The nun who braved wartime Vietnam
In April 1975, Sister Sheila O’toole made a decision that by any standards was extraordinary. The Vietnam War was in its very final stage. Saigon was falling. She had escaped the city once, primarily concerned with the welfare of a fellow Sister, Sister M Lea, one who would likely be ill-treated by the new communist administration. Their arrival at Whenuapai, with the first Vietnamese orphan baby to land in New Zealand, made headlines.
Having endured capture and severe interrogation by the North Vietnamese Army, Sister Sheila could have been forgiven for a sense of relief. However, her thoughts were entirely on tasks left undone. Fearful for the prospects of three additional Sisters of her Order, she immediately sought permission from her superiors to return to Saigon and facilitate their escape. Given all New Zealand Embassy staff had already been evacuated, how one nun could possibly achieve this, amid widespread panic, severely limited resources and the swift advance of enemy forces, was unclear.
Sister Sheila had no doubts that she should make the effort. When asked whether she felt fear or worry in such circumstances, she replied, “Not at all …whatever would be, would be”. Out of faith was born almost unconscious courage, of a type that focused on practical necessities. One American officer in Vietnam said of Sister Sheila, “it would be difficult to find anyone ‘less nunlike’ in attitude or approach”. She herself said simply, “People needed help, that’s what we were there for”.
Sister Sheila O’toole helped people in need throughout her long life. Service in Vietnam, in war and peace, bookended her time in Western Samoa. At the outset of her religious commitment and at its end, she taught, passed on her practical skills and provided support and succour to countless folk around New Zealand.
Sheila O’toole was born on August 9, 1929, in Hamilton, the eldest of the three children of Michael Joseph O’toole and Doris Elenor O’toole. Her parents had immigrated from Ireland three years earlier.
Sister Sheila inherited her family’s love of the land and grew to be an accomplished sportswoman. She attended St Columba’s Catholic Primary School and Sacred Heart College, Hamilton, representing both at basketball and serving as sports captain at the latter.
From a young age, Sister Sheila demonstrated a profound affection for animals, helping to milk the cows and enjoying the constant companionship of a pet dog. Her religious faith was such that she attended mass every day.
An education at the hands of Mission Sisters was an influence on her decision to embrace life in a religious order. In 1947 she was received as a novitiate in the Religeuses de Notre Dame des Missions, the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions. She made her first profession in 1950, becoming known as Sister Mary Lawrence.
Studying for a teacher’s certificate, Sister Sheila taught in New Plymouth, Ōpōtiki, Pukekohe, Huntly and Hamilton. She was to serve as principal of schools in Hamilton and New Plymouth. She proved an extremely popular educator, communicating her appreciation of nature and animals to her students as well as instructing them in carpentry. Her skills saw her make shelves and furniture and any required repairs in convent life.
It was these skills that [Catholic newspaper] Zealandia chose to highlight in March 1969, reporting on the then Sister Mary Lawrence’s imminent departure for Vietnam, complete with her carpentry tools. In her 40th year, Sister Sheila felt compelled to enter a war zone, acquiring a passport and boarding an international flight for the first time.
For the following six years, in Phuoc Binh in the Phuoc Long province, Sister Sheila worked with the indigenous Stieng people, Montagnard refugees, among the most vulnerable groups in Vietnam. Having been forcibly relocated from their traditional hunting grounds, they had no means of support. In addition to establishing a school, Sister Sheila set about constructing a workshop in which furniture could be carved from readily obtainable rattan. Built brick by brick, the job took eight months. Once completed, she took a leading part in teaching the Stieng the required carpentry.
As the war situation worsened, gunfire and mortar attacks became a fact of daily life. Sister Sheila risked life and limb travelling to outlying Montagnard villages, administering medicine and helping with building construction. In an effort to sell the Stieng furniture, during a 1973 ceasefire she drove 160km to Saigon, braving Viet Cong roadblocks and landmines. The Sisters also became caregivers to three Stieng babies.
Sister Sheila and her fellow Sisters refused to be evacuated on the grounds that a similar offer was not extended to the Montagnard. Early in 1975, caught in the crossfire during the enemy advance she and approximately 500 other refugees escaped into the surrounding jungle. With insufficient grasp of direction and no agreed-upon plan, they trekked aimlessly for 10 days, enduring mud and leeches, before being captured by the North Vietnamese Army. Weeks of ill treatment at sundry enemy camps followed, the NVA interrogation attempting to establish a linkage between the Sisters and the CIA. Eventually released, they reached the South Vietnamese line and from there Saigon.
With the fall of the city fast approaching, Sister Sheila’s primary concern became the future of the 16 children in her order’s orphanage, inclusive of the three Stieng babies. Securing their passage on an Australian flight out of the country – part of Operation Babylift – was a considerable achievement. Thereafter, the fate of Sister M. Lea informed Sister Sheila’s decision to take a Hercules flight out of Saigon.
Returning to the city in spite of all New Zealand diplomatic advice, against the odds Sister Sheila found her three colleagues. With the help of an American who had travelled with her, the Sisters obtained entrance to an American Embassy, besieged by thousands of desperate people boarding one of the last helicopter flights out of Saigon. Processed on an aircraft carrier, a nocturnal climb down a rope ladder in hazardous seas saw Sister Sheila on a cargo ship bound for the Philippines. Once there, a flight to Guam was supplied.
There was little downtime in New Zealand thereafter. By the end of 1975, Sister Sheila was in Western Samoa, slashing through bush in much the same manner as she had navigated the jungle, preparing the land for the establishment of an agricultural training centre. Once built, the centre became the focus of practical studies – the planting of local crops, the care of farm animals and other diverse, rural skills. Sister Sheila taught and administered the centre for 14 years.
In 1989, she travelled to Rome to take part in a Congregational Renewal programme. The trip also afforded an opportunity to visit her ancestral home of Ireland.
By 1992, when Sister Sheila decided to apply for a Volunteer Service Abroad scheme to teach English in Vietnam, she had reverted to her baptismal name. For two years she taught in Qui Nhon province. Sustaining her faith in a country of high surveillance meant celebrating mass at 5am. As a foreigner, she was forbidden to stay with Vietnamese clerics and was careful to limit her contacts.
In 1994, with her VSA contract at an end, Sister Sheila took a position at Thuc
Doc University, teaching night classes in English, whilst connecting with local sisters, building her own accommodation so as to be formally within the law. Visiting Phuoc Long for the first time in nearly two decades, she resumed friendships with many of the surviving Stieng. Securing overseas charity funding, she began again working with indigenous communities, assisting with medicine and housing, working to improve the health and lifestyle of lepers. She helped establish a centre to assist former sex workers out of the industry in Ho Chi Minh City, one later expanded to house unwed expectant mothers shunned by their families.
This work eventually attracted the attention of authorities, ones with limited tolerance for being shown up, especially in the context of rising Montagnard protests. By 2004, Sister Sheila had become persona non grata and was effectively expelled from the country to which she had given so much.
Aged 75, Sister Sheila returned to New
Zealand. In 2007 She wrote her memoirs, Behind the Visor: My Life in Wartorn Vietnam. She volunteered for the Red Cross, New Zealand Hospice and Meals on Wheels.
In the 1986 New Year Honours, Sister Sheila was appointed a Companion of the Queen’s Service Order for community service in Western Samoa. In 2004 she was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services as a welfare worker, for her work in Vietnam.
In her final years, Sister Sheila never lost her zest for living, squeezing the most out of every moment. She demonstrated her trademark resilience when recovering time and time again from ill health or accidents. Bearing the loss of her driver’s license and ability to live independently, she retained the capacity to outwit authority figures, combining guile and diplomacy to venture out into the world as much as she could.
Sister Sheila O’toole died June 10, 2024. She is survived by several nieces and nephews.