Letters on the go

"The letters begin in Auckland, where the dedicated young French missionary first settled, working with Maori students, meeting her fellow countrywoman Marie Louise Outhwaite, beginning her lifetime's negotiation with bishops and clergy and her association with the Society of Mary. After her departure for Hawke's Bay, her correspondence with Auckland friends sustains her, and her skills in nursing emerge ever more clearly. The remote Whanganui River settlement of Hiruharama is the setting for her next series of letters, written as she set up a farm, set up an orphanage, and work closely with Maori. Politics both national and clerical periodically threaten, and letters to priests, bishops, health inspectors and members of parliament intersperse her day-to-day correspondence with the sisters."--Book flap.