Christian feast day: Marianne of Molokai

Marianne Cope, O.S.F. was a German-born American Religious Sister who was a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Syracuse, New York, and founding director of its St. Joseph's Hospital in the city, among the first of 50 general hospitals in the country. In 1883 she led a group of six other Sisters to the Kingdom of Hawaii to care for persons suffering leprosy on the island of Molokaʻi and aid in developing the medical infrastructure in Hawaiʻi. Despite direct contact with the patients over many years, Cope did not contract the disease.