Aloha Fr. Joe,
I tried with no luck to put this on your website.
I received the news of Sister Anna's passing this afternoon, 23 October 2010. Picking up our mail I saw a letter from Maryknoll and was sure of the sad news inside. Sure enough. I came out to the car crying and my wife asked me what was wrong. We both sat and cried.
We had just spoken of her a few minutes before. Nine days ago I had a stent put in and my wife asked if I that emailed Sister Anna. I
told her that I intended to do that.
Sister Anna and I were third cousins. Although I am twelve years younger we grew up in the same farming community in the Cox Creek
area of Clayton County in NE Iowa. We had mutual great great grandparents, Daniel Ivory and Bridget Kealy Ivory who were married
in St. Michael's Catholic Church in Danesfort, County Kilkenny, Ireland. We attended the same one room school house. She actually
lived on the Ivory family farm a mile from where I was born.
I went to Korea to teach at Seoul American High School in 1963. Sister Anna arrived in 1965. My wife and I retired in 1997 and Sister Anna a few years later. She had attended our last Baccalaureate service for the Class of '97. My wife and I were the speakers.
Sister Anna was a very important part of our lives in Korea. Many times we traveled the two hours to get to her clinic on week-ends. We would take some of our teacher colleagues and military doctors and nurses to met her and to observe her marvelous work. I helped via the Officer's Wives Club to find funding for her work, especially anti snakebite medicine. I also took my photography students and some of my art students to the county and cattle market in her rural town and we would picnic with her in the shade of the sycamore trees.
Sister Anna was a wonderful human being. My wife said today that Sister Anna was the most self-actualized women she had every met.
May she Rest In Peace. She will be dearly missed by all of those who knew and loved her.
Michael F. O'Brien
PO Box 384899
Waikoloa, HI 96738-4899
808-883-8002
onggi@aloha-state.net
BTW, Sister Anna and I were both year of the Rabbit!! Did I ever meet you in Korea? Fr. John Heisse was a very good friend of our. We first met him when I said Mass on Yongsan, 8th Army.
We also knew many of the Sister at Jeung Pyeong.
--
Denial is not good for your health.
Michael F. O'Brien
PO Box 384899
Waikoloa, Hawai`i 96738
Fourteen of my books on blurb.com
http://www.blurb.com/my/store/public
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