any of the Pioneers came to Rhodesia for love of adventure, but some came to serve their felows, and among the latter was Mother Patrick. Mother Patrick was born at Trim, Eire, in May 1863. She came out to Cape Town when only sixteen years old and entered the Dominican Order at its Mother house in King William’s Town. She was of a practical and cheerful disposition: one pioneer described her as “a young Irish woman with a pretty brogue and a face which is sweet beyond measure”. She also had a knack of bringing order and happiness out of confusion.

hen Father Alphonsus Daignault, who had planned to provide the Pioneers with a nursing service, came to Kimberley to recruit volunteer nurses, five nuns volunteered for the task: Mother Patrick and Sisters Amica, Francis, Ignatius and Constantia. They set off for the north from Mafeking in an ox-wagon on 13 April 1890, and stayed for some months at Macloutsie where they set up a temporary hospital. They opened their hospital at Salisbury on 1 August 1891 on Fourth Street opposite the present Convent School. At first the hospital consisted of no more than three mud huts, a marquee and some bell-tents. The Sisters found their patients there lying on the ground, covered by a single blanket and resting their heads on their clothes. Mother Patrick had brought mattresses, pillows and blankets with her and the sick were very soon much more comfortable.

t Christmas that year better accommodation was provided for the sick, which was as well since during the first three months of 1892 three hundred and eight patients, mostly malaria cases, were admitted to hospital.

he Dominican Sisters tended soldiers and civilians, Africans and Europeans alike, and Mother Patrick became universally loved and admired for her work. She died on 31 July 1900 and left a terrible sense of personal loss among the Pioneers. Three years after her death a Celtic Cross was raised to her memory in Salisbury cemetery, and every year her name is honoured when girls of the Dominican Convent School go in procession to her grave.

n the panel the figures depicted are of Mr. Rhodes, Mother Patrick and the four Dominican Sisters who worked with her.