A few weeks ago, we received an enquiry from a man named Anthony who had been gifted this beautiful Omega watch with an inscription on the back which reads:
“Rev. Fr. Duquet – With loving gratitude from all F.M.D.M. – 4.3.1961”
Anthony said that he would be grateful for any details we could provide on Fr Duquet and his connection with FMDM. I was able to provide him with the following reply:
“Many thanks for your interesting enquiry which has reached me in the FMDM archives. How amazing that you have been gifted this watch! I can confirm that Fr Duquet was indeed Fr Heribert Duquet who was the Procurator for the French Mission (Missions Etrangeres de Paris) in Singapore. He was appointed the FMDM sisters’ first chaplain in Singapore on 08 September 1949 and became their good friend and advisor.
To give you a bit of background, the FMDM sisters arrived in Singapore in 1949, having been forced to abandon a mission in China due to the threat of the Red Army. The Archbishop of Singapore, heard they had been waiting in Hong Kong for two years with little hope of getting back into China so asked their Mother General, Mother Francis Spring if they could move to Singapore. He had been asked by the government to find sisters to look after the Trafalgar Home Leprosarium and the Tan Tock Seng Tuberculosis Hospital. Leprosy and TB were the two most feared diseases in Singapore and the government could not find staff willing to care for these patients.
The sisters continued to work in these establishments, but soon began to raise funds to build their own hospital. Fr Duquet was a great help in their fund-raising endeavours. The sisters acquired some land in Thomson Road, and their hospital, Mount Alvernia, was opened on 04 March 1961. The 60-bed hospital was staffed entirely by the sisters who were professionally trained as nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, radiographers, laboratory technicians and other support services.
I would suggest therefore that the sisters gave the watch to Fr Duquet as a token of their appreciation for his help to them in planning and fund raising for the hospital. It may also have been to wish him good luck for the future as his assignment in Singapore had come to an end. He attended the hospital’s opening ceremony on the 04 March 1961 but left for his new assignment in Canada just three days later on 07 March 1961. The sisters went to the airport to bid him farewell.”
After Singapore and Canada, Fr Duquet was missioned to San Francisco, USA and then France, before returning to San Francisco for his retirement in 2002. So, like many FMDM sisters, Fr Duquet (and his watch!) were very well travelled. Fr Duquet died in 2013.
Anthony explained that he received the watch as a gift from his father-in-law in Pennsylvania, USA, in December 2022. They shared an interest in antique watches and history, and he had a small watch collection from which he gifted Anthony Fr Duquet’s watch. He told me he wears it almost daily, and it reminds him to pray for the repose of the souls of his father-in-law, Fr Duquet, and the intentions of the FMDM sisters.
Singaporean sisters have fond memories of Fr Duquet. He taught them Latin so that they would be able to pray the Divine Office. They remember the classes as fun until the silence returned! Sr Mary Holy Child remembers Fr Duquet well. She says that FMDM were so associated with him, that they were known as ‘Duquetites’ when out fund raising.
Anthony is Irish and now lives in Dublin. By sheer coincidence he was born in Portiuncula, Ballinasloe!
By Jo Halford