MOTHER RUSSELL IS AT REST.
The End Comes With the Dawn.
Superior of the Order of Mercy Goes to Her Reward.
Nearly Half a Century Given Unselfishly to the Cause of Humanity.
Obsequies at the Hospital.
Pontifical High Mass to Be Celebrated at the Bier.
San Francisco Examiner, Aug. 7, 1898
THE Reverend Mother Russell, Superior of the Order of Our Lady of Mercy in California, is dead. The close of her beautiful life was peaceful. There was on the face of the dying mother no sign of pain, no recognition apparent that she was going to her reward, and the devoted sisters praying by her bedside saw that her last moments were a reflex of their Superior's calm and holy life.
For some weeks Mother Russell had been ill, but although paralyzed by the disease, she did not lose consciousness entirely until Thursday, when she began to sink rapidly. Late Friday evening the physicians said that she would not live through the night. The sisters were informed of this, and gathered to pray and watch over her, but it was not until 6:25 a.m. yesterday that the saintly soul passed away. The disease which bad caused her death was aneurism [sic] of the arteries of the brain.
Mother Mother Russell's death was expected, and yet it was a shock to the sisters who loved her as a mother, indeed, and they showed their devotion by running all day long at the bier in the convent chapel, praying devoutly for the departed soul. Throughout the hospital and the Old Ladies' Home, no voice was heard louder than a whisper. All realized that the brilliant woman who had directed the Order of Mercy for forty-three years in California was no more, that one upon whom every sister in the order might lean for support or seek in time of doubt or trial, was gone from them. The gloom was dispelled only by the consolation of prayer.
Soon after Mother Russell died her body, robed in the habit of the Order of Mercy, was placed in a casket—a plain black receptacle, with simple silver handles—and removed to the chapel of the sisters, adjoining the hospital. The casket was laid upon a black bier and surrounded with candles, immediately in front of the altar, and there the body will lie till Tuesday morning, when a pontifical high mass will be celebrated at 10 o'clock. After this solemn requiem the funeral will move from the chapel to St. Michael's Cemetery at the Magdalen Asylum. There Mother Russell will be interred with her companions in religion.
The chapel will be open to-day and to-morrow, that all who knew and respected Mother Russell may visit the bier. And In all those hours prayers will be offered without cessation by the Sisters of Mercy for the repose of the departed soul.
Many were the expressions of regret heard at St. Mary's Hospital, and among those who recalled the endless good deeds of Mother Russell none was more eloquent than Mother Columbia, the new Superior of St. Mary's Hospital. Her goodness to the poor was unbounded," said Mother Columbia. "Her work did not consist in great things, but in a multiplicity of little things. You would have to go among the poor to find out all Mother Russell has done. She was one of the hidden saints."
The Rev. John Nugent, pastor of St. Brendan's Parish, in which St. Mary's Hospital is situated, was familiar, from personal observation, with the work of Mother Russell in the last years of her life. He said:
"Mother Russell has been doing good all the time so quietly that much of it was not known, except to a few. She was considered a mother to her community, and the sisters were very much attached to her. She was very successful in every way, managing the hospital and gaining the confidence of the sisters so much so that she was elected Reverend Mother every four years, when, according to a rule of the order, the communities choose their superiors."
A Sister of Mercy now at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Sacramento, who probably knows more of Mother Russell’s life and work than any other person in California, having labored with her for thirty-two years in the service of God, ministering to the sick and lightening the burdens of those who were heavy laden, said:
"You have never rend of a virtue, no are there any, that she did not possess She was the embodiment of everything that was pure and noble—true to her God and true to humanity; a woman of imperturbable temperament, and one who had the sublimest faith in Divine Providence. Her charities the world will never know. Their extent she alone knew, and knowing, guarded them as sacred.
"She loved children, and could feel their sorrows and understood their joys. She had the faculty of being blind to others’ faults; all she could discern was their good qualities, and were they few or many, in her eyes they counteracted everything else.
She could weep with the poor and watch over them, but I never knew her to weep over her own sorrows; not even the death of her own people moved her to tears. The world had enough sorrow of its own, and she must bear up for others' sakes.
"She had helped families in San Francisco who had sunk from former estates of grandeur and position, but they never knew that the aid came from her hands. The sisters would be sent to the homes of these people, and before they left one of them would find a pretext for remaining behind her companion and leaving a well-filled purse of Mother Baptiste.
"She had a holy love for the poor women who had fallen, and none of them ever applied to her for assistance in vain. They loved her in return, and when she visited the Magdalen Asylum on the feast day of Sister Mary Magdalen there was always a gala time. It was a day of all days, and no matter where the Rev. Mother might be, she would always make it a point to visit the home. She would sit on the grass with the poor girls and tell them stories of a better life. She placed the greatest confidence in them, and very few ever betrayed it. They were placed on their honor not to run away on that holiday when all restraints were removed, and I know of several instances where girls have fled and gone back to the very doors of their former sinful haunts and then returned of their own accord to the home. It was the love of Mother Baptist that brought them back.
"She cared not for worldly grandeur and position. Her people were nothing to her. and she looked upon her brother, the Lord Chief Justice of England, as no better than an ordinary man who toiled with his hands for a living. I can recall no anecdote of her life that has not yet been told, and of her charities I will say nothing, for I feel that she would not wish it."
Mother Russell was born near Newry, in the County Down, Ireland, seventy years ago. Her family had an honored ancestry. having settled 500 or 600 years ago at Killough, near where Mother Russell was born. The children were brought up in an atmosphere of all the virtues, and were especially taught to observe the charity which is the queen of all virtues, Katharine Tynan writes of her in an English magazine:
"The charity of Christ urgeth us," might have been written as a motto along that nursery wall, for of the five children who played there all, except the Lord Chief Justice, dedicated themselves to God and the service of humanity in religion. One sister still is the head of the Order of Mercy in California, and controls in that capacity hospitals, penitentiaries, asylums, schools and all varieties of charitable institutions. Another sister is in the Convent of Mercy at Savoy, where the third nun of the family died some years ago. Lord Russell's one brother is a Jesuit priest in Dublin.
Through the direction of their uncle, the Rev. C. W. Russell, D. D., of Maynooth College, three of the family entered the Order of Our Lady of Mercy and one became a Poor Clare, while Charles Russell took up the study of the law, and Matthew prepared for the priesthood. Father Russell became a Jesuit, and in his sphere has been a beacon to the Irish writers of the present generation. Charles went to London, and with the characteristic energy, ability and steadfastness of his family, forged his way to the top the honorable office of Lord Chief Justice of England.
Mother Russell joined the Order of Mercy at Kinsale, Ireland, and six years later, accompanied by six Sisters, came to San Francisco with the Rev. Hugh Gallagher. They arrived here December 7, 1854, and took up their abode at St. Patrick's Church, on Market street, near Second. Of the little band of mercy who first came to this city only Sister Mary remains. Their work began in a humble house and grew slowly at first, and when the County Hospital was offered for sale they bought it. Under Mother Russell they worked faithfully, and when cholera broke out they were among the sick, displaying heroism and mercy such as endeared them to the pioneers.
The first day school of the Sisters was opened in 1856, and later In that year the first penitent was received and given a home. Two years afterward the Sisters took charge of the pesthouse during a smallpox epidemic, and there performed the duties of nurses and attendants. In 1862 the corner-stone of St. Mary's Hospital was laid, and since then many institutions have been established and successfully maintained. To-day there are about 120 Inmates in the Old Ladies' Home, 140 girls in the Magdalen Asylum, and a large number of free patients in the hospital. The community rewards the progress of their order as still advancing, now as in the past, and expect that the Old People's Home at Fruitvale, begun by Mother Russell, will be the crowning monument to her memory.