HOME OF COMPASSION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 192, 15 August 1931, Page 8

HOME OF COMPASSION

WANGANUI INSTITUTION WILL OPEN TO MORROW ROMANTIC STORY OF PIONEER LIFE UP-RIVER

To-morrow at 2.30 p.m., His Grace, Archbishop O’Shea, will officially open the Aubert Home of Compassion. The Mayor (Mr N. G. Armstrong, the Hon. W. A. Veitch, and Mr J. T. Hogan, M.P., will also take part. The opening of this Home of Compassion fulfils a wish held consistently throughout her long life by the Reverend Mother Mary Joseph Aubert, from the time she laboured at Jerusalem on the Wanganui River.

The work of the late Mother Mary Aubert is usually identified with the institution which she founded at Island Bay, and in consequence, her work on the river has, in a large measure, been overlooked. In 1883, Mother A übert w. s invited to act as interpreter to two Sisters who were going to Jerusalem on the Wanganui River to teach the natives there. She was then 48 years old. It took three days to reach their destination travelling by Maori canoes. The hardships encountered arc hard to realise now; they had to live on pork and potatoes, and had no bread for the first nine months.

distance from medical aid, caused the transfer of the work eventually to Wellington. Removal to Wellington. It was to support the Jerusalem institution that Mother Aubert decided to market her remedies. These were remarkably successful, in Australia as well as New Zealand they had a large sale. Her “Karana” tonic was submitted to Faculty of Paris, which pronounced it superior to quinine—-it was a product entirely of J he New Zealand bush. Many reasons, among others a lawsuit, although it was decided in her

FOUNDERS OF THE ORDER OF COMPASSION.

One day Mother Aubert lamented this to a passing settler, a Scotsman. He gave her no sympathy whatever, but merely said: “I thought you were a pioneer! Why have you no bread?” She answered: “We have no oven to bake it! ” “Why don’t you make an oven?” “We have no bricks, no cement.” “Are there no stones in that riverbed?” pointing to a heap. “What is the use of those stones? We have no cement to bind them together.” “No cement,” excalimed the man. “Have you never heard of cow-dung and clay?” She was forced to admit she had not. “Well,” he said, “I’ll show you how to make cement, and never tell me again that you Lave no bread!” He was as good as his word, but he had to leave after the first lesson, and it took poor Mother Aubert the best part of the week to make the oven, but she did it. The first bread made was of the kind known as “leavened,” but whatever it was it was bread, and never again was it lacking altogether. More Helpers.

Hardship and consequent illness induced the Sisters to return, and Mother Aubert sought for helpers. On August 6, 1884, she set out with her

favour, induced Mother Aubert to cease manufacturing her remedies, to the regret of many who valued them from experience of their efficiency. Having in mind the establishment of a work of charity which would b dependent on the charity of the public, Mother Aubert thought first of Wanganui, but decided in favour of Wellington as being a much larger centre. She set out with three Sisters about New Year, 1899. Despite her success in Wellington Mother Mary Aubert treasured the hope that she would be able to return Io Wanganui and set up a Home of Compassion in this city. Her heavy duties, however, made such a project impossible, but tru? to their trust the Sisters of Compassion held to the wishes of their revered founder, and at the first oportunity they embarked upon a Wanganui project. The Wanganui Project. The residence of the late Dr. Tripe was purchased, and plans formulated to fit it for its new purpose. First, in the front of the building a small chapel has been constructed; next the wing wherein the woman invalids will be accomodated, and further to the rear of the wing for male inmates. Adequate domestic offices have been installed to help the nursing sisters in

THE CRADLE OF THE INSTITUTE.

first band of helpers; others joined her later. Some could not stand the climate and the hardships, but most remained. Two of those who went up the river that first year are still living in Wellington. The first house they occupied was owned by a Maori. Later, with her own private means, Mother Aubert built the present Convent at Jerusalem and bought a farm where she planted acres and acres of trees, chiefly chestnuts and cherry-trees, with i. view to founding an institution and making it self-supporting. From the chestnuts she meant to provide “pole, ta” for the inmates (in place of porridge) and the cherries were to be sold to tourists and others, as there a s a good market for them. The first inmates were aged and infirm Maoris, and some years later, unfortunate white infants and children were also admitted. Epidemic disease, and the

their ministrations, while on the sunny side of the institute verandahs run the full length of the building, so that the chronic invalids may enjoy the comfort of the sunshine. Arrangements have been made so that, the bed-ridden may be removed from the bedrooms to the verandahs without discomfort. St. Vincent de Paul Society. It is not generally known that much of the work of bringing the Guyton Street property into order has been carried out by the voluntary labour supplied by members of thn St. Vincent de "Paul Society. These voluntary helpers have, for some months, consistently given up their Saturday afternoons to the cause of the Home, and they are now rewarded by the knowledge that they have speeded up the opening of the Aubert Home by several weeks.