Margaret Haven, Secular Franciscan, Missionary in Molokai
from 1946 to 1970. Born 1894, died 1977.
During her life Margaret Haven, a humble unassuming Franciscan tertiary, never imagined that someone would write a picture story about her. But we are able to glean the main facts of her life-story of deep Irish faith and piety from her album of photos and some additional information supplied by her brother Tom and Sr. Mary Laurence Hanley O.S.F. of Syracuse, N.Y.
Margaret died of cancer in Chicago on January 16, 1977, not quite 84 years old. There were only a few mourners at her funeral Mass in St. Agnes Church on January 20. She is survived only by her older brother Tom, with whom she was living during the past six years or so. Previously, for some 24 years, she was a worker in the leper colony on the Island of Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands.
Born in Chicago on February 21, 1894, Margaret was one of six children in a good Catholic Irish family. She had one sister, Mary, who would have gone with her to Molokai if she had not died in 1946. Besides Tom, she had three other brothers, namely John, James, and Franciscan Fr. Donald Haven who was a missionary for almost four decades in China, Japan, and Korea, and returned to Chicago to die in 1973.
In 1911, at the age of 17, Margaret, or Maggie, as her friends called her, started to work as a switchboard operator for the Illinois Bell Telephone Company, first at the old Harriman Office and later at the Wabash Office. Her sister Mary was also a telephone operator. From 1923 to1925 Margaret worked for the Southern California Telephone Company. Returning to Chicago, she continued her work as an operator at the Wabash, Hyde Park, and Wentworth offices, and finally at the Engelwood Office.
All this we learn from an article about her which appeared in a publication of the Telephone Company when she retire on June 1, 1946, "after 35 years of service, during which she was sick only twice." She was 53 years old at the time and still enjoying good health; and she had definite plans and arrangements for the future. Like her brother, Fr. Donald, who was temporarily back home from China at this time, she wanted to be a missionary. She had heard about the heroic work of Father Damien de Veuster who began to serve as the resident chaplain of the leper colony on Molokai in 1873 and died a victim of the disease in 1889. Also about Brother Joseph Dutton, who joined Father Damien three years before his death, became a Franciscan Tertiary in 1893, and died in Honolulu at the age of 88 in 1931 (see Franciscan Herald and Forum, November 1948, pp.327-527). Also about Mother Marianne Cope of the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse (originally founded in 1855 by Bishop John N. Neumann of Philadelphia, who was canonized in June this year, and established as a separate community in 1860). Mother Marianne, who like Father Damien is now a candidate for beatification, led a group of her Sisters to the Hawaiian Islands in 1883 in response to an appeal of King Kalakaua. After caring for lepers in the colony of Kalaupapa on Molokai for thirty years she died there in 1918.
Margaret Haven decided she wanted to spend the rest of her life as a helper of the Franciscan Sisters in the leper colony on Molokai at the Bishop Home for women and girls. During the years of Mother Marianne's service, this Home increased from a few wards to 17 buildings. Already in January of 1946 Margaret had sent her application for a job in Molokai to the territorial government of Hawaii, since that was the only way in which she could work in the leper colony; and her application was accepted.
Selling the old family home at 6213 South Kostner was perhaps the biggest sacrifice Margaret had to make, as she herself said. Her fellow workers had a big party in her honor when she retired form the Telephone Company; and the party, held on June 19, was just as big a surprise to Margaret. They asked her whether she was not afraid to live and work among the lepers.
"Am I afraid? Not one speck! If I get leprosy, I get it. If I get it, I won't worry about it."
What kind of work was she going to do in Molokai?
"I'll scrub floors, work in the kitchen – do anything that is needed."
And she was ready to remain there for the rest of her life.
"It makes no difference to me if I never get off the island."
She was not becoming a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, but going as a lay missionary, as a Franciscan tertiary or Secular Franciscan, just like Brother Joseph Dutton. As the records show, Margaret had long ago joined the Third Order Secular of St. Francis at old St. Peter's Church in Chicago. The old Third Order records at St. Peter's, which have been reduced to a minimum, tell us there was a Margaret Haven who joined the Third Order Fraternity there as the 507th member and another by the same name as the 1021st member. The latter was no doubt Margaret the Molokai Missionary and the other must have been her mother. When she was laid to rest in January 1977, Margaret wore the Franciscan habit as a shroud.
On August 4, 1946, Margaret said goodbye to Chicago. Her brother, Fr. Donald, and a few friends saw her off at the old Dearborn Station on Polk Street, a block from old St. Peter's, on that day. Her brothers John and Tom were in California, and she paid them a short visit before sailing from San Francisco for Honolulu on August 19.3 She went to Molokai, and there she lived and worked during the next 24 years.
Returning to Shanghai, China, in 1947, Fr. Donald paid his sister a visit on Molokai, and found she was happy in her work – any kind of work that would help the Sisters her nursed the lepers. She was a good cook and baked wonderful home-made bread (the writer knows from experience; he ate some of that bread).
Again in 1954, after Fr. Donald had been expelled from China by the Communists and was going to Japan after a brief sojourn in the United States, he visited his sister Margaret on Molokai and saw she was happy in her new-found vocation.
During the greater part of her sojourn on Molokai, Margaret worked, in a spirit of service and solicitude for others, as cook for the twelve Franciscan Sisters who had charge of the only hospital on the island. She had a room in the Sisters' convent and went to church with the Sisters. Later on, as the lepers became fewer in number and the labor allowed by the government at Bishop Home and Hospital was reduced, Margaret accepted other work. She cooked for the priest for a while, and finally for the other "kokuas" or helpers, including the medical director Dr. Kelibe. Since she could not serve the lepers directly, she settled on serving those who took care of them. All this we learn from Mother Viola and Sisters Vera and Christopher of Syracuse, N.Y., who were formerly in Molokai and were interviewed for us by Sister Mary Laurence.
Sister Rosanna, who was supervisory nurse at Bishop Home and Hospital, describes Margaret as a typically Catholic Irish lady with a merry twinkle in her eyes, a spiritually-minded person with a contemplative bent, her found her recreation and relaxation in her solitary walks on the island and along the seashore. She recalls that Margaret attended holy Mass every day and cherished a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And she tells us the patients regarded her as a friend and called her "Lady Margaret," not just in secret but openly and when they spoke to her.
Sister Anne supplied the information for the following vignette written for us by Sister Mary Laurence:
"Standing at the gate outside the small white cottage was the cook at the convent of the Sisters. She was waiting for patients of the infirmary to pass by. As they trickled by one by one, she handed each one a small package containing home-made cookies she had baked that day.
" 'Thank you, Lady Margaret! Thank you for thinking of me.' "Smiling quietly to herself, Lady Margaret returned to her work in the kitchen. There were others for whose welfare she was very solicitous. Soon the Sisters would be coming back to their convent for lunch. How could these good Franciscan women nurse the poor lepers if there was not someone to see to it that they were enjoying good health themselves."
In 1970, Margaret was 76 years old, and she found it necessary to retire. She went back to Chicago to spend her last years there with her brother Tom. A few years later, her brother Fr. Donald too had to retire. He returned from Korea to Chicago in March, 1973, a very sick man. Margaret took good care of her ailing missionary and priest brother until he died on November 26, the same year.
St. Francis of Assisi served the lepers in his day, and for him it was a stepping stone to the heights of sanctity. Margaret Haven, a true spiritual daughter of the Poverello, lived and worked among the lepers for almost a quarter of the twentieth century. She received no acclaim from the world and sought none; she was concerned only about God's opinion of her. "So much are we," said St. Francis, "as we are in the sight of God." Margaret's simple life-story is an inspiration to her brothers and sisters in the Third Order of St. Francis and to all of us. That is why we have told the unadorned story.
Margaret Haven, Secular Franciscan, Missionary in Molokai
from 1946 to 1970. Born 1894, died 1977.
Margaret Haven was a switchboard operator
for the Illinois Bell Telephone Company in Chicago
from 1911 to 1923 and from 1925 to 1946
One of the priests of the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts
stationed on Molokai with Margaret Haven and her
visiting brother Fr. Donald in 1947.
Fr. Donald Haven visiting his sister Margaret
at the Kalaupapa Leper Colony on Molokai in
1947 while on his way to Shanghai, China.
Fr. Donald Haven, Margaret, a friend, her brother Tom and his wife Helen
at the Dearborn Railroad Station in Chicago when Margaret left for Molokai in 1946
Margaret Haven with a group of Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, N.Y., at the airport
on the island of Molokai. Two of the sisters are arriving or leaving.
Margaret Haven with her brother Fr. Donald
when he visited her at kalaupapa, Molokai,
while on his way to Japan in 1954.
Grave and tombstone of Brother Joseph Dutton,
Franciscan Tertiary, who joined Father Damien
shortly before the latter's death.
from the Franciscan Herald, October, 1977, 1434 West 51st Street, Chicago, Illinois, pages 292-297