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Name: POTTIER, Eugene (Rev. Father)
Birth Date: 20.12 1879 Epinay-le-Comte, France
Death Date: 5.5.1922 Mombasa
Last Date: 1922
Profession: Missionary
Area: Nairobi, St. Austin's, Mangu Station
Book Reference: Barnes, Red 25, Hut, Red 22, Red Book 1912, North
General Information:
Red Book 1912 - E. Pottier - Kyambu
Red 25 - Catholic Mission, Kiambu
St Austin's cemetery, Nairobi Rev Fr E. Pottier d. 5 May 1922 aged 43
Henry J. Koren, Spiritan East African Memorial, 1994 A farmer's son, he studied at the diocesan junior seminary before he opted for the
Congregation. He made his vows together with some forty others at Orly on October 10,1902 and he was ordained on November 5, 1905 at Chevilly. Appointed to Haiti, he served as bursar of St. Martial College at a time when that unfortunate island's flnances were in chaos. The burden proved too heavy and he suffered a nervous breakdown. When he had recovered, he asked for work again and his wish was granted.
On October 10, 1908 he could sail for the Zanzibar vicariate, Bp. Allgeyer placed him there in the two year old station of Mangu. Much work remained to be done on its installations. Physical activity was judged to be what he needed most and he labored there at putting up the church and even cutting the stones for it in a nearby quarry.
ln 1913 Bp. Neville put him in charge of the new station at Lioki, where everything literally still had to be started. He had Br. Theodomir Mathem there to help him. Then World War One mobilized him as a medical corpsman. lt was 1919 before he could retum to the vicariate, where he was placed again in Mangu. His health, however, was far from good and his nerves not much better, so that there was not much he could do.
Early in 1922 he became acutely ill and was sent to the hospital in Mombasa. lntestinal cancer killed him there a few months later.