Marie Louise Habets
Marie Louise Habets (born January 1905 in Pittem , Belgium ; † May 1986 in Kauaʻi ) was a Belgian nurse who lived for many years as a nun in an active order . Her life story, somewhat alienated in details, is the basis for the novel Story of a Nun by Kathryn Hulme , which was published in 1956.
Life
Marie Louise Habets was born in 1905 in Egern, a district of Pittem in West Flanders , Belgium. From a young age she felt called to religious life. In 1926 she joined at the age of 21 years the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary at, one, despite their apostolic work in hospitals and schools klausuriert living congregation whose mother house in Ghent was. She was given the religious name Xaverine to dress .
In 1933 she was sent to a hospital in the Belgian Congo , the staff of which was provided by the Congregation of Sisters of Mercy for the Government of the Belgian Congo. In 1939 Sr. Xaverine returned to Belgium after contracting tuberculosis while working in the mission there. Shortly afterwards her father was killed by Germans, which is why Sr. Xaverine developed a grudge against the German occupiers, so that she took part in the work of the Belgian resistance movement. This led her to believe that she could no longer remain faithful to her religious vows , which is why she came to the Holy See for the delivery of the vows, which was very rare at that time. On August 16, 1944, she was finally exclaustrated and left the convent in Ukkel , where she had last worked.
After leaving, Habets settled in Antwerp , which was liberated by the Allies , and joined a British organization that cared for the wounded in the Battle of the Bulge . It also survived the Germans bombing Antwerp not long afterwards. After the end of the Second World War, Habets was sent to Germany, where she was supposed to take care of Belgian survivors of the concentration camps . Kathryn Hulme's autobiographical work Undiscovered Country ("The undiscovered country") describes the first meeting of the two in 1945, when both worked in the voluntary service of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) , an international project in refugee aid. Habets and Hulme belonged to Team No. 1050, which came to Wildflecken in Bavaria , where around 20,000 people, predominantly of Polish origin, lived in a camp under difficult conditions.
In late 1948, Habets was named the senior sister for the area by the United Nations International Refugee Organization . After several years in refugee aid, Habets decided that she did not want to return to Belgium and applied for an American visa. Habets and Hulme left Antwerp and arrived in New York in February 1951 . After a brief stay in Arizona , where Habets also worked in a hospital for Navajo Indians , Habets and Hulme moved to Southern California, where Habets cared for Audrey Hepburn, among others, after a riding accident that she suffered while filming Unforgiven . Hepburn had taken on the role of Gabrielle van der Mal (alias Marie Louise Habets), who was named Sr. Lukas in the film, in the film adaptation of the story of a nun in 1959.
In 1960 Habets and Kathryn Hulme finally settled on the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i , where Habets was active in nursing at home in addition to their support for Hulme's literary work. They also went on longer trips together.
Marie Louise Habets died in May 1986 and outlived her partner by five years. Habets, who inherited Hulme's literary legacy, bequeathed it to members of her own family. Due to the large number of heirs and because some of them could not be identified, it is also not clear who now holds the rights to a nun's story , which is probably one of the reasons why the book is no longer being reprinted.
bibliography
- Kathryn Hulme, Undiscovered Country , Atlantic Little Brown, 1966
Individual evidence
- ↑ Musschoot, 'The nun's story' gaat over zuster Xaverine in De Standaard from May 8, 2008
- ↑ a b c Rhoenline.com Marie Louise Habets
- ↑ https://discoveringbelgium.com/2020/01/02/famous-belgians-marie-louise-habets/
- ↑ http://www.classicmoviehub.com/facts-and-trivia/film/the-nun-s-story-1959/
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Habets, Marie Louise |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Xaverine (religious name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Belgian nurse and nun |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 1905 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pittem |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 1986 |
| Place of death | Kaua'i |