Saint Marianne Cope
Statue

Barbara Koob was born in Germany in 1838 and emigrated to the United States as a child, settling with her family in Utica, New York. She joined the Sisters of the Third Order of Saint Francis in 1862, taking the religious name Marianne. Rising to become the Superior of her congregation's hospitals, she was recognized for her innovative approach to hospital management and her insistence on compassionate, dignified care for all patients — including the poor, the mentally ill, and those suffering from contagious diseases.

In 1883, at the age of 45, she answered a desperate appeal from the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi for religious women willing to help care for leprosy patients. The Hawaiian government had struggled for over a decade to staff the Kalaupapa Settlement on Molokai, where those diagnosed with Hansen's disease (leprosy) were forcibly separated from their families under a policy of quarantine. Mother Marianne and six of her sisters arrived in Honolulu in November 1883. She established the Malulani Hospital in Wailuku, Maui, and worked throughout the islands before ultimately committing to the Kalaupapa Settlement in 1888 — where she remained for the rest of her life, a period of 30 years.

Mother Marianne died at Kalaupapa in 1918 at the age of 80. She had kept a vow never to leave Molokai once she arrived. In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI canonized her, making her one of only a handful of American-born Catholic saints. Her statue now stands in Honolulu as a permanent tribute to her extraordinary life of service to Hawaii's most vulnerable citizens.