Reverend Sister Marianne
Matron of the Bishop Home, Kalaupapa
To see the infinite pity of this place,
The mangled limb, the devastated face,
The innocent sufferers smiling at the rod,
A fool were tempted to deny his God.
He sees, and shrinks; but if he look again,
Lo, beauty springing from the breast of pain!—
He marks the sisters on the painful shores,
And even a fool is silent and adores.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Kalawao, May 22, 1889
Mother Marianne Cope (1838 - 1918), an immigrant to the United States from Germany, went to Hawaii went six other sisters from her order at the request of King Kalakaua. The sisters cared for the leper patients there. One of her first tasks was to care for Father Damien, who at that time was afflicted with the disease himself. Mother Marianne died of natural causes, not from leprosy. Stevenson's poem expresses the love and respect many had for the sisters who cared for the lepers, for the dignity and respect that they showed their patients. She was canonized in 2012. Her feast day is January 23.
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