Sister Gertrude En Route for Molokai, Hawaii
Father Damien’s Successor
A Devout English Woman of Childlike Appearance Who Will Give Her Life to the Hawaiian Lepers—Plans of Her Noble Life Work.
by Trenton Evening Times, Trenton, New Jersey
published Friday, January 31, 1890
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New York, Jan. 31.—One of the passengers who arrived yesterday on the steamship Bothnia from Liverpool was a young woman who had left her family and friends in England to take up her life work as a nurse among the Hawaiian Lepers on the island of Molokai, of the Hawaiian group, where Father Damien labored so many years, and finally died a victim to the disease.
Miss Amy C. Fowler, the name of the young woman, is a daughter of a clergyman of the Church of England, who eight years ago embraced the Roman Catholic faith. She became a nun of the order of St. Dominic, and goes on her mission simply as Sister Rose Gertrude, the name given her when she joined the order, and by which alone she will be known among the lepers, for whom she is virtually giving up her life.
Hardly More Than a Child
Miss Fowler is 27 years old, but she is so small that at a first glance she seems hardly more than a child. She was dressed in a simple suit of black, as she will not don her nun’s garb until she reaches Hawaii. She was unwilling to discuss herself and her work yesterday and said that she shrank from any publicity. A vivid blush mantled her face as she spoke, and it was apparent that she was keenly sensitive of the attention which her mission is attracting. The week before she left her native country all England had grown enthusiastic over the news that one of its young women was starting out to give her life to work among the lepers. The first announcement of her purpose was made by the Prince of Wales at a banquet in London for the benefit of the national leprosy fund, when he said that an unknown young woman was going out to nurse the lepers among whom Father Damien had worked.
She Studied for the Work
About seven years ago, shortly after becoming a Roman Catholic, Miss Fowler first formed the idea of taking up this work, but she realized that she was too young at the time and appreciated the need of study. She studied medicine in Paris in order to make herself an efficient sick nurse. She holds certificates from the Pasteur institute there, and intends to make a practical investigation of Pasteur’s theory that the same microbe organism is found in leprosy as in cases of tubercular consumption. She intends to try what bi-chloride of mercury will do in killing the microbes. She made a special study of the leprosy cases in the Paris hospitals.
Her Plans for the Future
Miss Fowler takes out no special preparation for protection herself against the disease, and she told a representative of the The Pall Mall Gazette before she left that if she should become infected she would be quite ready to die. She is to have the entire charge of the hospital for women, a few native women assisting her. Miss Fowler will have a salary from the Hawaiian government. She expects to have but little use for the money herself, but intends to use it for the benefit of the hospital and its patients.
“When I have saved enough of my salary,” says Miss Fowler, “I shall buy a piano to brighten the lives of my patients by music.”
Miss Fowler takes with her two large boxes of articles contributed by friends, which she will use to beautify the homes of the unfortunate.