I have just read your wonderful website and feel compelled to greet you and remember Sean with you. I was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia, in 1989-1990. I was assigned to the clinic at the Catholic mission in Tappita. I lived in a house up the hill from the mission. The house belonged to the Salesians, and was being kept for Sean. Sean opted to stay in the guest house at the mission, and I was allowed to rent the house. Sean was a great and dear friend, to me and the other three USPC volunteers in Tappita. The others were Jim Smith, Denise Barrett and Cathy Pantaleo. I have kept in contact with Jim. He lives near Washington DC and works as a planner for the city of Olney, MD. He and his wife had their second baby right before Christmas.
I was living and working in St. Paul, MN (My hometown) when I saw Sean’s face on the evening news and heard that he had been martyred in Africa. This came a bare two months after the murders of the 6 nuns in Liberia, all of whom were dear friends also. I grieved for a long time for all of them.
In 1994 — at the age of 46! — I married for the first time, a widower with grown children. Now I have 12 grandchildren! I love it. Louie and I are retired and spend the winters in deep south Texas, just 5 miles from the Mexican border. Once a week, I go to Mexico and volunteer at a free clinic there, sponsored by the Sisters of St. Dorothy. The area is called Las Flores and can only be described as Liberia with all the charm removed. The poverty may be no worse than Liberia, and there is no war going on, but the people are not as industrious as the Liberians. They are not neat or tidy, and the Liberians were constantly sweeping up around their houses and palaver huts.
I met Dermot on his visit to Liberia in 1989. In fact, we rode in the mission’s ambulance from Monrovia to Tappita. Dermot took some film or video of the event (though filming without a permit was STRICTLY forbidden by the Doe government!). I believe I was in some of that footage. A dear friend of mine saw it on the BBC or ITV and wrote to me about it. She lives in Rochester, Northumberland. I think I may have met Sally, too, when she came to Tappita. I do remember that Sean spoke of her frequently.
Thank you for the lovely website and the chance to remember Sean.
Sincerely,
Molly O’Brien Bartscher
Weslaco TX
U.S.A.
