ANOTHER MOTHER IN MOLOKAI

Our next Hawaiian is SISTER MARIA LEOPOLDINA BURNS (1855- 1942) who was a member of the Sisters of St Francis of Syracuse, New York, and a close companion and the biographer of St Marianne Cope.

Together with Mother Marianne and 5 other sisters, they departed from Syracuse to travel to Honolulu to answer the request of King Kalākaua of Hawaii to care for leprosy sufferers arriving on November 8, 1883.  The trip from New York to the boat in San Francisco, reads like a fictional travel log.

They traveled on the SS Mariposa. With Mother Marianne as supervisor, the Sisters' task was to manage Kakaʻako Branch Hospital on Oʻahu, which served as a receiving station for Hansen's disease patients gathered from all over the islands. The more severe cases were processed and shipped to the island of Molokaʻi for confinement in the settlement at Kalawao, and then later at Kalaupapa.

In 1889, together with Mother Marianne and Sister Vincentia McCormick, they opened and ran a girls' school in Hawaii, which they named in Henry Perrine Baldwin's honor, a prominent local businessman who supported their missions.

Sr. Leopoldina 3rd from left, M. Marianne far right.

 After serving for nearly 40 years on Molokai, Sister Leopoldina retired in 1928 to the St. Francis Convent in Manoa Valley  (where I lived when in Hawaii, often attending daily Mass at the small convent chapel still run by the sisters) )where she lived until her death.

 Sister Leopoldina died on June 3, 1942 with the reputation for holiness. She was the last of the Catholic sisters to serve alongside Father Damien.

The definitive biography of Mother Marianne, Pilgrimage and Exile (aka "Song of Pilgrimage and Exile") written in 1982*  and later updated was founded primarily upon manuscript sources, reads like a novel.  The whole adventure of the sisters at times is like something out of Indiana Jones, filled with mystery and intrigue.

The Journals of Sister M. Leopoldina Burns are undated, although apparently they were begun in the 1920s at the direction of Sister Flaviana.  Both an original set of notebooks and a rewriting of the same with more development of incidents are extant.  In the latter set there are 56 chapters in 15 notebooks.  Sister Leopoldina also wrote a Little History of Mother Marianne’s Work which contains selections from the journals.

In 1980, Bishop John Scanlan of Honolulu appointed a historical commission, along with consultants, to collect all available documents concerning Mother Marianne, especially her writings, for submission to Rome, a major step toward her beatification. Pilgrimage & Exile, the fruit of this careful research, is the inspiring story of  St Marianne and her sisters who lived lives of extraordinary dedication, sacrifice, and faith. St. Marianne is called "beloved mother of outcasts," but the same title could be for the others sisters, including Sister Leopoldina.

*  Written by one of the sisters from the order of St. Marianne and Sr. Leopoldina  and O.A. Bushnell, a professor at University of Hawaii.  See Blog  4/1/2016