Nun pioneer cannabis grower

Suzanne Aubert is a name that may not be immediately recognised by all but as Sister Mary Joseph or Mother Aubert this diminutive nun championed the rights of the poor and under-privileged in a life dedicated to her church.

In 1885 she started a home for those less fortunate at Jerusalem on the Whanganui River in 1885.

In addition to the usual customs of religious life, she taught and nursed, farmed newly cleared bush, tended an orchard, made and marketed medicines, sold fruit to tourists and raised homeless children. As a result the community grew and thrived.

Much of the nuns’ income came through sales of Aubert’s medicinal formulations, including many cannabis-based medicines — Aubert is the first person known to have grown cannabis in New Zealand.

Better known by her clerical name Sister Mary Joseph, Suzanne Aubert (June 19, 1835 – October 1, 1926) came to New Zealand in 1860 and formed the Congregation of the Holy Family to educate Maori children.

She founded a religious order, the Daughters of Our Lady of Compassion, in 1892 and later started two hospitals in Wellington — St Joseph’s Home for the Incurables in 1900, and Our Lady’s Home of Compassion in 1907.

Hers was a life devoted to helping others. Her work took her from France to Auckland then to Hawke’s Bay, to the Whanganui River and finally to Wellington.

She cared for children and the sick by skilfully combining Maori medicine and Pakeha science, and wrote books in Maori, English and French, adding to cultural understanding and our literary heritage.

Undeterred by lack of resources, she believed everyone deserved equal respect.

On October 1, 1926, aged 91, Suzanne Aubert died. The country’s newspapers spread the word and her funeral was widely reported to be the largest ever accorded a woman in New Zealand.

The process for Suzanne Aubert’s canonisation as a saint was begun in 2010.