For the poor, she was a beacon of hope and bouquet of bliss. She was with them in their best as well as worst of times. The very sight of ‘Missiyamma’ (mother in Tamil) driving her jeep into their villages, they believed, would drive away the evil spirits that brought upon them disease and death.
In the late 1960s, when Alice G. Brauer, an Indian-born American gynaecologist and missionary, came to India to work at Bethesda Hospital at Ambur in present day Tirupattur district, she saw extreme poverty and illnesses. The villagers’ poor health disturbed her. The hospital was run by the India Evangelical Lutheran Church from 1919 to 2015.
A struggling state
The fledgling state was struggling to meet the healthcare needs of remote villages where maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate were high. Institutional deliveries were very few, while poor hygiene accentuated preventable diseases such as chickenpox, cholera, whooping cough, and polio. Immunisation efforts were nascent. Alice knew Ambur was not her Wonderland. The dusty and sun-scorched town in northern Tamil Nadu threw up many challenges. Acceptance was hard to come by. People were hesitant. Ironically, they had faith in quacks. Superstitions possessed them strongly.
Alice first broke the alien tag that scared the locals away. She steadily managed to strike up acquaintances by paying frequent visits to their villages. She won the hearts of children by giving toffees and then of women by listening to their woes. She addressed their medical emergencies, thus saving several precious lives.
She convinced the women to have institutional deliveries, asking them to reach out to Bethesda Hospital. She launched a personalised mechanism to monitor neonatal and postnatal mothers, visiting them at their homes. She maintained a record of deliveries and created awareness of the importance of immunisation.
The treatment was offered free. Those who could afford contributed. She, however, used those small sums to make fortified flour for mothers and infants who chronically suffered from nutrient deficiencies, which had been the main cause of maternal mortality.
Alice thus became their revered and loved ‘Missiyamma’. By the early 1980s, her missionary stint came to an end. But Alice stayed back. “She remained because she did not have the heart and soul to leave us, the people whom she loved most. ‘Missiyamma’ and we had grown into each other’s hearts,” said a 60-year old woman from a village. Alice had taken care of the deliveries of both her daughters. Notwithstanding the closure of the hospital in 2015, she continued to serve the people with a small but dedicated team.
A child of missionary
Alice was the fourth and last child of American missionary Richard Henry Brauer, who came to India by ship in 1925 and settled down at Nagercoil. Born in 1938 at Nagercoil, Alice had her school education at Kodaikanal. After her father’s missionary work ended in the 1950s, the family returned to America, where she studied medicine and flew to India in the late 1960s. She was posted at Bethesda Hospital. To forge an emotive connect with the locals, she spent a year in Madurai learning Tamil.
Thereafter, Ambur became home town. She would drive the jeep to the surrounding villages to treat the sick. A fall in 2017 left her permanently in a wheelchair. Yet, with assisted care, she continued her service until the COVID-19 lockdown restricted her movement further. Once a nomad brought a peahen egg to sell. She bought it and hatched it among her backyard hens. The bird, named Indumathi, fluttered around her residence, ‘Ladies Bungalow’, for long. She used to feed a pack of community dogs and named them after those close to her. Though many had died, Princess and Henry, the two survivors, remained her bosom pets.
Alice passed away earlier this month, aged 87. John Gavaskar, her driver and personal assistant in her final days, recalls, “There was a spirit of compassion and love that used to permeate all around her. It was all pervading and infectious.”
Sought-after nutritional flour
The nutritional flour she distributed to the poor lactating mothers was a sought-after product. “Many mothers and their babies fought off their deficiency in vitamins and minerals that they could not gain from the frugal and stale diet. I was one of the beneficiaries,” John Gavaskar said.
Alice insisted that all children get vaccinated, leaving a lasting impact on the community’s overall health profile. Later, she remained a vital link between the people and the State’s improved healthcare system.
Emlin Chandra, who worked with Alice during 1972-74, said in her condolence message that Alice lived “a beautiful, godly life”. Alice considered everyone at Ambur and in the surrounding areas as her family, but leaving her own family in the process, she said.
A town in tears
Sharon Benny, a documentary film-maker, said that despite the heavy rain, hundreds of people from surrounding villages paid their homage to their ‘English mother’ on October 3. Ambur was peppered with posters of homage. The last rites took place on the premises of ‘Ladies Bungalow’, from where she exuded love and compassion for more than five decades. Benny’s documentary on Alice is in the post-production stage.
Claudia Trautmann, a long-time friend of Alice, flew down from the U.S. to Ambur to pay homage. She described Alice as one of those rare and very special people who genuinely cared. “You would see it as she set up her clinics in villages helping infants, children, and women. She listened, she touched, she spoke with them in their colloquial Tamil and would inevitably end up laughing with them about something. Even when she reached retirement age, she continued working as a volunteer, all at her own expense. That takes a very special love and dedication,” she wrote in her condolence message.
Published – October 18, 2024 12:30 am IST