Maryknoll Sisters

Sister Kathleen Higgins, M.M. celebrated her 70^th Jubilee on February 12th, 2017. She was born in Brooklyn, entered Maryknoll in 1947.  After earning her B.E. at Maryknoll Teachers College, she taught primary school in New York’s Chinatown for five years before setting out on foreign mission to Chile.

On her arrival, Sister Kathleen first dedicated herself to a year of language study.  She then continued her education ministry in primary and secondary school until 1967, when her ministry shifted to pastoral work.

Sister returned to Chile after a six-month furlough and immediately immersed herself in teaching and catechesis.  Full of love for the Chilean people, she served as Coordinator of Religious Education for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade children.  In addition to this she moderated the parish youth group, taught English and Religion, and even acted as Middle School Principal for a time.

Then, in 1972, Sister Kathleen returned to the Center, where she worked in Information Services and Direct Mail until 1974.  She next spent a year working in New Jersey with the Cuban population before going again to Chile to devote herself to another almost ten years of pastoral and catechetical work, including ministry to women and youth.  During her final two years in South America, Sister Kathleen gave her love and energy in the slums, ministering to the poor and marginalized through soup kitchens, sewing groups, and many other types of service.

Since 1984, Sister has worked in various U.S. mission centers, first at the Center and the Seminary, then in NYC, San Jose, Redwood City, Los Angeles, and finally Monrovia, where she remains today.  Throughout these years she has served in pastoral, teaching, and catechetical work:  serving in numerous ways, from homeless shelters and RCIA programs to Bible groups and ESL classes.  Today she is an active and loving member of the Monrovia community.

Sister Charlotte Hobler, M.M. celebrated her 70^th Jubilee on February 12th, 2017. She is from Baltimore, MD and joined Maryknoll in 1947. She served on the Maryknoll Sisters Formation team for the novitiate, receiving an assignment to the Philippines in 1965. At Maryknoll College in Manila she was Coordinator and a theology teacher and taught New Testament at the Sister Formation Institute.
Returning to the States, Sister Charlotte studied nursing and Clinical Pastoral Education, was a volunteer at a health center, and received her license as a registered professional nurse from the University of the State of NY Education Dept. She became Director of Nurses at the Maryknoll Sisters Nursing Home.

Responding to a request for nurses from the National Council of Churches when the war in Lebanon was growing worse in 1982, Sister Charlotte joined a group who were to reopen the Palestinian Hospital in Gaza between two refugee camps near West Beirut. During those three months, “Hard lessons came to those of us new to refugee nursing. One was that not all the psychiatrists in the Middle East could meet the needs of people traumatized by war.”

In 1983, Sister Charlotte joined the Maryknoll Sisters diocesan team in the jungle area of El Peten, Guatemala, traveling by jeep and hanging a hammock to give courses for women in nine parishes—Preventive Health, basic evangelization, courses to raise the dignity of women. When they turned this work over to their women Collaborators, Sister Charlotte worked as a nurse educator on an AIDS team in San Marcos and Quetzaltenango.

She became a member of the Eastern U.S. Region in 2007 and is a volunteer in the Housing Advocacy Committee in the twin parishes of Most Precious Blood and St. Anthony of Padua in Baltimore, MD.

Sister Marilyn Ingraham, M.M. celebrated her 70^th Jubilee on February 12th, 2017. Sister Marilyn Ingraham has been a Maryknoll Sister for nearly 70 years.  The seeds for her life of service were planted many years before that, however, while she was yet a teenager.

When Sister Marilyn was only 13, her mother died in childbirth, leaving her husband to care for their brood of 10 children by himself.  Sister Marilyn’s only sister, Jean, helped with the cooking.  A while later, while reading stories about the lives of the saints, Sister Marilyn began thinking about a religious vocation. She found their lives of doing good and helping others an inspiration and thought she might become a nun, but she wanted to be a nun who had fun.

Her vocation began to solidify when, as part of her high school religious studies, she read Maryknoll Magazine. Even though she had never met a Maryknoll sister, she decided to join.

Sister Marilyn’s novitiate began at the Venard, a farmhouse in Pennsylvania where the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers operated a junior seminary.  There she and other Maryknoll Sisters helped out by cooking and cleaning for the seminarians.

As the taking of her final vows at Maryknoll approached in 1953, Sister Marilyn began dreaming of being sent overseas to the Philippines, China or Japan.  God, apparently, had other plans, because for the next two years, she taught first and second grade children in St. Louis, MO.

Then, in 1954, her call to foreign mission came. She was headed not to Asia but to South America, where she taught elementary school children in Peru from 1959-1969, then taught developmentally disabled children in Bolvia from 1969-1971.

Sister Marilyn then returned to the United States, teaching in Hatch, NM from 1972-1973, in San Diego, CA, from 1973-1974, and in Brockton, MA, from 1974-1984.

Then it was back, albeit briefly, to Bolivia, where she served as coordinator of Casa Rosario, the Maryknoll Sisters House for a summer, before embarking on four years of teaching in the Providence, RI, public schools.  Later, she taught and tutored Hispanic children at Holy Trinity Parish, Brooklyn, NY, from 1992-1997, also helping some students with their immigration problems from time to time.

Sister Marilyn now resides with several other Maryknoll Sisters in Yonkers, NY, and participates in the Maryknoll Affiliates NYC Subway group. She also dabbles in watercolor painting, volunteers at Maryknoll Home Care and, driven by a long-held commitment to peace and justice, write to Congress and other regarding social justice issues.

Sister Ann Katherine Klaus, M.M. celebrated her 70^th Jubilee as a Maryknoll Sister on February 12th, 2017. She was born in Marion, Ohio. and entered Maryknoll in 1947. She was assigned to Tanzania, East Africa, in 1951. In 2012, Sister Anne was assigned to the Rogers Community at Maryknoll, NY, where she is an active member.

Returning to Tanzania, Sister Ann continued her ministry with the development of women. In 1994, Sister Ann joined the Maryknoll Sisters working in Kalebejo in the program VEMA, a Kiswahili word meaning complete well-being. The program includes education, development and health, integrated to bringing about the well-being of people living and working in the villages. Sister Ann joined in the pastoral ministry to the forty-seven outstations. She also helped the women to earn money by selling articles they sewed, and giving seminars on handicrafts in other locations.

Presently Sister Ann works with the urban poor, living on the rocky hills of Mwanza. With past relationships with so many people, Sister Ann channels help to people living with HIV/AIDS, students who are orphans, their caregivers; some widows and others in need. Sister Ann’s goal is to help students finish school, learn a trade and find work. She visits the homes of people she helps, visits the hospital patients and continues teaching baking and solar cooking, and crafts to a group of women. The talents and zeal of this pioneer are still at the service of mission.

From 1987 to 1989 Sister Ann was in Somalia, where she worked with other Maryknoll Sisters in a refugee camp for Ethiopians under the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the Somali health department. At Christmas, Sister Ann wrote home,“In a country where most people are Muslim, celebrating the birth of Jesus takes the form of deepening awareness of the great gift we have been given, and of God’s mysterious ways with people and with nations. Jesus chose a moment of entering our history is somewhat like our present moment in Somalia. The simple life style of the people – taking sheep to pasture, carrying water, cooking over wood fires – is reminiscent of Bethlehem. Each day we witness the fidelity of a whole nation to the call to worship Allah at set times.”

In the ‘70s and ‘80s Sister Ann put her energies into pastoral group work, especially women’s development in rural areas. In the open air, Sister Ann and African co-workers had very practical classes. “We really cook beans, sew a dress, wash a baby.”

Sister Ann witnessed Tanganyika becoming a republic in 1962 and Maryknoll’s friend, Julius Nyerere, being elected President of the United Republic of Tanzania (Tanganyika and Zanzibar) in 1964. When the Tanzania government asked the Sisters to teach secondary school rather than primary, Sister Ann chose to teach adult women basic skills to improve their daily lives. Sister Ann wrote a cookbook in Swahili and later adapted it in her campaign for making solar stoves to save the trees.

During the ‘50s and ‘60s Sister Ann taught in girls schools in various towns in the bush; was in charge of a primary school; and gave domestic science courses to girls who could not go to middle school. Sister Ann taught aspirants to religious life as initial preparation for the African community begun by Maryknoll Sisters, now the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Africa.

After ten years of mission in Africa, Sister Ann visited her hometown, Marion, Ohio, and the family she left in 1947.

Sister Patricia Maher, M.M. celebrated her 70^th Jubilee as a Maryknoll Sister on February 12th, 2017. She was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Sister Patricia Maher entered Maryknoll in 1947. After earning her Bachelor of Education at Maryknoll Teachers College, she set out for the Philippines, where she taught for eight years at the high school high level, followed by five years as principal and head of teacher training.

Then, in the late 1960’s, Sister Pat returned to the U.S. to serve first as the Director of Community Roles at the Presbyterian University of Pennsylvania Medical Center and later as the Director of the Maryknoll Center Development Department.

In 1974, Sister Pat began her new mission to El Salvador, where, in addition to youth work with the Urban Leadership Training Center, she dedicated herself to extensive pastoral service among the poor. As she worked, however, Sister Pat quickly recognized the significant and dangerous nature of her mission. El Salvador’s current regime considered any gatherings highly suspicious, and this rendered human development work, even reading and writing instruction, difficult at best. Sister Pat found herself serving a people constantly terrorized by the American-backed government. In response to the desperate urgency for change, which was everywhere apparent, Sister Patricia worked fearlessly to bring the people’s terrible situation – and America’s responsibility – to light, on her return from El Salvador. Her words were punctuated by the shocking martyrdom of her Maryknoll replacement there in 1980.

Sister Pat spent the next twelve years working in the Harrisburg Diocese, serving its families and Spanish-speaking members. She then continued her missionary work for another twelve years in Bangledesh, Bolivia, and the Arlington Diocese, where she ministered to the Spanish-speaking population until her retirement in 2008 in Monorovia, California.  She is currently residing at the Maryknoll Sister Center.

Sister Theresa Mangieri, M.M. celebrated her 70^th Jubilee as a Maryknoll Sister on February 12th, 2017. She is from the Bronx, New York. After high school she attended Grace Institute and did clerical work for the Boy Scouts of America before joining Maryknoll in 1947. With a degree from Maryknoll Teachers College she taught at St. Anthony of Padua School in the South Bronx.

Assigned to the Philippines in 1958, Sister Theresa spent twenty years in education in elementary, high school and college levels and as novice mistress in the Maryknoll Sisters Philippines Novitiate. She earned a Master’s degree in Education, majoring in guidance and counseling from St. Louis University, Baguio.

After serving in New York as a consultant for the Maryknoll Sisters returning from mission areas for renewal, her mission journey led her to Zimbabwe, a new commitment for Maryknoll Sisters in 1982. One memory is teaching 96 students typing in two classes with only four typewriters.

A home for unwed mothers called Shelter Trust was begun in 1987 as the response of a group of lay and religious to the increasingly evident problem of abandoned babies and infanticide, caused by urban migration and the breakdown of traditional communities. In Zimbabwe girls who become pregnant lose educational and employment opportunities and often are rejected by their families. Sister Theresa became administrator of Shelter Trust, working with a staff who worked to provide a home for women awaiting the birth of their child, while giving them training to provide for themselves and their child. Sister Theresa received a Merit Award from the Rotary Club of Harare, which cited her “devoted and unselfish’service above self to the community.”

In 1997, Sister Theresa moved her ministry to Hendersonville, North Carolina, where she served at a shelter for battered women and children and at the Interfaith Assistance Ministry and Mainstay for the poor.

Sister Theresa resides at Maryknoll Sisters Center in New York.

Sister Pat Noble, M.M. celebrated her 70^th Jubilee as a Maryknoll Sister on February 12th, 2017. She was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, entered Maryknoll in 1947 with a B.A. in English from Villa Maria.  In 1950, Sister Pat received her first mission assignment to Hawaii, where she would spend the next eleven years dedicated to teaching Middle and High School English.

Sister Pat next shifted her educational ministry to the College level and to the Philippines, where she spent the next four years as a Professor of English Literature.  On her temporary return to the U.S., Sister Pat earned her Masters in English Literature at St. Louis University before embarking again on educational ministry in the Philippines.

In 1972, Sister Pat offered nine years of Congregational Service in Supportive Services, Data Processing, and Central Service Education at the Maryknoll Center.  Sister Pat was assigned as the Rogers Library Administrator and later the official Librarian, after she received her Master of Library Science Degree from the Pratt Institute in 1982.

Five years later, Sister Pat joined Maryknoll’s retirement community in Monrovia, California, where she volunteered at the County Arboretum.  Sister Pat was also cited for the extensive service she gave to the Peace and Justice Center of Southern California in the organization of their library collection.

Since 2006, she has been an active and prayerful member of the Rogers Community at the Maryknoll Center.

Sister Cecilia Santos, M.M. celebrated her 70^th Jubilee as a Maryknoll Sister on February 12th, 2017. Being a neighbor and a friend is part of what mission is about. Sister Cecelia Santos was affirmed in this when she received the “Distinguished Neighbor” award recommended by the people of Coelemu, Chile in 1991.

Sister Cecelia was born in Paia, Maui, Hawaii, the youngest of eleven children. She had imbibed much about mission through her primary and secondary education with Maryknoll Sisters in Wailuku, Maui. After graduating from high school, she entered the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation in 1947 and graduated from Maryknoll Teachers College with a Bachelor’s degree in Education in 1954. Assigned to Hawaii that same year, she taught for eight years in elementary schools in Waialua and Kalihi.

She was assigned to Chile in 1962, and after a year of language study in Pucón, she continued her education ministry as both teacher and principal in Maryknoll schools in Santiago, Curepto and Chillán. Sister Cecelia was loaned to Hawaii in 1970 and 1971 to teach in Wailuku, Maui and Waikiki, Honolulu. On her return to Chile she continued living in Chillán, teaching sixth grade and making time also for a bible study group, a course for mothers to do sacramental preparation, and, as always, home visiting.

In 1976, her energies and talents were shared for two years at Maryknoll, New York in Supportive Services. She then spent a year living with the Maryknoll Sisters Contemplative Community, an experience she treasures.

Sister Cecelia returned to Chile and the town which still holds her special affection, Coelemu. Her pastoral work included supporting Basic Christian Communities, youth ministry, catechetics and training lay leaders. She has been involved in endeavors as diverse as building a chapel with a group of women for their village, to operating an eyeglasses bank for those unable to afford glasses, and being chaplain of a 60 bed hospital. She presides at wakes and funerals when needed and also Sunday celebrations not covered by the pastor.

Of the forty years Sister Cecelia has spent in Chile, she has been a “Distinguished Neighbor” in Coelemu for twenty-eight years. Besides all of the above she has an exceptional singing voice and brightens entertainments with both Hawaiian chants and Spanish songs.

In late 2015, Sister Cecelia returned to Hawaii to begin a new mission.

Sister Anita Smith, M.M. celebrated her 70^th Jubilee as a Maryknoll Sister on February 12th, 2017. She was born in Hartford, CT, Anita Smith earned a B.S. degree in Econ./Business Administration from St. Joseph’s College in West Hartford, CT, before entering Maryknoll in 1947. Sister Anita was assigned to Hawaii in 1950 and taught in Wailua and Punahou. She represented the Hawaii Region at the Maryknoll Sisters Chapter of Affairs in 1968.

After earning her M.A. in education administration from Fairfield University, CT, Sister Anita became principal of Maryknoll Elementary School in Honolulu for the next ten years.

Sister Anita then earned an M.A. degree in pastoral ministry from St. Joseph’s College in West Hartford. During her fieldwork, she taught a Confirmation class in a parish and worked in a friendship house in Hartford. Following graduation, she spent a year at Covenant House in New York City.

Returning to Hawaii, she did pastoral work in Kona, on the island of Hawaii, where her ministries varied from alternating chaplaincy with an ecumenical group of ministers to participating in a drug awareness program in the schools and Bible study classes.

In 1990, she served for three years in the office of congregational personnel and lay employees in Maryknoll, NY. Then then joined a community of semi-retired Maryknoll Sisters in Waterbury, CT, where she was employed at Catholic Family Service and later at Trust House, a learning center for the under-privileged in Hartford.

Sister Anita joined the Eastern U.S. Region in 2002 and lives in Marlborough, CT.

Sister Nancy Thomas, M.M. celebrated her 70^th Jubilee on February 12th, 2017.

Sister Nancy is a member of Women in Black, a protest movement that circles the globe, including many cities in the U.S., to be united with women who suffer the effects of war and violence. They hold protest demonstrations every week for one hour on one of the busiest streets of Gilroy, California where Sister Nancy joins them dressed in black a symbol of their mourning and protest. She is also a volunteer with Emergency Housing Consortium of Santa Clara Valley, serving in the Emergency Shelter in Gilroy. The homeless are housed in the National Guard Armory from November until March from 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., receive supper and breakfast, take showers, relax. She is a member of the task force for building a permanent Shelter, put on hold because of the economic crisis. Until recently Sister Nancy also worked with Community Solutions, advocating for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, accompanying the survivor to the hospital and courts. From June, 2005 to 2009, she served on the Maryknoll Sisters Western U.S. Regional Leadership Team. Assigned to the Maryknoll Sisters Western U.S. Region, she began as a CCD Coordinator and Director of Religious Education in 1981.

Born in Washington D.C., Sister Nancy entered Maryknoll in 1947 and was assigned to Hawaii in 1952 where she taught in elementary school and served as principal for two decades. She was named the Director of the Promotion Office for mission education and fund raising at Maryknoll, NY. Assigned to Bolivia in 1975, she worked in the Rural Pastoral Institute in Riberalta, Pando Vicariate. In Cristo Rey parish, Cochabamba, she continued pastoral work in a poor barrio.