Catherine Hamlin died on March 18th

THE AD IN the Lancet called for a gynecologist to set up a midwifery school for nurses in Ethiopia. In the end they got two for the price of one—Catherine, who had grown up in a wealthy Sydney family, and her husband, Reg, from New Zealand. She was reminded of her homeland as soon as she saw the rugged, biblical landscape. It looked a bit like New South Wales, with its armies of gum trees arrayed along steep hillsides as in the Blue Mountains. She liked the lemony light of early morning when she would start the day with a cup of tea on her veranda and a passage from the Bible. But in other ways it wasn’t like home at all.