After a little break for fun over Labor Day, we return to the overview of some of the women who are remembered as saints of the church in the Episcopal Church lectionary. This week it is a group of nuns and other selfless men and women, collectively named ‘the Martyrs of Memphis’.
The nuns were members of the Community of St. Mary. This order was established on February 2, 1865 by Bishop Horatio Potter of New York City with five women. They elected Harriet Cannon to be Mother Superior, and immediately began work. They formed a house for indigent women, a hospital, school, and orphanage. In 1872 they purchased 30 acres at Peekskill, north of New York City and constructed their mother house.
Bishop Charles Quintard of Tennessee, a friend of Mother Harriet, asked her for help in 1867. Sister Martha arrived in 1870 to start a home for war orphans in Memphis. After Martha died in 1871, Mother Harriet named 28-year old Sister Constance as Superior of the Order in Memphis in 1873. Sisters Amelia, Thecla, and a novice, Sister Hughette accompanied Constance. Bishop Quintard even gave up the bishop’s residence to house the school.
Then in October of 1873 Yellow Fever struck Memphis. The sisters remained in the city, caring for patients in the Cathedral area. Half of the 40,000 residents of Memphis fled the city. A quarter of the remainder became ill and 2000 of those died. The sisters made house calls on the sick and even when the epidemic died out in November, along with the carrier mosquitos, the sisters continued to care for those who were sick.
The school for Civil War orphans opened in 1874, as well as a second school for poor children. The sisters work was going well, until in August of 1878, Yellow Fever returned. This outbreak was worse than the 1873 epidemic. Sisters Constance and Thecla, on retreat in New York, immediately returned with contributions and medicine. They turned the convent into a dispensary. Again, the well-to-do of the city fled, leaving the poor and black populations to fend for themselves, with the help of some courageous clergy and laity, the nuns, and the owner of a bordello. Even many doctors left.
In the midst of the plague, three more sisters arrived from New York and Boston. The found a city in chaos with looting and murders common and a death rate from the disease of up to 80/day. Sister Constance wrote, “One grows perfectly hardened to these things—carts with eight or nine corpses in rough boxes are ordinary sights. I saw a nurse stop one day and ask for a certain man’s residence—the negro driver pointed over his shoulder with his whip at the heap of coffins behind him and answered, “I’ve got him here in his coffin.”
When it was learned that the local priests had died, over 30 priests from across the country volunteered to come to Memphis. One was Father W.T. Dickinson Dalzell from Shreveport, who had already survived the fever and was a physician. Fr. Louis Schuyler came from New Jersey, knowing as Fr. Dalzell noted, “that all chances were against him, but with a burning desire to help the suffering.”
The Epistle for the feast of these courageous women and men, who risked and gave their own lives to care for the helpless, reminds us that God comforts those who are afflicted. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
The Collect asks that we have a “like love and commitment to those in need, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ.” We probably don’t know how we would face actual life-threatening disease or devastation until it happens. These women and men based their response on their faith in God who cares for the ‘least of these’. There are still courageous volunteers who head into storm ravaged areas, or war-torn corners of the world to help. Even if we cannot physically go to these places, perhaps there is a way to help with donations.
How do you face difficulties?
Do you remember that ‘our consolation is abundant through Christ’?
Is there something you feel called to do to help with some disaster?
https://www.episcopalchurch.org/files/bulletin-inserts-martyrs-of-memphis-english-full.pdf
http://www.stmarysmemphis.org/about/history/bishop-oteys-paten/
https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/religious/constance-and-her-companions/
