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The Linacre Quarterly

Volume 33 | Number 3 Article 21

August 1966 Marquette's Medical Bessie Casey

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Recommended Citation Casey, Bessie (1966) "Marquette's Medical Missionaries," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 33 : No. 3 , Article 21. Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol33/iss3/21 Marquette's Medical Missionaries to the problems and taxed the inge­ to nearly a m :'inn nnd a half, nuity of even a Sister Mercy. But swollen by the �t " 1ms of BESSIE CASEY refugees she came to recognize the gentle who arrived by t! · '• .. ·wands each Among the thousands of American under Japanese domina )n and, dignity of these people in the midst day. Water suppl" .... !,,,using, gar­ physicians practicing in all areas of in order to practice ther she was of all their sufferings as innately bage disposal, and i , '':ry facilities Korean, 1 the world there is a pitifully small required to pass J ap ane, Medical and she loved them for it. had been strained 1 h<' breaking point and food and ,·. f' supplies group- estimated at approximately Boards in Tokyo. The I<. ·ean Ian­ In 1939 Sister Mercy's asthma were entirely inadequat i· ,r the ever fifty- of Catholic doctors who are guage is a very difficult o . to speak became so severe that she was called growing population. H·,11sing for spending their lives in the cause of and to understand and he spent back to the States for treatment and the thousands of the refugees con­ Medicine. At the present months of concentrated ::>rt before b the y time she recovered sufficient!; sisted of shacks built from rice time twelve Marquette graduates she gained the desired roficiency to warrant her return to the Mis­ straw mats and cardboard. \V ate<' are actually in the field and three in the language. She .vas then sions, Pearl Harbor and World War supplies had to be carried up the others are preparing for a future assigned to a dispensary be opened II intervened. among them. in Northern in 1weiju on mountainsides or caught in rain ba, the Yalu River practi, ty on the S� spent the next seven years rels during the many rains which A resume of the activities of these � in Manchurian border. Bolivia where she was instrumental made life even more uncomfortable missionary doctors should be of Her dispensary was tiny room in setting up a hospital in her mis­ for the people in their miserable interest. All of these presently in tucked away under a rnrch steps sion in the rubber country. Malaria hovels. the work are Sisters: eight Mary­ with equipment consis, 7 of a table, and hookworm were routine. knoll Sisters of St. Dominic; three She Sister Mercy and two Maryknoll a chair, a few shelves, _lfour kinds treated a young man who had Missionary Sisters of the Society of been Sister nurses arrived by military of medicines. Crowds ,tied in and clawed by a jaguar; one whose Mary; and one Helper of the Holy leg plane from Japan in March of 1951 out of the little room i �ver increas­ had been crunched off by an Souls. Their field of action includes alli­ and, about a week later Sister Agnu, ing numbers and sh, 'und herself gator; another half squeezed to death Peru, Bolivia and Guatemala in the Therese (Marquette LD. 1949 I treating as many as : , en hundred by a boa constrictor. These men Western Hemisphere and Hong­ o and another Sister arri\·ed by b, ,it patients a month. spent tw had been brought to her, carried · Kong, Pusan, New South Wales, and on bringing medical supplies. By C: 1t years in this tiny ·m before a the shoulders of other natives for of hard work the Sisters cleaned W•.' the Solomons in the Pacific. the sever larger dispensary, ,. 2 hed to al days through the jungles - existing old clinic facilities and were and Sister Mary Mercy Hirschboeck, , was prepa for her . each one had presented a real soon ready to undertake the enor­ ho M.M. (M.D. Marquette University In addition to t1 Jatients w challenge to her surgical skill. The mous task ahead. se 1927) was the first of Marquette's came to the clinic ' made hou � were full, eventful ones- but mission doctors and her career has calls in every secti of the town, first love was for Korea and its In the meantime crowds at the nearby people clinic grew steadily and, by the end been an inspiration to those who and once a week sh . cnt to r and, in 195 I, after a direct have followed her. Korea, at the time Hiken to care for :: hundred o :!r 1 to � neral MacArthur him­ of the first month of their operation, er 8 � 2,212 of her first assignment there, was more patients who aited for h s • perrmss10n was given by the clinic records showed that the treated at the there. And, in the :i.dition of �eme Command of the Allied patients had been to had been Mrs. Bessie Casey was a country school true missionary, sL 1-ound time ers for her and fourother Sisters clinic, and 535 sick calls First to Sister teacher for five years after her graduation prepare the childrc , for their return there: made to the miserable homes. from Miss Brown's Secretarial School. She Mercy and Sister Agnus Therese started to work in the R istrar's office at Communions. assignm eg o er ent in the I 930's with their two Maryknoll Sister Marquette in 1922. She soon became Reg­ disc.· ,es - impetig , J been to Northern a istrar for the School of Music. After work­ The common r , Korea now nurses ( one of whom was also y. worms - w� Y under Russian ing in several doctors' offices she returned malaria, d ysenter � :re1 Rule: She pharmacist) and one other Mary­ to Marquette in 1950 as R istrar of the always present. Children �: . returning to set up an out­ eg h t e knoll Sister had constituted the "first Medical School and Secretary of the Com­ tuberculous bones find others WI ll i nt c 1·imc · 1n what was one of k5 le;:o st But their enthusiasm mittee on Admissions. She served in this swollen tummies and gaunt ci: �esperately stricken areas string" team. capacity until her retirement last year. She l were her special concern. F dj �enmsula, in Pusan. Pusan's and eagerness to help the suffering and her husband, John Casey, have seven ad ati on every- grandchildren. famine, and disastrous fires on of 250,000 had increased thousands had "rubbed off" QUARTERLY , 1966 282 LINACRE 283 one they met and much help was sonal generosity of Maryi oil an! Pyong, Korea in territory entrusted she has been at ,. >ur Lridy of Ma,·y­ forthcoming. "We could never have its friends. to the spiritual ministry of the Mary­ knoll Hospital in I TongKong where survived those years without the she is now Direc-1 , of t hf' hospital. She spent the years fro 1 I 955 to knoll Fathers. military" said Sister Agnus Therese In June of 196- 1 ook Magazine 1958 in Kansas City ' here she in retrospect several years later. Sister Rose Cordis Erickson, M.M. carried a seven-pa:.,. stury about her served as Medical Direr x of the (M.D. Marquette University 1951 ) work in HongKong Some help came from the Euro­ Queen of the World H 3pital. In At the time of her graduation from pean and Korean armies who were 1958 she became Vicar, s General Medical School Sister Rose Cordis Sister Ann Veronica Kius, MD. then in Korea as part of the UN of the Maryknoll Sister and their was voted, by her feliow classmates, (M.D. Marquette Uniwrsity 1956) forces at the time. But it was the Medical Director. "the most promising future doctor" Sister Ann Veronica cor·plctcd a surgical residency at St. \'inccnt's United States Army and Navy Sister Antonio Mar Guerreri, and was awarded the Millman in before going ou t(:i soldiers and sailors who donated M.M. (M.D. Marquet' University award for the year. She interned at Pusan in 1959 where she has been muscle, money, and free time in so 1934) is presen ti y the ead of Our St. Vincent's in New York and spent a staff member of the new Mar - many ways - painting, laying pave­ Lady of MaryknoJ: Clinic on the next eight years in Bolivia. knoll Sisters Hospital there. ments, carpentry - and the do::�ors where she h been since In 1960, in response to an urgent and nurses contributed their pro­ I 953. A letter recein in February To those of us who have ,rntcl1eJ petition made by the people of the fessional skill which was so desper­ 1966 mentioned tha1 . e had seen the development of Sister Mercy s Guatemalan mountain villages for ately needed to maintain services to "200 or more pat ts" in that little clinic, begun when she rcturneci medical help, the Mother General the ever increasing throngs who morning's clinic anc ·iat "16 little in 1951 into this fine hospital of of the Maryknoll Sisters assigned came to the clinic for medical help. postpolios are now ·tting physio· today, it seemed almost unbcl1u f1l:ile Sister Rose Cordis ( one of the twelve therapy." We have other details when - in January of 1964 - Ststcr As the government stabilized and . physician members of the Order at about her work, but , last sentence Ann Veronica wrote that a N Ll r�tw; �he general condition of the people that time) to the mission at Jacal­ of her letter leads v o believe that School for the Hospital had beer, improved, and with the continued tenango. Sister Rose Cordis has con­ '" tradition of approved by the Korean Goi:e • ·· help of the military and generous she is living up to ,e ti nued to serve· the area, first in a all dedicated missk doctors when ment and that fifteen students ·vo .