Although the patient perspired, he didn’t even wince. With a dexterous twist, (Sister Irene) succeeded in bringing out a three-root molar on the first attempt. Or when Sister Irene, with no formal training in dentistry, excised a bishop’s molar with help from Sister Isabelle, who spoke French and translated instructions to Sister Irene from a small dentistry book in French they found: “They were deathly afraid of centipedes,” McNerney says. “Trapped in Paradise” is laced with humorous moments, like when the sisters chased down centipedes with a stick. And their living conditions left a lot to be desired. Sisters Hedda and Irene were nurses, Sisters Isabelle and Celestine teachers.Īfter the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the nuns were warned to leave but didn’t.Īs McNerney points out: “A shepherd does not leave his sheep.”Īlthough none of the four sisters were hurt or taken hostage during their months in hiding (some Marist priests and nuns were killed by the Japanese on nearby Guadacanal), as Americans they were in danger. In June, McNerney enlisted the editing skills of her sister, Maureen McNerney Habel, to help her pore over the journal and shape it into a book, which begins with the three-month journey of the sisters by boat to the small island of Buka, separated from Bougainville by a channel.Īlong with Sister Hedda, who was from North Dakota, the other nuns who ended up in hiding after World War II broke out in the Pacific - aged 35 to 50 at the time - were Irene Alton, from Huntington Beach Isabelle Aubin, from Massachusetts and Celestine Belanger, from Ontario, Canada.
McNerney says the reading group turned out to be such a hit that sisters would often ask her: Hey, is this going to be a book?
The reading group participants learned how to pray in pidgin English - which the four nuns in the South Pacific used, at times, during their missionary work, which included teaching, providing health care, and much more. “Some of them couldn’t see, some were deaf, and some needed mobility aids to get around.”ĭuring the weekly readings, the sisters - one as old as 102 - would indulge on coconut macaroons and other South Pacific-themed treats. “I thought the older nuns would enjoy the journal because they knew these four sister better than I did,” says McNerney, 77, a nun for some 60 years. While recuperating at Regina Residence, McNerney started the Jungle Journal Reading Club in March 2016.Įvery Friday, about 30 retired nuns would gather and listen to McNerney, assisted by Sister Rebecca Rodriguez, read about 10 pages from the journals. The book is based on the journals of Sister Hedda Jaeger, who periodically mailed handwritten dispatches to superiors back in Orange.īack in 2012, McNerney learned about the existence of the journals while helping to compile a book marking the 100th anniversary of the Sisters of St. 1, 1943 after they spent nine months hiding in the mountains on the island of Bougainville, is detailed in “Trapped in Paradise: Catholic Nuns in the South Pacific 1940-1943.” Their at-times harrowing experience, which culminated in their high-risk rescue by a U.S.
Joseph of Orange who were doing missionary work in the Solomon Islands were trapped behind enemy lines. into World War II, four nuns from the Sisters of St. 7, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.įor a little more than a year after the infamous attack that plunged the U.S. Joseph of Orange, when she felt useless and restless.įor Sister Eileen McNerney, that time turned into a months-long labor of love that, in November, resulted in the publication of a book detailing a fascinating and little-known story connected to the Dec.
A sister was recuperating from an illness in early 2016 at Regina Residence, the home for retirees of the Sisters of St.