Anna Maria Dengel

Anna Maria Dengel (March 16, 1892-April 17, 1980) was an Austrian physician and nun.

Biography

Early life and education

Anna Maria Dengel was born March 16, 1892 in Steeg, Austria to parents Edmund Wilhelm Dengel and Maria Gertrud (Scheidle) Dengel. Anna had four brothers and sisters, and four half-brothers and sisters. After her mother died when Anna was nine, Anna began attending Visitation Convent School in Hall in Tirol. After completing her schooling there, she was asked to teach German in Lyons, France. She accepted the offer and taught there for two years before returning home to Austria.

Career

When Anna Dengel was in her mid-20s and heard that a Scottish doctor, Agnes McLaren, was looking for women doctors for a hospital in Rawalpindi, India, she was overjoyed. She immediately wrote of her interest to Dr. McLaren and a lively correspondence began. Dr. McLaren was already in her mid-60s at this time and died before she and Anna could meet, but Anna followed the course of preparation for her mission in India, which she and Dr. McLaren had set. Dengel took Dr. McLaren’s advice to attend medical school at University College in Cork, Ireland. In 1919 after graduating, she went to England for a nine-month internship. The following year she left for Rawalpindi to continue the work that Dr. McLaren had begun.

For four very difficult years, Dr. Anna Dengel struggled to make an impact on the health care of the women and children in northern India. She became convinced that many more professionally trained and spiritually dedicated women were needed in order to effect real healing among the people. So, she set out for America to seek help.

Foundation of the Medical Mission Sisters

After months of traveling and meetings to make the needs of India known, including discussions with Reverend Michael A. Mathis, Congregation of Holy Cross, and other priests, bishops, and cardinals about how best to meet these needs, Anna Dengel came to the conclusion that she needed to create her own Community dedicated to the cause. She drew up a Constitution for the Community she had in mind and wrote that the members were “to live for God…to dedicate themselves to the service of the sick for the love of God and …to be properly trained according to the knowledge and standards of the time in order to practice medicine in its fill scope, to which the Sisters were to dedicate their lives.”

Permission was granted on June 12, 1925, to begin the new Community and on September 30, 1925, the “First Four”--Dr. Anna Dengel of Austria, Dr. Johanna Lyons of Chicago, Evelyn Flieger, R.N., originally of Britain and Marie Ulbrich, R.N., of Luxemburg, Iowa--came together in Washington, D.C., to begin the Medical Mission Sisters.

The “First Four” were unable to officially profess their Vows because the Catholic Church had yet to approve Sisters working in the medical field, yet they lived as professed Sisters just the same. Finally, in 1935, after the Medical Mission Sisters had grown, the Catholic Church approved Sisters’ working in medicine and all of its branches. Medical Mission Sisters then made their public Canonical Vows.

Death and afterward

Anna Dengel died in Rome, Italy, on April 17, 1980, and a Mass of Resurrection was celebrated for her at Campo Santo in Vatican City on April 21, 1980. Her body was buried in the Teutonical, the Cemetery of the Teutons and the Flemish, in the churchyard in Vatican City.

References

*Citation |contribution=Dengel, Anna Maria |year=2000 |title=The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century |editor-last=Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey and Joy Dorothy Harven |pages=346-347 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=0415920396