Word: lepere
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Molokai Impression Sirs: It is to be regretted that in your interesting and informative article on the "Return of Damien," in TIME, Feb. 3, you did not correct the general impression that the entire island of Molokai is a leper settlement, hence the name "Molokai" a bit loathesome...
...fairness to that beautiful little island it should be known that the leper settlement occupies only about six or seven square miles on a low lava flow peninsula which projects from the foot of the sheer cliffs, 1,500 to 2,000 ft. high, forming the imposing north coast of the island. The settlement is accessible from the remainder of the island only by a very steep and narrow foot and horse trail, carefully guarded. In fact the settlement is closer, insofar as accessibility is concerned, to Oahu than to the remainder of Molokai...
When, in 1873, an obscure young Belgian missionary priest named Father Damien begged the Catholic Prefect Apostolic of the Hawaiian Islands to send him to a leper colony 50 miles away, the name of Molokai meant nothing to the outside world. Molokai is an island to which the Hawaiian Government had exiled all its lepers after a frightful outbreak of the disease, a lawless chaos whose 800 foul inhabitants lived a slow death in huts, with only one another's company and the sweet intoxicating juice of the ki tree for distraction. Father Damien changed that...
After eleven years at the Molokai leper colony, Father Damien one Sunday addressed his congregation not with his usual "Brethren," but "We lepers." During the next five years his face took on the leper's look, leonine, patchy, with fierce eyes and thick lips. In 1889 Father Damien died, aged 49. His people buried him in the churchyard...
...sacrificing successor, Brother Joseph Dutton (TIME, April 6, 1931). Brother Joseph died at 87, untouched by leprosy. Why, some wondered, did Father Damien contract it? Was he unclean? Soon after Father Damien died a Honolulu Presbyterian missionary named C. M. Hyde wrote a colleague that, among other things, the leper priest "was not a pure man in his relations with women." This statement, published in Australia, evoked from Presbyterian Robert Louis Stevenson a bitter rebuttal which may well be a deciding factor in the saintly cause of Father Damien. Stevenson had visited Molokai, had talked with Brother Joseph, had found...