Friend To Lepers
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
Death of Noted Friend To Lepers
The Ducos Hansenian {leper) Sanatorium at Noumea, New Cale donia, suffered a grievous loss in mid-February with the death of Sister Marie Othilde of Jesus, of the Roman Catholic Order of St.
Joseph de Cluny.
SISTER Othilde, who was 66, arrived in Noumea in 1933 with two other sisters especially to nurse lepers. In 1942, Sister Othilde was found to have contracted their disease herself, but this in no way diminished her will or capacity to work. She was especially devoted to the care of native patients.
The French Government re cognised her worth in 1953 with the Cross of the Legion of Honour, which was pinned on her breast in Noumea by a visiting Minister of Colonies. The Institute of the French Academy awarded her a diploma in 1958.
PI M’s Noumea correspondent says: “This magnificent woman, big, red-faced, with a broad smile, was always a tonic for the healthy who met her, and her influence on the sick, especially the younger ones, was immeasurable.”
Sister Othilde’s death came less than two years after that of the South Pacific’s renowned “Leper Man”, P. J. Twomey, {PIM, Sept., 1963, p. 63).
Sister Othilde, wearing the Cross of the Legion of Honour.