Brother Joseph, the ‘Old Man of Molokai’

Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, and gave thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and covered thee? Or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and came to thee? And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me. (Matthew 25:34-40)

Father Damien’s Helper, Brother Joseph of Molokai.

There are two saints who worked with the lepers of Molokai. Father Damien de Veuster and Sister Marianne Cope. Then there is Joseph Dutton.

I had never heard of him until I came across a reference to him in some article I had read. The fact is that he spent many more years with the lepers of Molokai than Saint Damien. (Father Damien was there sixteen years before dying himself of leprosy.) That is because, by God’s dispensation, Joseph never contracted Hansen’s disease and he lived a long life of eighty-eight years, forty-five of them caring for the lepers.

He was born Ira Barnes Dutton in Vermont in 1843. A Protestant, he taught Sunday school as a young man in Wisconsin. Then, the War Between the States broke out and he enlisted serving with the Wisconsin infantry. He was a capable soldier and was promoted to Captain. After the war he was discharged as the army downsized.

Dutton had an excellent mind for business and held many jobs in Tennessee and Alabama. An imprudent marriage to a loose living woman ended in divorce. “One of those things I have tried to forget,” he later lamented.

At this time, the future friend of the lepers, was a functioning alcoholic, working soberly by day for the War Department and spending his evenings with his bottle.  Then, after befriending some Catholics, he swore off booze. He was received into the Church on his fortieth birthday in 1883 taking the name of his favorite saint, Joseph. Our neophyte convert needed something more. A life of penance beckoned him. He had done some work for the Trappists of Gethsemane  Abbey in Kentucky, so there is where he went for the next twenty months, hoping to do reparation for his days of indulgence. During this time he became acquainted with the work of Father Damien de Veuster.

The work attracted me wonderfully. After weighing it for a while I became convinced that it would suit my wants — for labor, for a penitential life, and for seclusion as well as complete separation from scenes of all past experiences. It seems a mere accident that I ever heard of this place, and it might never have happened again.

It was enough. He left the Trappists before taking vows and was off. Destination, Molokai. Motive, “to do some good for my neighbor and at the same time make it my penitentiary in doing penance for my sins and errors.”

When the ship pulled into Molokai in the summer of 1886 there was Father Damien on shore to greet the deboarding lepers. Among them was Joseph Dutton. Our penitent did anything Father Damien asked, carpentry, repair work, administrational work, nursing, comforting the sick, and even coaching the baseball team.  “Every day,” one biographer writes, “he marveled more and more at the courage he saw around him — bravery, he often said, much greater than in the war he had been through.” Before his death in 1889, Father Damien said: “I can die now. Brother Joseph will take care of my orphans.” It was the saint who dubbed him “Brother.” Joseph preferred to call himself “the old man of Molokai.”

Brother Joseph loved his work among the lepers. I should say, he loved the lepers. And they loved him. He wore a perpetual smile, radiating joy, and had a ready laugh.  “I am ashamed to think,” he wrote, “that I am inclined to be jolly. Often think (sic) we don’t know that our Lord ever laughed, and here my laugh is ready to burst out any minute.” (See photos with the linked article) He wrote, “I would not leave my lepers for all the money the world might have.”

Our giant of charity lived off a good pension, two in fact. His money went to his colony. He also did not forget the Trappists, leaving them something as well in his will.

Could Brother Joseph be the third saint of Molokai? He does have dedicated supporters for his cause. See his website for more information [email protected].  This information for this column was taken from Catholic Education Resource Center. Read the full article here.