Marie Louise Habets

Marie Louise Habets(January 1905–May 1986) was aBelgiannurse and formerreligious sisterwhose life was fictionalised as Sister Luke (Gabrielle van der Mal) inThe Nun's Story,a bestselling 1956 book by American authorKathryn Hulme.The Belgian-born actressAudrey Hepburnportrayed Gabrielle van der Mal in the 1959Fred ZinnemannfilmThe Nun's Story,and was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Actress.

Marie Louise Habets
Born	January 1905 Egem,West Flanders,Belgium
Died	May 1986 (81 years old) Hawaii,United States
Nationality	Belgian
Other names	Sister Xaverine,S.C.J.M.
Occupation(s)	Nurse andreligious sister
Known for	Being the model for the protagonist of the 1956 novelThe Nun's Story

Life

Habets was born inWest Flandersin January 1905. In 1926, she entered theSisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary,anenclosed religious orderwhich cared for the sick and poor within their cloister. She was admitted to their convent on Molenaarstraat inGhent,and then took thereligious nameSister Xaverine.

In 1933, she was sent to themission hospitalinBelgian Congowhich her congregation staffed for the colonial government. She contractedtuberculosisand returned to her home country in the summer of 1939, shortly before the start ofWorld War IIand the subsequentGerman invasion of Belgium.Her father was killed shortly after this, causing Sister Xaverine to develop such a hatred toward the Germans that she became involved with theBelgian Resistance.She came to feel that she could not obey the dictates of her faith for forgiveness and applied to theHoly Seefor adispensationfrom herreligious vows– a very rare request in her day. She was eventually granted this, and left the congregation on 16 August 1944 from their convent inUccle.

Habets settled inAntwerp,which was liberated byAllied forcesa few weeks later. She joined a British First Aid unit which nursed the soldiers wounded while fighting in theBattle of the Bulge.She was present in Antwerp when German forces massively bombarded the city soon after its liberation, killing and maiming some 10,000 people. After the end of the war in Europe, she was sent to Germany to help care for her fellow Belgians who had been imprisoned inconcentration campsthere.

Kathryn Hulme's 1966 autobiographyUndiscovered Countrydescribes her first meeting with Habets in 1945. Both were volunteers with theUnited Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration(UNRRA), an international project working to resettle refugees andothers displaced by the war.Hulme recounts that, at a training camp in northern France, she became aware of a Belgian woman who spent most of her time asleep. Even when awake, the woman, a nurse, was taciturn, solitary and preoccupied, almost asocial. In time, however, the Belgian nurse revealed herself as a diligent worker, a good friend, and a woman with a secret: she had just left the convent after 17 years of struggle with her vows. She felt burdened and depressed by a deep sense of failure.

British writerZoe Fairbairnstook up the story with an article,The Nun’s True Story,and a radio play,The Belgian Nurse,aired by theBBCin 2007. Both show how Habets's life became Hulme's bestseller, and how the two women became friends, sharing a home for nearly 40 years.Their parallel lives are explored in "The Nun and the Crocodile: The Stories within The Nun's Story", a paper given by Debra Campbell at the Women and Religion section of theAmerican Academy of ReligionAnnual Meeting on November 21, 2004.

Hulme papers

Documents relating to Habets can be found among the Kathryn Hulme papers which are held at theBeinecke LibraryatYale Universityin the United States.

These include a report by Habets about a repatriation transport from the displaced persons resettlement camp atWildflecken,Bavaria,which set off for Poland on April 30, 1946. The report is written in English, which Habets did not speak fluently at the time; it was probably translated by Hulme. Read in conjunction with Chapter 14 ofUndiscovered Country,it shows the high value placed by Hulme, an American who had not lived under enemy occupation, on the first-hand knowledge, experience and powers of observation of her Belgian colleague. There is also a report by Habets on caring for tuberculosis patients at Wildflecken.

Later life

In late 1948, Habets had been promoted to Area Chief Nurse by theInternational Refugee Organizationof theUnited Nations.After continuing to helpdisplaced personsfor the next several years, she decided that she had no desire to live in her homeland again, and requested an Americanvisa.Hulme was her sponsor in this, and the visa was granted. After one last visit with her family, Habets and Hulme sailed from Antwerp to the United States on theSSNoordam,arriving inNew York Cityduring February 1951. They initially settled inArizona,where she worked as a nurse in a hospital serving theNavajo people.They later moved to California, where she nursedAudrey Hepburnafter a horse-riding accident which occurred during her filming ofThe Unforgiven.

In 1960, Hulme and Habets moved to the Hawaiian island ofKauai,where Hulme continued to write, with Habets's support and assistance. They grew tropical fruits, bred dogs, rode horses, had friends to stay, gave talks, and socialized among the other Kauai expats. They remained Catholics, and Hulme continued her involvement with the work of the mysticG. I. Gurdjieff.Habets did some nursing, though mainly on a private basis for friends. Hulme and Habets travelled widely, sometimes together, sometimes independently.

Death and legacy

Habets died in May 1986, five years after Hulme. Having inherited her literary estate, Habets, in her own will, shared it out among members of her own family, members of Hulme's family, and six sisters, who cannot be traced. The resultant confusion makes it unclear who owns the rights, and who can give permissions. This is probably whyThe Nun’s Story,along with Hulme's other books, remains out of print.

Bibliography

K. Hulme,Undiscovered Country,Atlantic Little Brown, 1966

See also

• Monica Baldwin,who left her enclosed order after 28 years, and wrote a memoir about it