Sisters of Mokama

January 17, 2022
New York Times opinion editor Thottam debuts with a vivid and uplifting portrait of a hospital in the small market town of Mokama in Bihar, India, built in 1947 by a group of Catholic nuns from Kentucky. Looking for a “new role as women in the Church,” six nuns from the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth traveled to India, where the traumas of Partition and deficiencies in the healthcare system were causing diseases like cholera to run rampant. By July 1948, the nuns had built and staffed a 28-bed hospital; the following year, they opened a nursing school. Young Indian women, including the author’s mother, came to Nazareth Hospital because they wanted a life beyond what tradition typically offered. Though students didn’t hesitate to point out the racist attitudes of teachers and administrators, Thottam doesn’t linger on disharmony, preferring to focus on the hard work and dedication of all the women of Nazareth Hospital. She also doesn’t sugarcoat the stresses of missionary work, documenting how illness and exhaustion forced chief surgeon Mary Wiss to choose between her health, her medical career, and her commitment to the order. Full of complex characters and intriguing historical tidbits, this is a rousing story of hope and determination. Illus.

February 1, 2022
The story of six Kentucky nuns who forged a new life in India. In her debut book, New York Times Opinion editor Thottam draws on detailed archival sources and more than 60 interviews to create a vivid history of a hospital and nursing school established in the small Indian town of Mokama in 1947 by six members of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, whose "ambition and longing, passion and hunger" fueled their desire for bold, new challenges. Ranging in age from their early 20s to 50, buoyed with hope and excitement, they set out for India knowing no Hindi and without a clue about conditions in a nation that had just emerged from British rule and the trauma of Partition. After an arduous journey by sea and rail, they faced a stunning reality. Mokama, riddled by violence, was populated by the war-ravaged and destitute who had fled brutality and the loss of their homes. The physical conditions were daunting: The Jesuits who had invited them provided a large, unheated structure with no electricity or running water; no hospital beds; no medicines; and no doctors, nurses, or other staff. Weeks after their arrival, supplies finally came, and Nazareth Hospital, as they named it, began seeing patients. A young doctor arrived in 1948, and by 1949, the nuns, working tirelessly, offered basic primary care, a village health center, and a school to train nurses--aspiring young women like Thottam's mother--who came from all over India. In 1952, they established a leprosy clinic. Nearly eight decades later, the hospital still exists, serving "the poor and the extremely ill, for whom Nazareth is still the only option." The author offers candid, sympathetic portraits of the doctors and nurses who arrived through the years to staff the hospital and especially of the six original founders. "They are women," she writes, "who took hold of uncertainty, saw a void, and would not let go until they had shaped it into something closer to the life they desired." An inspiring story of faith and dedication.

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March 1, 2022
This is a story of India, starting about 1945, and the missionary nuns from Kentucky who ran a school and hospital in an especially poor part of the country. In the village of Mokama, Jesuits began a ministry with the intention of converting locals to Catholicism. They were followed by nuns with the goal of establishing a school and hospital to meet more physical needs. Women from rural Kentucky who had likely never left the state before traveled to a vastly different place, learned a new language, coped with the political upheaval of partition and the assassination of Gandhi, all while teaching and caring for the poor. This is told in a highly personal style--the author is the daughter of one of the nurses trained at the hospital--but above all it is the story of courage and faith seldom talked about and the longevity of a mission that is still in existence. This would be most appropriate for collections with an interest the history of India, the missionary movement, and the Catholic Church.

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March 11, 2022

At the end of World War II, a small group of nuns from the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth traveled from Kentucky to Mokama, India, to establish a hospital. Thottam (New York Times senior opinion editor) recounts the story of the nuns and their nursing students through the lens of the unrest following the partition of India and Pakistan. Mokama, a very small rail town in rural India, lacked electricity and running water when the hospital was founded and was a huge culture shock to the nuns. Additionally, lack of funding, political unrest, and a shortage of medical personnel in India hindered efforts. Thottam explores the lives of the six nuns who founded the hospital and their motivations to leave their lives and families in the United States. She touches on the lives of several Indian women who became nursing students, including her mother. Thottam also places the narrative in the context of life in India in a time of great change. VERDICT A heartfelt account of service and change. Recommended for readers interested in Catholic or Indian history.--Rebekah Kati

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