Maryknoll Sister Antonetta Wilgenbusch, teacher to the deaf, beloved domestic and pastoral worker in Hawaii for 30 years and a teacher in Indiana, died on June 29, at Maryknoll, N.Y. She was 101 years old and had been a Maryknoll Sister for 78 years.
Hawaii was Sister Antonetta’s first mission assignment. She arrived in 1940, a year before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
In the Islands for three decades, Sister Antonetta served as a domestic and pastoral worker in St. Anthony Parish in Kalihi and St Augustine Parish in Waikiki. She also worked at Bishop James Sweeney’s residence at Diamond Head.
Certificated in American sign language, she also taught at The Diamond Head School for the Deaf.
Sister Antonetta was born, one of four children of Bernard and Anna Hagedorn Wilgenbusch, in New Alsace, Ind., on Jan. 20, 1912, the same year the Maryknoll Sisters were founded. She entered the Maryknoll Sisters on June 10, 1935, at the Motherhouse in Ossining, N.Y.
After her first profession of vows at the Motherhouse on Jan. 6, 1938, Sister Antonetta served in various offices there and in the kitchen of the Maryknoll Seminary. She made her final vows in Hawaii on Jan. 6, 1941.
Family need brought Sister Antonetta back to the Mainland, where she helped run the family farm in the early 1970s and also earned a bachelor’s degree in education in 1973.
During her family ministry and subsequent assignment to the Eastern U.S. region, Sister Antonetta taught third grade at St. Mary School in Aurora, Ind., beginning in 1973. She then taught fifth- and sixth-grade science and social studies at St. Paul School in New Alsace while semi-retired.
Sister Antonella loved being part of the small-town community during her parish service, when her ministry included attending all school and church activities.
“It’s great to be in a parish,” Sister Antonetta once said. “We celebrate birthdays and have bingo and cards once a month.”
For Sister Antonetta’s 60th jubilee as a Maryknoll Sister in 1995, one of her fellow sisters in the Eastern Region wrote a poem about her:
Sixty years at Maryknoll,
Indeed a Community treasure.
Spreading joy everywhere she goes,
Blessing beyond all measure.
On Nov. 1, 2009, Sister Antonetta was assigned to the Eden Community at Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining where her mission was a prayer ministry.
Sister Antonetta’s funeral was July 9 at the Maryknoll Sisters Center. She is buried in the Maryknoll Sisters cemetery.
