Duane Lowell (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} duanelowell) wrote,@ 2006-08-17 13:17:00 |
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The story of Madeline Quinn
I've been returning to St Nicholas's often enough that the sisters have begun to trust me again, and they allowed me to look through Sister Mabel's things. I found several things, among them a diary and a bundle of letters, and from all these and from talking to the orphanage staff, I've managed to piece together the story I'm about to tell...
Sister Mabel was born Madeline Quinn in County Clare, Ireland. Her family was considered quite well-off, all things considering, and as the eldest of three daughters, with no sons, the family had great hopes for her. But she fell in love with a young man, whose name I couldn't discover, and when he asked her to go with him to seek his fortune in America, she agreed.
Once here, they tried to have a life together for a while, but for reasons that I couldn't find out they separated after about a year. Madeline wanted to return home but found that her family no longer wanted her back. She decided to settle down in America by herself. It was a hard life for a young woman by herself. She was a maid, a cleaner, a domestic servant... And finally she gained independence and citizenship.
When she was 42 she made her decision to devote her life to God. She had been a devout Catholic from childhood and she believed that God had seen her through her hard times. She felt that she needed to repay that debt. So she took the name of Sister Mabel.
At the age of 47 she came to St Nicholas's Children's Home, and she worked and lived there until her death at the age of 79, from liver cancer compounded by diabetes, which she had developed in her later years.
That was all I managed to find out so far. I never knew she had diabetes... The orphanage paid part of her medical bills, and she had to pay the rest herself. Her family in Ireland refused to help... it was mostly the staff at St Nicholas's that provided the money. This last bit was told to me by Sister Joan, who's been here almost as long as Sister Mabel. She also mentioned that funds to take care of Sister Mabel's medical bills were always hard to come by and that they were almost always in debt after Sister Mabel developed cancer.
I still want to fill in the blanks. I don't know if I can ever do that, but I want to try...
I've been returning to St Nicholas's often enough that the sisters have begun to trust me again, and they allowed me to look through Sister Mabel's things. I found several things, among them a diary and a bundle of letters, and from all these and from talking to the orphanage staff, I've managed to piece together the story I'm about to tell...
Sister Mabel was born Madeline Quinn in County Clare, Ireland. Her family was considered quite well-off, all things considering, and as the eldest of three daughters, with no sons, the family had great hopes for her. But she fell in love with a young man, whose name I couldn't discover, and when he asked her to go with him to seek his fortune in America, she agreed.
Once here, they tried to have a life together for a while, but for reasons that I couldn't find out they separated after about a year. Madeline wanted to return home but found that her family no longer wanted her back. She decided to settle down in America by herself. It was a hard life for a young woman by herself. She was a maid, a cleaner, a domestic servant... And finally she gained independence and citizenship.
When she was 42 she made her decision to devote her life to God. She had been a devout Catholic from childhood and she believed that God had seen her through her hard times. She felt that she needed to repay that debt. So she took the name of Sister Mabel.
At the age of 47 she came to St Nicholas's Children's Home, and she worked and lived there until her death at the age of 79, from liver cancer compounded by diabetes, which she had developed in her later years.
That was all I managed to find out so far. I never knew she had diabetes... The orphanage paid part of her medical bills, and she had to pay the rest herself. Her family in Ireland refused to help... it was mostly the staff at St Nicholas's that provided the money. This last bit was told to me by Sister Joan, who's been here almost as long as Sister Mabel. She also mentioned that funds to take care of Sister Mabel's medical bills were always hard to come by and that they were almost always in debt after Sister Mabel developed cancer.
I still want to fill in the blanks. I don't know if I can ever do that, but I want to try...
