Sister Victor

“Back in Syracuse I worked with Mother for nine years, in St. Joseph’s Hospital. I spoon-fed children weak with scarlet fever and typhus, and never thought twice about it. I assisted doctors in surgeries, amputations, and never had so much as an upset stomach. Mother once told me I was the best nursing sister in the hospital” (Brennert 94).

     Sister Victor had been a nurse in Syracuse prior to coming to Molokai to help dying leprosy patients. Before she came to Hawaii she was working in a hospital with many young children with diseases that were fatal just like leprosy, however she never hesitated in helping to nurse the children sick with scarlet fever or typhus as she did with lepers even though they were just children too. She saw blood and gore in that hospital but it never affected her as seeing those with leprosy did. The difference was that not much was known about leprosy, people treating lepers didn't know how it was transmitted from person to person, how easily, any causes or how to cure it. Leprosy was still a mystery to the caretakers, the nuns in the convent. No one wanted to contract the disease deliberately but they were aware it was possible when they went to the area to help. Sister Victor was afraid of contracting it when Bertha nearly drowned and Sister Catherine didn't know how to help her. Sister Victor hesitated to touch Bertha’s sores to be able perform CPR to force water from Bertha’s lungs but still did it in order to save a young girl who she knew was going to die either way. The way the Sisters took care of the young girls without immediate family in the convent was similar to that of a nurse for a hospice patient. They all knew that the children didn't have a high chance of surviving but continued to care for them until the end. Although Sister Victor was depressed at times because of the hopelessness and bleakness that surrounded her, but she did not give up on any of the young girls because she had felt responsible for them.