A life spent caring for others
SISTER Marie Fitzpatrick said her faith guided her through dark times that included imprisonment by
Nazis and the Japanese bombing of Shanghai.
Apart from a period of terror, most of the Dunedin nun’s life was spent providing care and compassion to the elderly.
Sr Marie committed 83 years of her life to the Little Sisters of the Poor Catholic institute for which she served as mother superior at its homes across the world.
Sacred Heart Home manager Sister Rita Nedunthally said even just a few years before her death at age 104, Sr Marie was helping and delivering food to residents.
‘‘She lived a religious life very faithfully and showed hospitality to everybody.’’
Sr Marie moved through her years with a joy and peace that she passed on to others, she said.
However, the life of a nun was not always on the cards for her.
Sr Marie was born Annie Fitzpatrick in Arrowtown on April 22, 1914, as the second of six children.
She was a descendant of a pioneering family and retained a love for the town throughout her life. She and older sister Mollie helped their father, Matthew, raise the other children after her mother, Winifred, died in 1924 while giving birth to twins.
Annie attended the town’s St Joseph’s School, but had no secondary education.
When she was 19, she visited her Aunt Mary, at the Little Sisters of the Poor in Andersons Bay, Dunedin, with her father and uncle.
She was impressed by the work of the home and by the elderly residents and a few weeks later the urge to join hit her ‘‘like a thunderbolt’’.
She told the Otago Daily Times in 2006 she fought against it, as she was enjoying her life.
‘‘It was the last thing I thought of. I always thought I’d get married and have a family. Nevertheless, I had no peace until I said my yes to the Lord.’’
In 1933, she moved to Dunedin and joined the Little Sisters.
Three years later, aged 22, she committed herself to the institute and was renamed Marie.
Through her work, she travelled to the Little Sisters Home for the Elderly in Nantao city, Shanghai. The vibrancy she loved in the big city was short lived as civil war erupted, eventually developing into a war with Japan in 1937.
Japanese planes scattered bombs sporadically, causing destruction around the city.
She thanked God for noone at the facility being harmed.
SR Marie moved to the mother house in Brittany, France, in May 1940. It was a matter of months until the area was occupied by Nazi forces. Early on December 5, 1940, German troops came to the house and gathered all British and Allied subjects among the Little Sisters.
The 76 young nuns, mostly in their teens or early 20s, were told they were regarded as spies and became prisoners of war.
They were placed in Stalag 142 prison camp with more than 5000 Allied subjects.
She described feeling continually freezing cold and hungry. The prisoners would try to steal small bits of tasteless frozen vegetables from guards.
Without explanation, she alone was called to the commandant’s office on January 8, 1941, and given the unexplained news she could leave the next morning.
It was a tough journey back to the mother house during which German soldiers ordered her out of a train, pushed her down into the snow, and prodded her with a gun to get up again.
However, she made it back and later discovered the remaining Little Sisters were also freed.
In September 1941, Sr Marie was sent to Nevers, France, but still had to deal with the jeers and threats of German occupiers until their departure in August 1944.
She then moved to Troyes, Paris, until January 1946, when she was sent to Hong Kong as assistant mother superior.
Eighteen months later, as a 33yearold, she served as mother superior in Guangzhou, then called Canton.
She served in Sri Lanka and France again before returning to the Andersons Bay home in New Zealand in 1962 after 29 years away.
Niece Trish McKewen said she only met her aunt when she returned.
‘‘As happened with a lot of people who had war experiences, she did not speak about them in the early stages.’’
She remembered Sr Marie as a funloving, nonjudgemental person who could relate to people of all ages.
‘‘It was everyone, whether they be elderly people she’d been caring for, or young children, teenage children.’’
She also had a ‘‘marvellous memory’’ until her last months.
‘‘If you couldn’t recall a name you’d say, ‘Ask Auntie Ann’, and she’d do it at the drop of a hat.’’
Sr Marie was away again from 1968 until 1975, at homes in Auckland, Australia and Samoa, before returning to the Andersons Bay Sacred Heart Home and Hospital as mother superior.
She oversaw its replacement by the Brockville facility, which she and residents moved to in 1981.
She retired as mother superior in 1992.
She was honoured for her work with a Queen’s Service Medal in 2012.
When then governorgeneral Sir Jerry Mateparae was interviewed by Radio New Zealand after his exit from the role in 2016, he picked Sr Marie out as a person who made a particular impression on him.
In her later days, she had the pleasure of visits by her many nieces and nephews and their children.
She died in Dunedin on December 21.
Months beforehand, she told the Otago Daily Times she owned nothing, but ‘‘did not want for anything’’.
‘‘I’ve had wonderful experiences and wonderful protection from God. I couldn’t have managed by myself.’’ —
Jono Edwards