HONG KONG (SE): Sister Mary Louise Hideko Higa, who served at Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital, Wong Tai Sin, in the early 1960s died on July 24 at the Maryknoll Sisters Centre, in Maryknoll, New York. She was 96-years-old and had been Maryknoll Sister for 72 years.
Sister Higa was born in Kaupakalua, Maui, Hawaii, to a large family of 10 children. After high school, she studied at St. Francis Hospital School in Honolulu, and graduated as a Registered Nurse in 1949. She joined the Maryknoll Sisters on 1 February 1951, making her first vows on 8 September 1953 in Valley Park, Missouri, and pronounced her final vows on 7 September 1959 in Kandy, Sri Lanka [then Ceylon].
Her first assignment was at the infirmary at the Maryknoll Sisters Motherhouse, in Maryknoll, after which she was sent to Kandy in Sri Lanka, working as a nursing supervisor in a government hospital, and helped open a maternity nursing home. She remained until 1962 when foreigners were expelled during the attempted coup against the government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
That same year, Sister Higa headed to Ireland and earned her certificate in Midwifery from Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda. In 1963, she was assigned to Hong Kong and worked at Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital, as Program Supervisor and team member of Maryknoll Hospital Home Care Service and Community Nursing Service.
She received her Bachelor’s Degree in General Studies in 1977 and transferred to the Central Pacific Region in 1978, assigned in Honolulu, Hawaii, working in the Pastoral Ministry Department from 1978 to 1998 and functioned as the Regional Bookkeeper. In 1988, she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Centre, Maryknoll, where she worked in the Archives department until 1991.
Sister Higa returned to Honolulu in 1991 where she did prison ministry and worked at the Hawaii Interfaith Ministry in Clinical Pastoral Education with a family service agency. In Waihiawa, she was involved in various ministries including serving people living with HIV/ AIDS.
In 2006, she was assigned to Monrovia, California, in semi-retirement and engaged in volunteer work.
Sister Higa return to the Maryknoll Sisters Centre in 2015, to retire and remained there until her death.
A funeral Mass was celebrated on August 18.
May she rest in peace.
