OBITUARY Mother M. Patrick, Hokitika

Grey River Argus, 28 February 1949, Page 4

OBITUARY Mother M. Patrick, Hokitika

In her ninety-first year, the death occurred on Saturday at the Hokitika Convent of the Rev. Mother Mary Patrick Molony, who was the last surviving member of the company of Sisters of Mercy by whom the Convent at Hokitika was founded, over 70 years ago. A native of Rathcluna, County Clare, she had volunteered at an early age to come out to New Zealand with nine companions, when the late Dean P. A. Martin, S.M., of Hokitika, -visited Eire in the midseventies to secure teachers for his parish. They arrived there by steamer in 1878. Mother Mary Patrick, with another of her companions, the late Sister Mary Columba Ryan, was then a postulant, and when, in June, 1879, their profession took place in the old Church of St Mary's, it was the first time such a ceremony was held in the South Island. Throughout her long career as a teacher, since the days of the goldfields, at Hokitika and Kumara, the late Mother Mary Patrick proved herself an educator of great ability, her pupils in many cases attaining later to positions . of responsibility and honour, and owing no little of their success to the sound grounding which she gave them in knowledge and principle. Hex - passing closes the pioneer chapter of the annals of her order on the West Coast, whence it extended to Greymouth and Canterbury. The Convent community will have the sympathy of very many friends in theix - bereavement. Tlie funeral, following Requiem Mass at 9.30 a.m., at St Mary s Church, will take place to-morrow morning. ________