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Fast, Marie K. (1901-1945)
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1945 May 17 p. 1
Birth date: 1901
text of obituary:
Dr. H. A. Fast and family of North Newton, as well as their many friends here, were saddened last week when word was received that his sister, Miss Marie K. Fast, a member of the Mennonite relief workers' staff in Egypt, is missing somewhere in the Middle East.
According to the cabled message received through UNRRA, Miss Fast and Dr. Richard Yoder of the El Shatt relief station were on a steamer bound for Greece with a group of Yugoslav refugees who were being repatriated to their homeland. As far as is known an explosion occurred somewhere en route, about which, however, complete details are at this time still unknown.
According to subsequent word, Dr. Yoder is safe and it is hoped that further messages will also report the safety of Miss Fast. She has been in overseas relief work under the Mennonite Central Committee for more than a year.
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 24 May 1945 p. 1, 5
text of obituary:
First Hand Report of Tragedy at Sea
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Mennonite circles were saddened last week at the report that Miss Marie Fast, MCC worker in the Middle East, was listed as missing as result of a tragedy at sea. The following details of the incident were recently prapared [sic] by Dr. G. Richard Yoder for the Mennonite Central Committee. The date of the letter containing this report was May 5 and the place of mailing, Italy. The Central Committee suggests that it might be well to remember that all reports to date have indicated that Miss Fast has been missing and have held out a slight hope that she may have been rescued or found. — M. S.)
Having been the only other Mennonite representative on board the ill-fated ship which was sunk on the night of May 1 and 2 it becomes my very solemn and sad duty to report to you in some detail concerning the circumstances which relate to that incident and resulted in the tragic loss of one of our numbers — Marie Fast.
You will, no doubt, have long since received the sad news via cable by the time this reaches you, and I am hoping that this letter may come through in much shorter time than any I could send from Egypt. It is now mare that 84 hours since our ship was hit by a high explosive and there is still no news or information from Marie and one other passenger with whom Marie was last seen after both had been thrown into the water during the lowering of their life boat. There is, therefore, only the very faintest hope that they may still be alive. Not only will she be a real loss to her family and hosts of friends but also to us her co-workers and to the cause which we represent. She will be mourned by all far and near. The remaining passengers and the ship's crew and staff fell deeply in this great tragedy and sorrow.
Marie and I, together with four other U. N. R. R. A. personnel, had just completed a special assignment to Yugoslavia. It had been a unique and thoroughly pleasant experience in many ways. Marie had specially volunteered for this assignment and had given herself wholeheartedly in carrying out her duties. She had told me how much she valued the experience and of her earnest desire to have another similar opportunity in the future. It had been my first time to work with Marie and I found her a quiet, unassuming and pleasant person always congenial, hard working never complaining and thoroughly conscientious. The loss of Marie has come as a great shock and especially since others of us here might have shared a like tragedy. I praise God for his deliverance and watchful care over all those of us who have survived.
The accident occurred shortly before 2:00 A. M. during a cloudy and somewhat stormy night. The seas were running fairly high with occasional small breakers and very great waves. The difficulties of launching lifeboats successfully was considerable. Most of those on board were suddenly awakened by the great noise of the explosion and by the violent trembling of the ship. For a few seconds I lay quietly in my bunk not being able to realize what had happened. But when the alarm bell rang I was up. I remember grabbing my bathrobe and life-jacket and running out of my cabin. But I am not certain whether I went on deck immediately and returned to my cabin for a heavy coat, trousers, cap, shoes, flashlight and fountain pen, or whether I only went part way and then returned. After having grabbed these things I ran up to the promenade deck where there seemed to be considerable confusion. Already the ship had listed by about 20 degrees and then quickly straightened herself.
When I got on deck I thought of Marie and the other American Nurse, the only two ladies on board. They were on the opposite side of the ship from my cabin and I asked others if the ladies had been seen on deck. No one, had so the second steward and I rushed to see if they had been aroused from their cabins. We found the cabins deserted, and knowing the ladies were already on deck and were no doubt being looked after, we hurried back to our side of the ship. Some of the boats were already being lowered and several of the scrambled over the rail and climbed into the one which was next to be let down. There was some difficulty in letting her down and all on board were ordered back on deck while she was chopped free. We scrambled on a second time and were gradually lowered to the running seas. Again there was difficulty in getting her free free from the ship but fortunately the hook holding her automatically broke and with great effort the crew on board managed to push her farther out and prevent the tossing sea from smashing us to pieces or onto a second lifeboat or from capsizing and throwing us into the water.
The night was dark. It was impossible to make out any details of outline beyond a few yards. There was a swift current from front to aft of the main ship. This carried all boats past the stern and beyond. It was impossible to prevent drifting with the current. The only thing possible was to keep the life-boat heading into the great waves to prevent her from capsizing. To do this someone had to man the oars constantly. After an unpleasant seven hours our lifeboat reached the shore and we landed in the water rather dramatically as our boat was being dashed upon the rocks. Very fortunately no one was seriously injured and the thirty-three of us in this life boat were able to reach a village unaided after approximately a mile's walk.
The details relating to Marie I can only give you second-had from the U. N. R. R. A. officer who is our leader and who was present and assisted the two ladies during the ship's evacuation. As I have heard it told the two nurses climbed down the rope ladder to enter a life boat which was already in the water. Before Marie had a chance to enter someone had cut her boat free from the main ship and it drifted quickly away. Marie reclimbed the ladder and was seen on the deck again in a matter of seconds or half a minute. So the officer assisted her into a life boat (together with a British officer) which was immediately opposite the deck rail.
Someone on the upper boat deck immediately began lowering this lifeboat but before it was half way to the water one end suddenly fell free thus hurling both bodies into the sea. Both had their life-jackets on and both were seen again on the surface of the water. No one heard Marie speak. No one knows if she may have been seriously injured during the fall but the British officer returned an answer back to the officer on the deck saying that he was all right. He was the type very calm and self-possessed and he seemed assured when he spoke from the water. He was seen floating by the side of Marie practically hand in hand as the swift current carried them sternward and on into the darkness.
The officer on deck grabbed a cork life-saver and running from the higher to a lower deck to keep pace with them in the current threw the life-saver into the water. Fortunately it landed immediately in front of the two in the water and the officer was seen to take a hold of it.
The officer and another nurse who also witnessed the incident affirm that there were several other boats not more than a few yards from the two but as the waves were so high and the current so swift no one could steer a boat in their direction.
The ship's captain is supposed to have seen the two in the water immediately when they were alongside the ship and had a raft cut loose and thrown into the water in the hope that they could manage to cling to or climb on to it.
The strange thing is that although there were many boats in the water and all were carried by the drift in the same direction no one surviving seems to have any knowledge of hearing any voices or seeing the two bodies in the water after they had once disappeared into the darkness. While the water was cold and the sea was high still it seems that a person might have survived several hours in the water and thus have been sighted and picked up after dawn and picked up by the rescuing ships; or they might even have been carried to the shore in a matter of a few hours since we were always in sight of the land. It seems very possible that they may have survived in the water only a short time. Otherwise certainly their voices might have been heard or their bodies seen and rescued. A search has been continuing in the water and along the shore lines but up to now nothing further is known. The authorities here presume that they are lost. It is a very unfortunate and sad tragedy indeed. It is too early for me to have any very constant perspective about these things.
Released May 16, 1945 M. C. C. Headquarters, Akron, Penn.
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 21 Jun 1945 p. 1
text of obituary:
MEMORIAL FOR RELIEF WORKER LOST AT SEA EN ROUTE TO MIDDLE EAST
Mountain Lake, Minn. — Plans for placing a memorial in the Bethel Hospital here for Marie K. Fast, who lost her life at sea while returing [sic] from Yugoslavia to her relief station in the Middle East, were announced recently by the Hospital Aid Society.
Miss Fast was a former superintendent of the Bethel Hospital.
Memorial services for her held at the Bethel church on Sunday afternoon, June 17, were largely attended. Dr. P. C. Hiebert, Sterling, Kansas, president of the Mennonite Central Committee under whose auspices she was ding relief work in the Middle East, was present for the services.
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 9 Aug 1945 p. 1, 5
text of obituary:
Irreparable loss to the Mennonite relief work in the Middle East was the death of Marie K. Fast, a worker under the Mennonite Central Committee, whose death occurred during a disaster at sea on the night of May 1, — of which a complete report has appeared in previous issues of the Review.
At the memorial service for Miss Fast, held at the Bethel Mennonite church at Mountain Lake, Minn., June 17, the following brief sketch of her life was read at the large assembly of relatives and friends:
Marie K. Fast, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Herman J. Fast, embarked upon the voyage of life on February 20, 1901, on a farm southeast of Mountain Lake, Minnesota. This voyage came to an abrupt end somewhere in the Mediterranean when she was lost at sea on the night of May 1, 1945.
Upon her confession of faith in Jesus Christ she was baptized by Elder H. H. Regier on May 27, 1917, and became a member of Bethel Mennonite Church of Mountain Lake. Although she spent many years away from her home community, she retained an active interest in her home church and remained a faithful member until the time of her death. As a Christian she was quiet and unassuming, but devoted to her Lord and conscientious in her service for Him, willing to make sacrifices, if necessary, to be a witness for Him.
After graduating from the Mountain Lake high school and attending the local Bible School she entered nurses' training at the Mennonite Hospital in Beatrice, Nebraska, and graduated as Registered Nurse from a hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. Thereafter she served for a time in the Beatrice Hospital and then came to the Bethel Hospital in Mountain Lake where she was employed from 1927 to 1937, serving as superintendent for over four years.
Desiring to increase her usefulness she undertook post-graduate study in hospitals in Detroit and in Chicago, specializing in anesthetics. Thereafter she served in hospitals in Red Wing, Minnesota, and Portland, Oregon. While she loved her work she was willing at various times to leave it to come home and care for members of her own family who were ill, including her mother, her sister Olga, and more recently also her father.
With the advent of the war she felt a desire to enter into a more sacrificial type of Christian service according to the Mennonite tradition and volunteered her services to the Mennonite Central Committee as a war relief worker. On Easter Sunday, April 9, 1944, she appeared for the last time before her home church to give public testimony of her faith in Christ and her willingness to follow this new call of God. She was assigned to near East Relief and after a few months of special training sailed for Egypt where she worked among Yugoslav refugees. Shortly before her death, it was her joy to visit Palestine, to walk in paths where Jesus walked, little realizing how soon she would meet Him face to face.
When a group of Yugoslav refugees were to be repatriated, she volunteered to serve as an escort on the ship which took the refugees back to their homeland. The ship delivered the refugees safely, but on the return, on the night of May 1, 1945, it was hit by a high explosive and sank. As the lifeboat in which Miss Fast was sitting was being lowered to the sea, one end of the boat came loose and the occupants fell into the water. Though Marie had a life belt and was seen again on the surface of the water, the night being very dark and the waves high, she soon drifted from sight and could not be found again. Thus in the very waters in which the Apostle Paul had traveled and had suffered shipwreck, she made the supreme sacrifice of giving her life in the service for her Saviour Jesus Christ.
She was preceded in death by her mother, by a brother, Herman, and two sisters, Elizabeth and Olga.
She is survived by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Herman J. Fast of Mountain Lake, two brothers, John B. Fast of Mountain Lake, and Dr. H. A. Fast of North Newton, Kansas; two sisters, Aganetha, missionary to China, now of Mountain Lake, and Sarah (Mrs. Henry W. Wall) of Dallas, Oregon; 3 sisters-in-law and 2 brothers-in-law, 10 nieces, 8 nephews, and a host of other relatives and friends.