreciation for her life and work.
"I don't want to consider myself on the same plane," he said.
Working for sainthood
Important dates in Mother Marianne Cope's life:
Jan. 23, 1838 — Born in Germany, moved to upstate New York as a child. Aug. 26, 1962 — Joined St. Clare's Convent in Utica, N.Y. 1870s — Worked as a nurse and hospital administrator in New York. She served as mother provincial of her order from 1877 to 1886. 1883 — Arrived in Hawai'i to help with Hawai'i's "national affliction," leprosy. She came to set up hospitals, fully expecting to return to New York. She helped to set up Maui Memorial and Bishop Home and the first Baldwin Home in Kalaupapa, where she arrived in 1888. Aug. 9, 1918 — Died in Kalaupapa. When Mother Marianne arrived here in 1883, she thought she'd be here to set up hospitals and then return home. Instead, she ended up finishing her life here, picking up where Father Damien, whose work overlapped hers before his death just a few months later, left off.
In Syracuse, the Franciscans behind her sainthood cause have many nuns keeping her spirit alive, including Sister Mary Laurence Hanley, who co-wrote a book with Hawai'i's late famed author O.A. Bushnell about Mother Marianne, "A Song of Pilgrimage and Exile: The Life and Spirit of Mother Marianne of Moloka'i."
Sister Mary Laurence felt the guiding hand of providence as she went about researching her cause, especially one trip to Rome that allowed her to stop in the German town of Heppenheim that was the birthplace of Barbara Koob. There are numerous variations of the surname spelling, and at some point, Koob was changed to Cope.
"I don't know how I had so much nerve to do this," said the nun, who has been on the cause for more than two decades. "I must have been directed from on high, because I'd never have found some of this information on my own."
For example, she happened to walk into a bookshop where a genealogy book was being sold, showing Mother Marianne's kin.
"These different families didn't know they were related," she said.
Mother Marianne's legacy
In the course of her research, anecdotes came to the fore that bring alive the story of Mother Marianne, human touches that make the dates and pictures come alive.
For example, there's the story of Mother Marianne taking in the young, non-Catholic daughters of a groundskeeper who couldn't care for them.
"She did not have them baptized," said Hanley. "She respected whatever the wish of their religion was."
Both would be baptized later, along with their father. It was as she wrote in one of her letters: "Charity knows no creed."
And there's the story of how she allowed a girl to escape a treacherous pimp. The girl was afraid the man would come after her as she holed up in the home for girls.
"He will never come here," Mother Marianne told her firmly.
He never did.
But what really speaks volumes to Hanley was not just the things Mother Marianne left behind, but the way she created them and the way she comported herself.
Like the time she planted a beautiful rose bush under another nun's window, so the fresh scent of flowers would waft into the room.
She also brought in Sears catalogs, so people could decorate their spaces, and even loaned them money to spruce up their lodgings so they'd feel like home.
"Mother Marianne walked this earth as a follower of Christ and did so in the spirit of St. Francis," said Hanley. "She led others beyond their natural inclinations or tendencies, she reached out to the poorest of the poor and any kind of person in need."
Father Joseph Hendriks of Kalaupapa said she still inspires people there. "She was a good example of holiness," he said.
Reach Mary Kaye Ritz at mritz@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8035.
But who remembers the real Mother Marianne, the nun who is under consideration for sainthood in proceedings now before the Vatican, and the mark she left on Hawai'i, which came to be her home for the last three and a half decades of her life?
Dr. Paul DeMare stands in front of a painting of Mother Marianne. He is the nun's great-great-grandnephew.
DeMare chuckles slightly at the memory:
Mother Marianne helped set up Maui Memorial and Bishop Home, and the first Baldwin Home in Kalaupapa, where she arrived in 1888.
Others charged with keeping alive her spirit, if not her bloodline, are the Franciscan nuns who belong to the religious order that answered the call to help Hawai'i through what was being called its "national affliction," leprosy.
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