What's New - Special Update
October 22, 2008
A SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY TIME – 125 YEARS
We commemorate with prayer and thanksgiving this special occasion of the Franciscan sisters going to Hawaii for the care of the “poor sick.”
We commemorate the early pioneer group led by Mother Marianne in 1883 and all the courageous sisters who followed through the years to minister to the people of the Hawaiian Islands.
FRANCISCAN SISTERS LEAVE SYRACUSE FOR CARE OF LEPROSY PATIENTS
IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS ON OCTOBER 22, 1883.
“ ...thirty five Sisters cheerfully volunteered to go to the Islands. Out of this number six were selected for the first brave soldiers to go to that distant land.” -Account by Mother Marianne, 1887.
Mother Marianne Cope
Chosen from the volunteers: Sr. M. Bonaventure Caraher, Sr. M. Crescentia Eilers, Sr. M. Renata Nash, Sr. M. Rosalia McLaughlin, Sr. M. Ludovica Gibbons, Sr. M. Antonella Murphy.
The train left Syracuse on October 22nd arriving in San Francisco, California on October 27th. We were “so tired we could hardly stand” wrote Sr. Bonaventure to Mother Bernardina. Upon their being questioned about identity, they replied we are Sisters of St. Francis. “What state is that in?” asked the interrogator. “When we explained Saint Francis was not a state but was our title, he left us likely disgusted seeing we belonged to no state, so in this way our names and arrivals were not in the San Francisco papers. Poor things!”
Departure date to Hawaiian Islands: November 1, 1883. Arrival date: November 8, 1883
The company’s steamer Mariposa left San Francisco November 1st at 3p.m. and arrived at Honolulu on
November 8th at about 1:00 p.m.