Mother Aubert was a French nun who was a close friend of the Outhwaite family, particularly Madam Outhwaite and her daughter Isa.  Mother Aubert lived with the Outhwaites for a period in the 1870s and the Outhwaites supported her financially and her Maori school in Auckland and Hawkes Bay.  She took her pupils to the Outhwaite family home in Grafton to see the gardens.  She and Madam Outhwaite collected pipis from the harbour and they would cook them outdoors in an old frying pan.  The two French women could be seen sitting outside cooking and enjoying a plate of pipis.  In the years she was at Jerusalem on the Wanganui River, she proved herself to be a teacher, nurse, pharmacist and writes.  It was there that she founded the Order of the Sisters of Compassion.