Joseph (Ira) Dutton (1843-1931)

Wisconson State Journal, July 26th 2011: There’s been so much anger and violence in the news lately that it might be refreshing to consider the life of a Wisconsin man who devoted half a century to humility and compassion.

Ira Dutton was born in Vermont in 1843 and came to Wisconsin as a child. He was still a teenager when the Civil War broke out, and he joined the 13th Infantry as quartermaster. His duties included provisioning soldiers with food and clothing, tending the sick and burying the dead. After his discharge in 1865, Dutton stayed in the South tracing missing soldiers, collecting their remains and settling survivors’ claims.
These horrors and a failed marriage drove him to drink heavily. By his own account, he spent the next decade in a drunken stupor. When he emerged from the gutter in 1876, Dutton began to study religion, and in 1883 he joined the Trappist Monastery at Gethsemane, Ky., expecting to spend his life in contemplation.
But he soon learned about the work of Father Damien DeVeuster (“Damien the Leper”) caring for shunned native Hawaiians at Molokai, and he left for the islands in 1886. Dutton introduced himself as “Brother Joseph” when he met the tiny relief corps at the Kalaupapa Leper Colony.
He volunteered there for 45 years, until his death in 1931. Dutton spent his days building latrines, bandaging sores, mopping floors, and serving meals to the diseased and despised. He accepted no pay and insisted that his military pension be donated to the monks at Gethsemane.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/article_3e8b9e74-b7c0-11e0-8da0-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1TajElXjp

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Molokai Postal Service

Associated Press HONOLULU -- The U.S. Postal Service is considering shuttering a tiny Molokai post office in the remote Kalaupapa peninsula known as a former leprosy settlement, accessible only by plane or mule.

The one-woman Kalaupapa office that serves less than 100 residents is on a list of about 3,700 locations nationwide the postal service announced Tuesday are being considered for closure.
"The post office is the lifeline for the residents out here at Kalaupapa," Stephen Prokop, Kalaupapa National Historical Park superintendent, said Wednesday. "There is no Internet access, no cellphone access. Mail is the only way we can communicate."
Hansen's disease patients were forced into isolation there in 1866, where they were cared for by Father Damien, who became Hawaii's first saint in 2009. About a dozen patients still live there since the quarantine was lifted in 1969, Prokop said. The rest of the residents are mostly National Park Service employees who tend to more than 200 historic structures.
"The youngest patient is 70. For them to not have access to regular mail is extreme," Prokop said.
Mail is processed in Honolulu and then flown once a day to the Kalaupapa office, which "serves the most isolated population of postal customers in the state," said USPS spokesman Duke Gonzales. "We understand especially in a community like Kalaupapa the necessity of mail and what mail means to them."
That's why the postal service is looking for alternative ways Kalaupapa residents can receive mail if the office closes, including using a privately operated office or a mail receiving agency that distributes mail for a larger organization such as a college. Gonzales said the post office won't close without finding a way to give customers access to mail service.
The Kalaupapa post office is an example of other historical relationships the postal service has with remote areas, such a settlement of Native Americans in the Grand Canyon that get mail delivered by a mule.
"There are others that are more remote," Gonzales said. Kalaupapa is "only a short plane ride from Oahu."
The unique way mail arrives to Kalaupapa, where residents pick up letters and packages from the post office, was first highlighted by The Maui News on Wednesday.
Two post offices on Oahu and one on Kauai are also on the list of potential closures. Most of the 3,653 post offices nationwide being studied for closure have so little foot traffic that workers average less than two hours of per day and average sales are less than $50 a day, Gonzales said.

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Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise. Mozlink

Fr. Damien Of Molokai

A full TV film (117 mins) at the following link http://bit.ly/ogqvQD

60 Utube videos on Father Damien at the following link: http://bit.ly/qR3CMf