Name Francis Waddelove | Died 2007 | |
Brother Francis Waddelove, S.J. (born 1915 - died 2007) was a British Jesuit priest, long-based in Zimbabwe.
Born in 1915 in England, Francis Waddelove joined the Jesuits in 1935 and was assigned to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in 1937. He learned to speak the language of the people, Shona. He worked at Driefontein, Monte Cassino, St Michael's Mhondoro, Chishawasha (twice) and other rural missions. He was a farmer, but also built many churches. He set up savings clubs for the rural people to make them self-reliant while residing at Campion House, next to the Cathedral in Harare, then known as Salisbury.
He spent his last years at Richartz House, Mt. Pleasant, a home for elderly Jesuit priests, where he died, aged 92, following a fall in which he his broke his leg. He was not strong enough for an operation. He was the oldest Jesuit in Zimbabwe and the last of the pre-World War II generation of priests. The Jesuit Provincial, Fidelis Mukonori, officiated at Waddelove's Requiem Mass on Wednesday, 11 July 2007; Father Waddelove was buried in Chishawasha Cemetery.