Mother Suzanne Aubert 1920 - 1926

Suzanne’s story did not end here. Once recovered, she once more firmly took the helm, yet at the same time recognising clearly that her sisters were mature, skilled women who understood their vision and role and would succeed her responsibly and successfully. Her main focus over the next six years was to bring into being the extra promise within the wording of the Decree, that her sisters might provide general hospital treatment and trained nursing free of charge to those in need. The post-war depression of the early 1920s saw much poverty in New Zealand, which was still only slowly developing a welfare infrastructure, and Suzanne worked with the willing cooperation and guidance of Director-General of Health Dr Thomas Valintine, and Directors of Nursing Hester Maclean and Jessie Bicknell. Yet once again, Coadjutor Archbishop O’Shea misunderstood the wider reasoning behind her planning and opposed the development. For him there was still too much secular visibility to her projects.

Suzanne turned ninety in 1925. Through the winter of 1926 she and the sisters knew her life was fading. As she lay waiting and willing for death, the French, Maori and Pakeha voices of her life were all there in her murmured words. She died on 1 October 1926. Thousands of people came in a steady stream to the Home of Compassion to honour her, and her funeral was one of the biggest ever given a woman in New Zealand. All these people were responding in gratitude and love to Suzanne’s vision of large-hearted spiritual neighbourliness – call it arohanui, her great love - her invaluable legacy still now and forever.