Missioner for 65 years served as a psychiatrist on the Waianae Coast
Maryknoll Sister Irene E. Solzbacher, a medical doctor and psychiatrist who spent nearly four decades serving in Hawaii, mostly as a psychiatrist on the Waianae coast in the 1980s and 1990s, died Nov. 29 at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Maryknoll, New York. She was 84 and a Maryknoll Sister for 65 years.
Sister Irene was born on June 21, 1934, in Luxemberg City, Luxemberg, to Regina (Reiff) Solzbacher and William A. Solzbacher. Her three sisters, Josephine, Regina and Eve, are still living.
In 1952, Sister Irene graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, and attended Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York, from 1952 to 1953. She entered the Maryknoll novitiate at Maryknoll, New York, on Sept. 2, 1953, from St. Barnabas Parish in Yonkers, New York.
She made her first profession of vows on March 7, 1956, at the Maryknoll Sisters Center and her final profession in Honolulu on March 7, 1962.
Sister Irene studied at Maryknoll Teachers College from 1958 to 1961, earning a bachelor of education degree. Then assigned to Hawaii, she continued her education, receiving a master’s of education in physical science at the University of Hawaii in 1965 while teaching math, science and religion at the Maryknoll High School until 1970.
She pursued medical studies at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine and earned a doctor of medicine degree in 1975.
From 1975 to 1978, Sister Irene served in a psychiatric residency at the University of Hawaii. She was then assigned to Waianae Mental Health Clinic as a psychiatrist and also served as director of Kahumana Counseling Center in Maili, Oahu, from 1979 to 2000.
Sister Irene then returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center in New York and served as a volunteer and medical companion in the out-patient clinic from 2001 until 2014 when she retired.
Sister Irene donated her body to science.
Her memorial Mass was celebrated on Dec. 6 in the Chapel of the Annunciation at Maryknoll, New York.
